\ymm iiiniiiiiiiii 13 3 U QJortiell intoetattH Slibrarg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 ■' f*">^r 77a'3 tP' CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 088 424 357 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS PAGE The Snow Storm (p. 65) Frontispiece The Game op Skittles 6 A Don Cossack 110 Peasant Children 192 At the Door op the School 229 Vol. 2. The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088424357 MEETING A MOSCOW AC- QUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT From Prince Nekhlyudov's Memoirs of the Caucasus i8<6 MEETING A MOSCOW AC- QUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT From Prince Nekhlyudov's Memoirs of the Caucasus We were stationed at the front. We were having our last engagements ; the road through the forest was nearly finished, and we awaited from day to day the order from the staff to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the side of a mountain range which ended in the swift torrent M^chik, and was to keep up a fire on the plain stretching out before us. On this pic- turesque plain, beyond the range of our guns, here and there occasionally appeared, especially toward evening, harmless groups of mountaineers on horseback, curious to look at the Eussian encampment. It was a clear, quiet, and fresh evening, like nearly all the December evenings in the Caucasus. The sun was setting behind the steep spur of the mountains on the left, and cast its rose-coloured beams on the tents which were scattered on the mountain, on the moving groups of the soldiers, and on our two guns which stood heavily and immovably, as though stretching out their necks, within two steps of us on an earth battery. 3 4 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT The picket of cavalry, stationed on a mound toward the left, was clearly outlined against the transparent light of the sunset, with its stacked arms, with the figure of the sentry, the group of soldiers, and the smoke of the camp-fire. On the right and left, half-way up the moun- tain, on the hlack, well-trodden earth, gleamed the white tents, and beyond the tents were the black, bare trunks of the plane-forest, where constantly resounded the axes, crackled the fires, and with a crash fell the trees that were' cut down. On all sides a bluish smoke rose in columns toward the dark blue, frosty sky. Past the tents and in the meadows along the brook were heard the tramping and snorting of the horses which the Cossacks, dragoons, and artillerists had taken to water. Crowds of the enemy, no longer exciting the curiosity of the soldiers, leisurely moved through the bright yellow maize-fields, and here and there, back of the trees, could be seen the high posts of the cemeteries and the smoking native villages. Our tent stood not far from the orduance, on a high and dry place, from which was had an unusually broad view. Near the tent, and close to the battery, we had a place cleaned up for the game of skittles. The obliging soldiers had also made for us wicker benches and a small table. On account of all these conveniences, our com- rades, the artillery officers, and a few of the infantry, were fond of gathering in the evening near our battery, calhng it the club. It was a glorious evening. The best players were present, and we played skittles. Ensign I) , Lieu- tenant , and I had lost two games in succession, and, to the universal delight and laughter of the spec- tators, — officers, soldiers, and orderlies, — who were look- ing at us from their tents, twice carried on our backs the winning party from one end to the other. Most amusing was the position of immense and fat Staff-Cap- A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FBONT 5 tain Sh , who, puffing and smiling good-naturedly, with his feet dragging on the ground, rode on the back of short and sickly Lieutenant . It grew late, and the orderlies brought us three glasses of tea for the six men present, and we, having finished the game, went up to the wicker benches. Near them stood a strange man of low stature, with crooked legs, wearing an uncovered fur coat and a lambskin cap with long, white, straight fur. The moment we came up close to him he several times took off and put on again his cap, and seemed to make several attempts at approaching us, and then stopped again. Having apparently decided that he could not remain unnoticed much longer, this stranger doffed his cap and, making a circle around us, walked over to Staff- Captain Sh .• " Ah, Guskantini ! Well, my friend ? " Sh said to liim, still smiliiig good-naturedly under the influence of the ride. Guskantini, as Sh had called him, at once put on his cap and acted as though he put his hands in the pockets of his short fur coat ; but on the side which was nearest to me there was no pocket in his coat, and his small red hand was left in an awkward position. I wanted to determine who this man was, whether a yunker or a reduced officer, and, without noticing that my look, being that of a stranger to him, disconcerted him, gazed fixedly at his dress and his exterior. He seemed to be about thirty years old. His small, gray, round eyes peeped sleepily and, at the same time, restlessly from underneath the dirty white fur of his cap, which hung down over his face. His thick, irregular nose, between sunken cheeks, accentuated a sickly, unnatural leanness. His lips, hardly covered by a soft, scanty, whitish mous- tache, were in a constantly restless condition, as though trying to assume now this, now that, expression. But all 6 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT these expressions were peculiarly unfinished : upon his face there constantly remained one prevailing expression of affright and haste. His lean, venous neck was wrapped in a green woollen scarf, which was concealed under his fur coat. His fur coat was worn, short, with a dogskin collar and false pockets. His trousers were checkered and of an ash-gray hue, and his boots had short, unblacked soldier boot-legs. " Please do not trouble yourself," I said to him, when, looking timidly at me, he again doffed his cap. He bowed to me with an expression of gratitude, put on his cap, and, fetching from his pocket a dirty chintz pouch with a cord, began to roll a cigarette for himself. I had but lately been a yunker, an old yunker, in- capable of still being good-naturedly obHguig to my younger comrades, and a yunker without means ; there- fore, knowing well the whole moral burden of this situa- tion for a grown-up and egotistical man, I sympathized with all the men who were in this situation, and tried to explain to myseK the character, degree, and direction of their mental capacity, in order to judge from those considerations the degree of their moral suffering. This yunker, or reduced officer, by his restless look and by the intentional and constant change of expression, which I had noticed in him, appeared to me to be a very clever and extremely egotistical, and, therefore, a very pitiable, man. Staff-Captain Sh proposed to us to play another game of skittles, the penalty for the losing party to be, in addition to the ride on the back, several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves for mulled wine, which during this winter, on account of the frost, was very popular in our detachment. Guskantini, as Sh again called him, was also iuvited to take part in the game ; but, before beginning to play, he, obviously struggling between the pleasure which this invitation afforded him A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 7 and a certain terror, took Staff-Captain Sh aside and began to say something to him in a whisper. The good- natured staff-captain struck him in the abdomen with the large, puffy palm of his hand and cried out in a loud voice : " Never mind, my friend, I will trust you." The game was ended and won by the party to which the low-ranked stranger belonged ; when it was his tun to ride on the back of one of our officers, Ensign D , the ensign blushed, walked over to the benches, and offered the low-ranked man cigarettes as a ransom. We ordered the mulled wine; while in the orderlies' tent could be heard the busy preparations of Nikita and his orders that a messenger fetch cinnamon and clove, and while his back stretched in places the dirty flaps of the tent, we seven men seated ourselves near the benches and, alter- nately drinking tea from the three glasses and looking before us at the plain which was being merged in dark- ness, conversed and laughed about the various circum- stances of the game. The stranger in the short fur coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused the tea which I offered him several times, and, squatting in Tartar fashion on the ground, kept rolling cigarettes of crushed tobacco and smoking them, obviously not so much for his pleasure as in order to give himself the aspect of a man having some occupation. When somebody mentioned that we expected to retreat on the following day, and that, very likely, there would be some engagements, he raised himself on his knees and, turning directly to Staff- Captain Sh , remarked that he had just come from the adjutant's house, and that he himself had written out the order for the start on the following day. We were all silent while he spoke, and, in spite of Ms apparent timidity, he was asked to repeat this extremely interesting piece of news. He repeated what he had said, addi,ng, however, that be bad been sitting at the 8 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTAIiTCE AT THE FEONT adjutant's, with whom he lived, when the order was brought. " You are sure you are not fibbing, my friend ! If not, I must go to my company and give a few orders for to-morrow," said Staff-Captain Sh . " No — why should I ? How could I — I certainly — " muttered the low-ranked stranger, suddenly growing silent. He evidently decided to feel offended, wrinkled his brow in an unnatural manner, and, mumbling some- thing, again began to roll cigarettes. The crushed tobacco which he poured out of the chintz pouch did not suffice, and so he asked Sh to loan him a little cigarette. We for a long time continued the same monotonous military prattle, which everybody who has been on expeditions knows ; we used the same expressions in complaining about the dulness and duration of the expedition; in precisely the same manner reflected on the authorities ; ia just the same way, as often before, praised one companion and pitied another; wondered how much this one had won or that one lost, and so on. "Well, my friends, our adjutant is having an awful streak of luck," said Staff-Captain Sh . " He has been winning all the time at the staff. No matter with whom he used to sit down, he always cleaned them out, but he has been losing these two months. Our present detach- ment is not doiag him any good. I think he must have let slip some two thousand roubles, and he is minus five hundred roubles' worth of things : the rug which he had won of Miikhin, the Nikitin pistols, and Sada's gold watch which Vorontsov had made him a present of." " Serves him right," said Lieutenant , " for he has been doing us so badly that it became impossible to play with him." " He has been doing everybody, but now he has gone up the flue himself," said the staff-captain, with a good- A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 9 natured laugh. " Guskov lives with him, and the adju- tant has almost gambled him away, too. Is it not so, Guskov?" He turned to Guskov. Guskov laughed. It was a pitiable, sickly smile, which entirely changed the expression of his face. ' This change of expression made me think that I had met the man before ; besides, his name, Guskov, seemed famihar to me; but I was absolutely unable to recall when and where I had met him. " Yes," said Guskov, raising his hands to his moustache and dropping them again, without having touched it, "Pavel Dmitrievich has had no luck during this expe- dition, — a kind of a veine de malheur," he added, with a laboured but pure French pronunciation, whereat I again thought that I had met him somewhere, and had met him often. "I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, and he confides everything to me," he continued. "We are old acquaintances, that is, he likes me," he added, apparently becoming frightened at his too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant's. " Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently ; but what has hap- pened to him is truly remarkable ; he is almost ruined, — la chance a tourne," he added, turning more particularly to me. At first we were listening to Guskov with condescend- ing attention, but the moment he used that French phrase we all involuntarily turned away from him. " I have played with him a hundred times, and you will admit that it is strange," said Lieutenant , with a pecuUar accent upon this word, " remarkably strange, I have never won as much as a dime from him. Why is it I can win from others ? " " Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, — I have known him for a long time," I said. I had really known the adjutant for several years, had seen him frequently play- ing what, according to the mepns of the officers, might be 10 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT called a big game, and had admired his handsome, slightly melancholy, and always imperturbed and calm counte- nance, his hesitating Little-Russian pronunciation, his beau- tiful things and horses, his leisurely Little-Eussian dash, and, especially, his ability to lead a game in a reserved, precise, and agreeable manner. 1 must confess that more than once, as I looked at his full white hands, with a dia- mond ring on one forefinger, beating my cards one after another, I was furious at this ring, at the white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and evil thoughts in regard to him came to me ; but, upon reflecting later more calmly, I convinced myself that he was simply more clever at cards than any of those men with whom he happened to play. This became the more apparent when I listened to his general reflections on the game, how one must not back out, having raised the small stakes, how one must pass under certain conditions, how it was the first rule to play for cash, and so forth : in short, it was clear that he was always winning because he was more intelligent and calm than any of us.' Now it turned out that this calm and collected gambler had been cleaned out at the front, not only of his money, but even of his things, which for an officer means the last stage of losing. " He always has devilish luck with me," continued Lieutenant . "I have sworn I would never play with him again." " What a queer chap you are, my friend ! " said Sh , winking at me with a motion of his whole head and addressing . " You must have lost about three hundred roubles to him, I know you have ! " " More," angrily said the lieutenant. " And it is only now that you see through it ! Eather late, my friend. Everybody knows that he is our regi- mental cheat," said Sh , with difiiculty repressing his laugh and well satisfied with his remark. " We have here Giiskov with us: it is he who fixes the cards for him. A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 11 That's why they are such great friends, my dear — " and the staff-captain burst out into such a good-natured laugh, shaking with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand. On Giiskov's yellow, lean face there appeared something re- sembling colour; he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his moustache, and again dropped them down to the place where the pockets ought to have been, got up, and sat down again, and finally said to Sh , in a changed voice : " This is not a joke, NikoMy Ivanovich. You say such things, and that, too, in presence of people who do not know me, and who see me in an uncovered fur coat — because — " His voice gave way, and again his small, red hands with dirty nails wandered from his coat to his face, now smoothing his moustache, his hair, his nose, now rubbing his eyes, or scratching his cheek without cause. " What is the use ? Everybody knows it, my friend," continued Sh , sincerely satisfied with his jest and not noticing Guskov's agitation at all. Guskov muttered something else, and, leaning in a most unnatural manner the elbow of his right arm on the knee of his left leg, he looked at Sh , and tried to appear as though smihng contemptuously. " Eeally," I concluded, as I noticed that smile, " I have not only seen him somewhere, but I have also spoken with him." " We have met somewhere," I said to him, when, under the influence of a general silence, Sh 's laughter began to subside. Guskov's changeable countenance suddenly brightened, and his eyes for the first time fell upon me with a genuiaely happy expression. "Certainly. I recognized you at once," he said in French. "In 1848,1 had several times the pleasure oi seeing you at the house of my sister, Madame Ivashin." I excused myseK ^or not having recognized Mm at once L'A A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT in this new and strange costume. He got up, walked over to me, with his moist hand timidly and feebly pressed mine, and sat down by my side. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be glad to see, he cast a glance of disagreeable boasting at the officers. Either because I had recognized in him a man whom several years before I had seen in evening dress in a drawing-room, or because at this recognition he had suddenly risen in his ovm opin- ion, his face and even movements seemed to me to have completely changed : they now expressed a wide-awake mind, a childish self-satisfaction from the consciousness of possessing such a mind, and a certain contemptuous care- lessness. I must confess that, in spite of the pitiable con- dition he was in, my old acquaintance no longer inspired me with compassion for him, but with a somewhat hostile feeling. I vividly recalled our first meeting. In the year '48, 1, during my stay at Moscow, used to call frequently at the house of Iv^shin, with' whom I had grown up and re- mained in friendly relations. His wife was a pleasant hostess, what is called a charming woman, but I had no liking for her — During the winter when I knew her she frequently spoke, with ill-disguised pride, of her brother, who had lately graduated from the university, and who, in her opinion, was one of the most cultivated and popular young men in the best St. Petersburg society. Knowing by reputation the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a prominent position, and being acquainted with his sister's mental attitude, I met young Guskov with an unfavourable bias. Having once arrived at Ivashin's house, I there found a small, very pleasant young man, in an evening dress, with white waistcoat and tie, with whom the host forgot to make me acquainted. The young man, obviously on the point of going to a ball, was standing with his hat in his hand before Ivdshin, and warmly but politely arguing with him A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 13 about a common acquaintance of ours, who at that time had distinguished himself in the Hungarian campaign. I remembered his saying that that acquaintance of ours was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only a cultured and clever man. I remem- bered having taken part in the discussion against Gtiskov, and of having been carried away to extremes, proving even that intelligence and culture were always in inverse rela- tion to bravery ; I remembered Grilskov having proved to me in a pleasant and clever manner that bravery was the necessary result of cleverness and of a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself a clever and cultivated gentleman, could not help agreeing se- cretly. I remembered that at the end of our dispute Madame Iv&hin introduced her brother to me, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, upon which he had not yet entirely drawn his kid glove, and softly and timidly, even as now, pressed my hand. Although I was biassed against him, I could not help doing Guskov justice, and agreeing with his sister that he really was a clever and agreeable young man, who ought to have success in society. He was extremely neat and elegantly dressed ; his manner was self-confident, and yet modest ; he looked exceedingly youthful, almost childish, so that one felt like forgiving him his expression of self- satisfaction and his desire to temper before you the degree of his superiority, with which his intelligent face, and especially his smile, seemed always to impress you. There was a rumour that during that winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could judge only by the expression of happiness and contentment, which his youthful exterior bore all the time, and by his, at times, immodest stories, to what extent this was true. We met about six times and spoke a great deal together, or, to be more exact, he spoke and, I listened. He generally expressed himself in French, 14 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT which he spoke correctly and ornately, and he knew how to interrupt others in a soft and polite manner. He usually treated others, and me too, with condescension, and I, as is always the case with me in regard to people who are firmly convinced that I must be treated with condescension and whom 1 do not know well, — I felt that he was quite right in this respect. Now, as he seated himself near me and gave me his hand, I vividly recalled his former haughty expressionj and it seemed to me that he did not quite fairly take advantage of his low-rank position when he carelessly asked me what I had been doing heretofore and how I got here. Notwithstanding the fact that I always an- swered him in Russian, he kept speaking French, although he no longer expressed himself as freely in this language as formerly. In passing, he told me of himself, that after his unfortunate, stupid affair (what this affair consisted in I did not know, and he did not tell me), he had passed three months in confinement, after which he was sent to the Caucasus to the N — — ^ regiment, where he had now been a common soldier for three years. " You will not believe me," he said to me in French, " how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the society of the officers ! It was a piece of good luck for me to have been acquainted before with the adjutant, of whom we have just been speaking: he is a good man, really he is," he remarked, condescendingly. " I am living with him, and that is some little rehef to me. Oui, mon cher, les Jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas," he added. He suddenly hesitated, blushed, and arose from his place, when he noticed that the very adjutant of whom we had been speaking was coming in our direction. " What a joy to meet such a man as you are ! " Guskov said to me in a whisper, going- away. " I should like to have a long, long talk with you." I told hiia that I should be glad to see him, but, iti A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE ERONT 15 reality, I must confess, Giiskov inspired me with an oppressive, by no means sympathetic, compassion for him. I foresaw that without witnesses I should feel awk- ward with him. But I was anxious to find out many things, especially why, since his father was so rich, he was poor, as could be seen from his attire and his manner. The adjutant exchanged greetings with all of us, excep- ting Giiskov, and sat down at my side, where the reduced soldier had been sitting. Pavel Dmitrievich, who, as a gamester and as a man of business, had always been char- acterized by calmness and cautiousness, now seemed to be an entirely different man from what I knew him to be during the flourishing days of his playing : he seemed to be in haste to get away somewhere, continually eyed everybody, and, before five minutes had passed, he, who otherwise generally declined to play, now proposed to Lieutenant to start a game at cards. Lieutenant declined under the pretext of mihtary duties, but in reality because he knew how few things and how little money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, and because! be con- sidered it ill advised to risk his three hundred roubles against one hundred, or even less, which he could at best win. " Well, Pavel Dmitrievich," said the lieutenant, appar- ently wishing to avoid a repetition of the invitation, " is it true what they say, that we are to march back to-mor- row?" "I do not know," remarked Pavel Dmitrievich, "but there is an order to get ready. Really, we had better play a game ! I will stake my Kabarda charger." " No, not to-day — " " I'll let the gray one go, or, if you prefer, we may play for money. Well ? " "I should not mind, really," said Lieutenant , replying to his own doubt ; " but there may be an incur- 16 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT sion or movement to-morrow, and I must have my sleep to-night." The adjutant arose and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk up and ■ down the open space. His countenance assumed its habitual expression of cold- ness and of a certain pride, which I liked so much in him. " Don't you want a glass of muUed wine ? " I said to him. " I'll take one," he said, moving up toward me ; but Giiskov hurriedly took the glass out of my hand and car- ried it up to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not seeing the rope which stretched the tent, Giiskov was tripped, up by it, so that he fell down on his hands, dropping the glass. " How awkward ! " said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to receive the glass. Everybody laughed loud, not excepting Guskov, who was rubbing his lean knee with his hand, although he could not possibly have hurt it ia the fall. "That is the way the bear has served the hermit," con- tinued the adjutant. " That is the way he has been serving me every day : he has pulled all the stakes out of the tents, — he is getting tripped up all the time." Guskov, without listening to him, excused himself to us and glanced at me with a barely perceptible sad smile, by which he seemed to say that I was the only one who could understand him. He was pitiable, but the adjutant, his patron, appeared for some reason to be angry with his cohabitant and did not give him any rest. " What an agile lad ! " "Who could help being tripped up by these stakes, Pavel Dmitrievich ? " said Guskov. " You, yourself, stumbled the other day." " I, sir, am not a low-rank man. No agility is expected of me," A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 17 " He may drag his legs along/' interposed Staff-Captain Sh , " but a low-rank man must jump — " " Strange jests," said Guskov, almost in a whisper and lowering his eyes. The adjutant was evidently not in- different to his tent-mate, for he eagerly listened to every word of his. " We shall have to send him again to the ambush," he said, turning to Sh and winking as he looked in the direction of the reduced soldier. " There will be tears again," said Sh , laughing. Guskov was no longer looking at me, but pretended to be taking tobacco out of the pouch in which there had not been anything for quite awhile. " Get ready to go to the ambush, my friend," Sh ■ said, amidst laughter. " The spies have reported that there will be an attack upon the camp at night, so we shall have to appoint reliable lads." Guskov smiled with indecision, as though getting ready to say something, and several times raised an imploring glance to Sh . " Well, I have been there before, and wUl go again, if I am sent," he lisped. " You wUl be." " And I will go. What of it ? " "If you don't run away from the ambush, as upon Argiin, and throw away your gun," said the adjutant. Turning away from him, he began to tell us what the orders for the next day were. For the night an attack was actually expected from the enemy, and on the morrow there was to be some move- ment. Having chatted about various general subjects, the adjutant, as though by accident, proposed to Lieuten- ant to have a small deal. Lieutenant quite unexpectedly consented, and they went, together with Sh and the ensign, to the tent of the adjutant, who there had a green folding table and cards. The captain, 18 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT the commander of our division, went to his tent to sleep, the other gentlemen also departed, and I was left alone with Giiskov. I was not mistaken : I really felt ill at ease when there was no one present with us. I involun- tarily got up and began to walk up and down along the battery. Guskov walked silently at my side, turning hastily and restlessly around, so as not to fall behind or get ahead of me. " I do not bother you ? " he asked, in a meek and melancholy voice. So far as I could make out his face in the dark, it seemed to me to be lost in thought and sad. "Not in the least," I answered; but as he did not begin to talk, and I did not know what to tell him, we continued walking in silence for quite awhile. The twilight had entirely given way to the darkness of the night ; the bright evening star stood out above the black profile of the mountains ; small stars glittered above our heads, on the light blue frosty sky ; on all sides could be seen the red flames of the smoking camp-fires in the dark ; nearer to us could be made out the gray contours of the tents and the murky rampart of our battery. Lighted up by the nearest fire, at which our orderlies were warming themselves, conversing in soft voices, the brass of our heavy ordnance gleamed on the battery, and the figure of the sentry, with his coat thrown over his shoulders, appeared moving evenly up and down the rampart. " You can't imagine what a joy it is for me to speak with such a man as you are," Guskov remarked, although he had not yet said a thing to me, " Only he who has been in my situtation can understand that." I did not know what reply to make to him, and we again were silent, although he apparently was anxious to unburden his heart, and I wished to hear him talk. " Why were you — why did you suffer ? " I asked him A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 19 at last, not being able to discover anything better witli which to start the conversation. "Have you not heard of that unfortunate affair with Met^nin ? " " Yes, a duel, I think. I barely heard of it," I answered. " You know I have been so long in the Caucasus." " No, not the duel, but that stupid affair ! I will tell you the whole thing, if you do not know it. It happened the same year that we met at my sister's, when I was living at St. Petersburg. I must tell you that I then had what is called une position dans le monde, and it was an advantageous, if not a brilliant, one. Mon plre me donnaii 10,000 par an. In the year '49 I was promised a place with the embassy at Turin, for my uncle on my mother's side was always able and ready to do all he could for me. It is now a thing of the past. JStais refio dans la meilleure societe de Petersbourg ; je pouvais pretendre to one of the best matches. I had studied as we all study at school, so that I had no special education ; it is true, I read a great deal later, mais favais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde, and, however it may be, I was for some reason counted among one of the first young men of St. Petersburg. What raised me more than anything in the opinion of society, c'est cette liaison avec Madame D , which was the cause of much talk in St. Petersburg, but I was dreadfully young at the time and did not value all these advantages. I was simply young and foolish. What more did I need ? During that time this Met&in had a reputation in St. Petersburg — " Giiskov con- tinued in this strain to tell me the history of his mis- fortune, which, being entirely uninteresting, I shall omit here. "Two months I was locked up," he continued, "in solitary confinement, and I thought a great deal during that time. But, do you know, when everything was ended, as though the connection with the past were definitely 'M A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT broken, I began to feel easier. Mo7i pire vous en avez entendu parler no doubt, he is a man with an iron char- acter and firm convictions, il m'a desherite and has severed all relations with me. According to his convictions, that was what he had to do, and I do not blame him in the least: il a ete consequent. But, again, I did not take a step which would lead him to change his determination. My sister was abroad. Madame D was the only one to write to me, when I was permitted to receive letters, and she offered me her services, but I declined them, so that I was left without those trifles which, you know, make things easier for one in such a situation : I had no books, no linen, no food, nothing ! I thought over so much during that time, and came to look at everything with different eyes : thus, that noise and those talks about me in St. Petersburg did not interest me, nor flatter me in the least, — it all seemed so ridiculous to me. I felt that I myself was to blame, that I had been careless and young ; that I had spoiled my career, and I thought only of how to mend it again. I felt that I had the strength and energy to do that. As I told you, from my confine- ment I was sent directly to the Caucasus, to the N • regiment. "I thought," he continued, becoming ever more ani- mated, " that here, in the Caucasus, la vie de camp, the simple and honest people with whom I should be in touch, war, perils, — that all that would be exactly in keep- ing with my mood, and that I should begin a new life. On me verra au feu, — they will take a liking to me, and will respect me not merely for my name, — a cross, under-offioer, penalty removed, and I shall again return et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur ! Ho, quel desenohantement ! You can't imagine how disappointed I am ! — Do you know the society of officers of our regi- ment ? " He was silent for quite awhile, waiting for me, as I thought, to say that I knew how bad that society A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 21 was, but I gave him no reply. It annoyed me to think that, no doubt, because I knew French, he supposed that I ought to be up in arms against the society of the officers, whereas I, having passed a long time in the Caucasus, had come to recognize its worth, and to esteem it a thousand times more than the society from which Giiskov came. I wanted to tell him so, but his position held me back. " In the N regiment the society of officers is a thou- sand times worse than here," he continued. " J'espire que c'est heaucoup dire, that is, you can't imagine what it is ! Let alone the yunkers and soldiers, it is simply dreadful ! It is true, at first I was well received ; but later, when they saw that I could not help despising them, you know, in those imperceptible, petty relations, when they saw that I was an entirely different man, who stood incomparably higher than they, they became enraged at me, and began to repay me with petty humiliations. Ce que j'ai eu k souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas ime idee. Then those in- voluntary relations with the yunkers, and chiefly, avec les petits moyens que favais, je manquais de tout, — I had only what my sister sent me. The proof of what I have suffered is that I, with my character, avec ma fierte, j'ai ecris d, mon pire, I implored him to send me anything he felt like sending. " I can easily see how living five years of such a life one may become like our reduced soldier Dr6mov, who drinks with the soldiers and keeps writing notes to all the officers, asking a loan of three roubles, and signing himself tout h vous Drdmov. It was necessary to have my character in order not to sink in this terrible situation." He for a long time walked in silence at my side. " Avez-vous un papiros f " he said to me. " Yes, where did I stop ? Yes. I could not stand it, — I do not mean physically, because, though I suffered cold and hunger, I lived like a soldier, and the officers showed a certain 22 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT respect for me. I still had a certain prestige in their eyes. They did not send me to do sentry duty, or to the exer- cises. I should not have endured it. But morally I suffered terribly. The worst was I could not see any issue from this situation. I wrote to my uncle, begging him to get me transferred to this regiment, which, at least, goes into actions; besides, I thought I should here find P^vel Dmitrievich, qui est le fits de Vintendant de mon pire, — and he might be useful to me. My uncle did it for me, and I was transferred. After that other regi- ment, this one appeared to me like a gathering of gentle- men of the bedchamber. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, and so they knew who I was and received me well. ' At the request of his uncle — Giiskov, vous savez — ' but I noticed that with these people, who have no education nor mental development, — they cannot respect a man and show him signs of respect if he lacks the aureole of wealth and distinction ; I noticed that by degrees, when they saw that I was poor, their relations to me became ever more careless, until, at last, they grew to be almost contemptuous. It is terrible ! But it is the whole truth. " I have here been in actions, have fought, on m'a vu au feu," he continued, "but when will it all end? I think never ! My strength and energy are beginning to be exhausted. Then, I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, but I see that it is entirely different : in short fur coats, unwashed, in soldier boots, — you go to some ambush and lie a whole night in a ravine with some Antdnov who has been put in the army for drunkenness, and almost any minute either you or Antdnov, it matters not who, may be shot from behind a bush. There is no question of bravery here, — it is terrible. C'est affreux, ga tue." "Well, you may now be promoted to be under-ofBcer for the expedition, and next year you may be ensign," said I. A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT TttE FSONT 23 " Yes, I may, so I have been promised ; but there are two years left yet, and then, I doubt it. If only one knew what it means to be here two years longer. Just imagine this life with Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, coarse jests, carousals ; you wish to say something which has been fer- menting iu your soul, and you are not understood, or they even laugh at you ; you are spoken to, not in order to have an idea imparted to you, but, if possible, to be made a fool of. Everythiag is so base, coarse, and loathsome, and you are always made to feel that you are of low rank. It is for this reason that you will not be able to appreciate what a delight it is for me to talk ct cmur ouvert with such a man as you are." I did not quite understand what kind of a man he sup- posed me to be, and so I did not know what to answer. " Will you have a lunch ? " I was just then addressed by Nikita, who had invisibly come up to me in the dark, and who, apparently, was dissatisfied with the presence of a stranger. " All there is left is cheese dumplings and a little chopped meat." " Has the captain had his lunch ? " " He has been asleep for quite awhile," Nikita answered, grufBy. To my order to bring us the lunch and some brandy, he involuntarily muttered something and started back for his tent. He grumbled there for awhile, but finally brought us the lunch-basket; he placed a candle on top of the basket, having first wrapped a paper around it to protect it from the wind, then a small saucepan, mus- tard in a small bottle, a tin wine-cup with a handle, and a bottle with absinthe. Having fixed all this, Nikita stood for a few moments near us, watching Giiskov and me drinking brandy, which obviously was very disagreeable to him. In the dim light of the candle, shining through the paper and the surrounding darkness, couid be seen only the sea-calf skin of the lunch-basket, the supper which stood upon it, and the face and fur coat of Giiskov, 24 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FEONT and his small red hands, with which he was busy getting the dumplings out of the saucepan. All around us it was black, and only by looking closely was it possible to dis- cern the black battery, the black figure of the sentry appearing through the breastwork, and on both sides of us the flames of the camp-fires, and above us the reddish stars. Guskov barely smiled sadly and shamefacedly, as though it made him feel uneasy to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of brandy, and ate with zest, scraping out the pan. " Still your acquaintance with the adjutant," I said, in order to say something, " must be a rehef to you. I have heard that he is a very good man." " Yes," replied Guskov, " he is a good man, but he can- not be what he is not, — he cannot be a man, and with his education it cannot be expected he should." He sud- denly "seemed to be blushing. "Have you noticed this evening his coarse jokes about the ambush," and Guskov, in spite of my repeated attempt to change the subject, began to justify himself to me, and to prove that he did not run away from the ambush, and that he was not a coward, such as the adjutant and Sh wanted to make him out. "As I told you," he continued, wiping his hands on the fur coat, " such people cannot be considerate, with a common soldier who has little money ; that is above their strength. For the last five months, I have for some reason not been receiving anything from my sister, and I have noticed that they have changed to me since then. This short fur coat, which I bought from a soldier, and which doe not keep me warm because the fur is all worn off" (he pointed to the worn-off skirt of his fur coat), "does not impress him with respect or compassion for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is unable to conceal. No matter how great my need is, as for example A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 25 now, when I have nothing to eat hut the soldiers' mess, and nothing to wear," he continued, abashed, fiUing another glass of brandy for himself, " it does not occur to him to offer me a loan of money, when he is sure to get it back from me, but waits for me to ask him for it. And you can easily see how such relations with him must be irk- some. Now, to you I would say it straight off, vous etes au dessus de cela, mon cher, je n'ai pas le sou. And do you know," he said, suddenly casting a desperate glance at me, "I wiU tell you frankly I am now iu a terrible condition : pouvez-^ous me prUer dix roubles argent ? My sister ought to send me some by the next post, et mon plre — " " Ah, with the greatest pleasure," I said, when, in reality, I was pained and annoyed, especially since, haviag the day before lost at cards, I had only something like five roubles, which Nikita held for me. "Directly," I said, gettiug up, " I will go to the tent for it." " No, later, ne vous derangez pas." However, I paid no attention to his words, and crawled into the fastened tent, where my bed was standing and the captain was sleeping. "Aleksy^y Ivanych, let me have ten roubles, if you please, until pay-day," I said to the captain, shaking him. " What, again cleaned out ? And it was only yester- day that you said you would not play again," the captain muttered through his sleep. "No, I have not been playing; but I need it, and so let me have it ! " " Makatyuk ! " the captain called out to his orderly. " Bring me here the small safe with the money ! " " Softly, softly," I said, hearing Giiskov's measured steps outside the tent. "What? Why softly?" " The reduced man asked a loan of me. He is here." "If I had known that, I would not have given it to 26 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT you," remarked the captain. " I have heard about him, — ■ he is a perfectly worthless chap!" Still the captain handed me the money, gave his order to put the safe away securely and to close up the tent, and, again repeat- ing, " If I had known what it was for, I would not have givfen it to you," wrapped his head with the coverlet. " You owe me now thirty-two, remember that," he called out to me. When I came out of the tent, Guskov was walking near the benches, and his small figure, with the crooked legs and monstrous cap with the long white nap, now appeared and now again disappeared in the dark, as he passed by the candle. He acted as though he did not notice me. I handed him the money. He said " Merci," and crum- pling the money, put the bill iuto his trousers pocket. " Now, I suppose, the game is at full blast with Pavel Dmitrievich," he began soon after. " Yes, I thiak so." " He plays very strangely : always h rehours, and he never turns back ; as long as luck is with him, it is all right, but the moment it does not work, he is liable to lose terribly. He has proven this to be a fact. Duriug this expedition he has lost, if we count hi the things, not less than fifteen hundred roubles. He used to play so cautiously before ! And that officer of yours even doubted his honesty." "He was just talking — Nikita, haven't we any red wine left?" I said, very much relieved by Guskov's garrulity. Nikita again grumbled, but brought us some red wine, and again in anger watched Guskov emptying his glass. In Guskov's address his former ease of manner came back. I wanted him to go away as soon as possible, and I thought the reason he did not leave was that he felt ashamed to leave soon after having received the money from me, I was silent. A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 27 " How could you, a man of means, without being com- pelled to do so, have made up your mind de gaieU de cceur to go and serve in the Caucasus ? This is something I can't understand," he said to me. I tried to justify my action, which appeared so strange to him. "I surmise that this society of officers, men without any idea of culture, must be very annoying to you, too. You cannot understand each other. You may live ten years here without hearing or seeing anything but cards, wine, and talks about rewards and expeditions." I was unpleasantly affected by his desire that I should share his conviction, and I quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talks about expeditions, and that I did not wish to have any finer companions than those whom I now had. But he would not beheve me. " You are just saying so," he continued, " but the ab- sence of women, that is, I mean, femmes comme il faut — is that not a terrible deprivation ? I do not know wbat I should be willing to give now if I could but for one minute be transferred to a drawing-room or at least through a chink look at a charming woman." He was silent for a moment and gulped down another glass of red wine. "Ah, my God, my God! maybe we shall some day meet again in St. Petersburg, and be and live with people, with women." He drank the last wine that was left in the bottle, after which he said : " Ah, pardon, you wanted, perhaps, some of it, — I am so absent-minded. I am afraid I have drunk too much, et je n'ai jpas la Ute forte. There was a time, when I lived on the Morskaya Street, au rez-de-ohaussee, and I had charming quarters and had charming furniture : you know, I knew how to fix it all artistically, though not expensively ; mon pere, it is true, gave me porcelains, flowers, and fine silver articles. Ze 28 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT matin je sortais, visits, d, cinq heures regulierement I drove to dinner at her house, and she was often alone. II faut avouer que c'etait une femme ravissante ! Did you not know her? Not at all?" "No." "You know, femininity was developed in her in the highest degree, and tenderness, and then, what love ! Lord ! I did not then fully appreciate all that happiness. Or, after theatre, we returned together and had a supper. It was never dull with her, toujours gaie, toujours ai- mante. No, I did not then understand what a rare happiaess it was. Et j'ai beaucoup d, me reprocher before her. Je I'ai fait souffrir, et souvent I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time that was ! Are you annoyed ? " " Not in the least." " Then I will tell you about our evenings. So I would walk in, — that staircase, every flower-pot I knew, — the door-knob, — all that was so charming and famihar ; then the antechamber, her room — No, this wiU never, never return ! She writes me even now, — I will show you her letters if you wish. But I am no longer what I was, — I am lost and unworthy of her. Yes, I am completely lost ! Je suis casse. There is in me neither energy, nor pride, — nothing. There is even no nobility. Yes, I am lost ! And nobody will ever comprehend my suffering. It makes no difference to anybody. I am a lost man ! I shall never rise again, because I am morally fallen — into the mire — fallen — " Just then there was heard in his words genuine, deep despair ; he sat motionless and did not look at me. " But why despair so ? " I said to him. " Because I am base : this life has destroyed me ; every- thing whicl* was in me has been killed. I am suffering now, not with pride, but with baseness, — there is no longer dignitS dans le malheur. I am humiliated at every turn, and I endure everything and myself invite humilia- A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 29 tion. This mire has deteint sur moi : I have myself become coarse; I have forgotten what I knew, and can no longer speak French correctly; I feel that I am bass and low. Under these circumstances I am unable, abso- lutely unable, to fight, or else I might have been a hero : give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, — but to march at the side of some savage Antdn Bondar^nko, and so forth, and to think that there is no difference between him and me, that it is a matter of indifference whether he or I be killed, — this thought is killing me. You understand how terrible it is to think that some beggar will kill me, a man who thinks and feels, and that it would not matter much if Ant6nov, a being that in no way differs from an animal, should be killed at my side, and that it is just as likely that I shall be killed, and not Antdnov, as is always the case, une fatalite for every- thing high and good. I know that they call me a coward, — I am really a coward, and cannot be otherwise. Not only am I a coward, but, to their way of thinking, I am a beggar and a contemptible man. Now, I have just begged you for some money, and you have a right to despise me. No, take back your money," and he handed me the crum- pled bUl. " I want you to respect me." He covered his face with his hands and burst out into tears ; I was abso- lutely at a loss what to say or do. " Calm yourself," I said to him, " you are too sensitive. Don't take everything so to heart! Don't analyze, but look more simply at things ! You say yourself that you have character. Endure it, for you have not much longer to suffer," I said to him, in an inarticulate way, because I was agitated both by a feeling of compassion and by a feeling of regret for having permitted myself mentally to condemn a truly and deeply unfortunate man. " Yes," he began, " if I had heard but once during the time that I have been in this heU a single word of sym- pathy, advice, friendship, — a human word, such as I heai 30 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT from you, I might have been able to endure it all in peace, and I might have undertaken to be and could have been a soldier, but now it is terrible. When I judge soundly, I wish for death. Why should I care for a life of disgrace, and for "myself who am lost to everything good ' in the world ? And yet, at the least peril, I sud- denly begin involuntarily to worship this mean life and to guard it as something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, constrain myself. That is, I can," he continued again, after a minute's silence, " but it costs me too much labour, immense labour, when I am alone. With others, under ordinary conditions, when we go into action, 1 am brave, fai fait mes preuves, because I am egotistical and projid : that is my vice, and in the presence of others — Do you know, I will ask you to let me stay overnight with you, because in our tent they will be playing cards all night ; anywhere will do me, — even on the ground." While Nikita was getting the bed ready we rose, and again walked up and down through the darkness along the battery. Giiskov's head was actually very light, for the two wine-glasses of brandy and the two glasses of wine made him stagger. When we got up and walked away from the hght, I noticed that he put the ten-rouble bill, which he had been holding in his hand during the preceding conversation, into his pocket, so that I might not see him do it. He continued to speak, saying that he felt that he was still able to rise again, if he had a man like me to take interest in him. We were on the point of going to the tent in order to lie down, when suddenly a bullet whizzed by us and lodged in the ground not far away. It was so strange, — this quiet, sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly the inimical bullet, which, God knew whence, flew amidst our tents, — it was all so strange that I was for quite awhile unable to account tor what had happened. Our A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT 31 soldier Andr^ev, who was doing sentry duty on the battery, moved up toward me. *' I declare they have stolen up on us ! A fire could be seen down there," he said. " The captain ought to be wakened," I said, looking at Gilskov. He stood bent almost to the ground, and stammered, wishing to say something, "This — is — disagree — very — funny." He said nothing more, and 1 did not see how and where he momentarily disappeared. In the captain's tent a candle was lighted ; there was heard the usual waking cough, and he soon came out, asking for a linstock to light his pipe by. " Why is it," he said, smiling, " that they will not let me go to sleep to-day ? At first it is you with your re- duced soldier, and then it is Shamyl. What shall we do ? Shall we return the fire, or not ? V/as there nothing said about it in the order ?" " Nothing. There it is again," I said, " and this time from two." In reahty, toward the right and ahead of uS, two fires flashed in the darkness, like two eyes, and soon a ball flew past us, and another, apparently one of our empty shells, which produced a loud and penetrating shriek. The soldiers crept out from the adjoining tents, and one could hear them clearing their throats, stretching themselves, and talking. "Hear them whistle through the eyelet, just like nightingales," remarked an artillerist. " Call Nikita," said the captain, with his habitual kindly smile. " Nikita ! Don't hide yourself ! Come and listen to the mountain nightingales ! " " Your Honour," said Nikita, standing near the captain, " I have seen these nightingales before, and I am not afraid of them ; but the guest who was here and who has been drinking your red wine, — the mordent he heard it, he cut and ran past our tent, all bent up like some beast ! " 32 A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FRONT "I think we ought to go and see the commander of artillery," the captain said to me, in the serious voice of a superior, " to ask him whether we had better return the fire or not : it really will do us no good, but still we may do it. Please take the trouble to ride down and ask him. Have the horse saddled, that will be quicker ! Take mine, PoMn!" Five minutes later the horse was brought to me, and I rode to the commander of artillery. " Eemember the watchword is ' Shaft,' " the precise captain whispered to me, " or else they will not let you through the cordon." It was about half a verst to the commander of artillery, and the whole road lay between tents. As soon as I rode away from our camp-fire, it grew so dark that I could not see the horse's ears, and only the camp-fires, which now seemed to be very near, and now very far away, glim- mered before my eyes. Having ridden a little distance at the mercy of the horse, to whom I gave the reins, I began to make out the square white tents, and later the black ruts of the road; ia half an hour, having three times inquired for the road, and two or three times tripped against the tent stakes, for which I was every time met with curses from the tents, and having twice been stopped by sentinels, I at last arrived at the tent of the commander of artillery. On my way I heard two more shots directed upon our camp, but the missiles did not reach the place where the staff was located. The commander of artillery ordered me not to return the fire, especially since the enemy had stopped. I started home, leading the horse by the bridle and making my way on foot between the tents of the infantry. More than once I slowed down my steps whenever I passed a soldier tent where a candle was lighted, in order to listen to some story which a jester was telling ; or to a book, which some one was reading, while a whole division, fill- ing the tent to its fullest capacity, and even crowding A MOSCOW ACQUAINTANCE AT THE FEONT 33 outside it, were listening to the reader and now and then interrupting him with some remark or other; or simply to the soldiers' conversation about the expedition, about home, and their superiors. As I passed one of these tents of the third battalion I heard a loud voice : it was Giiskov, who was speaking boldly and cheerfully. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, and not soldierly voices. It was apparently the tent of yunkers or sergeants. I stopped. "I have known him for quite awhile," said Guskov. " When I lived in St. Petersburg he used to come to see me often, and I used to call on him. He moved in very good society." " About whom are you speaking ? " asked a drunken voice. "About the priace," said Guskov. <'We are related, and, moreover, old friends. You know, gentlemen, it is nice to have such an acquaintance. He is terribly rich. A hundred roubles is nothiug to him. I have borrowed money from him until my sister sends me some." " Well, then, send for it ! " " Directly. Savdlich dear," said Guskov, moving toward the door of the tent, " here are ten roubles. Go to the sut- ler and fetch two bottles of Kakhetinian wine, and what else, gentlemen ? Speak ! " Guskov, staggering, with hair dishevelled and without his cap, walked out of the tent. He stopped at the door, opened the flaps of his fur coat, and put his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers. Although he was in the light and I in the dark, 1 trembled for fear that he might see me, and so I walked on without making any noise. " Who goes there ? " Guskov called out to me in a very drunken voice. Evidently the cold had afiected him. " What devil is loafing there with his horse ? " I did not answer him, but silently picked my way back* to the road. THE SNOW-STORM A Story 1856 THE SNOW-STORM A Story It was after six o'clock when I, having drunk tea, left the station, the name of which I do not remember, but which, I remember, was somewhere in the Land of the Don Army, near Novocherkask. It was already dark when I seated myself at Al^shka's side in the sleigh and wrapped myself in my fur coat and blanket. Near the post-house the air seemed to be warm and calm. Al- though there was no snow falling, not a single star could be seen overhead, and the sky seemed unusually low and black as compared with the pure snow plain, which lay stretched out in front of us. After passing the dark forms of windmills, one of which awkwardly flapped its large wings, and getting beyond the Cossack village, I noticed that the road became worse and deeper with snow. The wind began to blow more fiercely on my left, to blow aside the tails and manes of the horses, and stubbornly to raise and carty away the snow which was crumbled by the runners and hoofs. The bell began to tinkle less audibly. A spray of cold air ran up my back through some opening in my sleeve, and I thought of the post inspector's advice not to 37 38 THE SNOW-STORM travel in order to avoid going astray in the night and freezing on the road. "I hope we shall not lose our way," I said to the driver. Not receiviag any answer from him, I put the question more clearly : " Well, shaU we reach the next station, driver ? Shall we not go astray ? " "God knows," he answered, without turning his head around. " I declare there is a blizzard ! Not a bit of the road can be seen. Lord ! " " I wish you would tell me whether you will bring me to the next station," I continued. " Shall we get there ? " " We must get there," said the driver. He continued to speak, but I could not hear him through the wind. I did not wish to turn back ; nor did it seem at all pleasant to wander about all night in the frost and snow- storm in an absolutely ban-en plain, such as this part of the Land of the Don Army was. Besides, although I could not get a good look at my driver in the dark, I for some reason did not' like him, and he did not inspire me with confidence in him. He sat straight, with his feet before him, and not sidewise. He was of tall stature; his voice was lazy ; his cap was somehow not a driver's cap, — it was large and it swayed from side to side. Nor did he urge his horses on as is proper, but held the reins in both his hands, like a lackey who has taken the coach- man's box. Above everything else, I did not trust him because his ears were wrapped in a kerchief. In short, this solemn, stooping back, which towered in front of me, did not please me, and promised no good. " In my opinion, it would be best to return," AMshka said to me. f'What pleasure, is there in wandering about ? " " Lord ! Just see what a blast is blowing ! I can't see the road at all, — my eyes are all stuck .together — O Lord ! " grumbled the driver. We had not gone fifteen minutes when the drivej THE SNOW-STORM 39 stopped his horses, turned the reins over to Al^shka/ awk- wardly straightened out his legs from the seat, and, crunching the snow with his big boots, went away to look for the road. " What is it ? Where are you going ? Lost the road, eh?" I asked him; but the driver did not make any reply. He turned his face away from the wind which cut his face and walked away from the sleigh. " Well ? Found it ? " I repeated when he came back. " No, nothing," he suddenly said, impatiently and angrily, as though I were to blame for his having lost the road. Leisurely placing his large feet on the foot-rest, he began with his frosted hands to separate the reins. " What are we going to do ? " I asked him, when we started again. " What shall we do ? We shall travel whither God will take us." We proceeded in the same amble, now obviously at random, in more than half a foot of loose snow, or over the brittle and bare crust. Although it was cold, the snow on my collar melted very rapidly; the blizzard kept growing stronger, and from above began to fall a light, crisp snow. It was evident that we were travelling God knows where, because, after having journeyed another fifteen minutes, we no longer saw a single verst post. " Well, what do you think ? " I again asked the driver, " shall we reach the station ? " " Which station ? We can get back if we give the reins to the horses ; they will take us back ; but hardly to the next station — we shall only be lost." " Well, let them go back," I said. " And really — " " So you want to go back ? " said the driver. " Yes, yes, turn back ! " The driver gave the horses the reins. They began to rufl faster, and, although I did not notice that we were 40 THE SNOW - STORM tumiug ; the' wind soon changed^ and soon the -vrindmills could be seen through the snow. The driver became bolder and began to talk. "The other day the return sleighs got caught in a storm;" he said, " so they had to stay overnight in hay- stacks. They came back only in the morning. It was lucky they did find those haystacks, or else they would have frozen stiff, — it was so cold. As it is, one of them had his feet so frost-bitten that we thought for three weeks that he would die." " It is not cold now and the wind has gone down," .said I, " so maybe we could try it." " That is so, it is warm, but it is blowing hard. It is now at our back, so it seems lighter, but it is blowing hard. I could go if it were on courier duty, or sometlnng of the kind; but not of my own wilL It is no joke to have your passenger frozen. They will make me respon- sible for you." n. Just then were heard the bells of several trdykas which were rapidly catching up with us. " A courier bell," said my driver. " There is only one such at the whole station." In reality, the bell of the first sleigh, the sound of which was clearly borne to us through the air, was verj' fine: pure, melodious, deep, and shghtly quivering. I later learned that it was the arrangement of a fancier, and consisted of three bells, of a large one in the middle, •with what is popularly called a wagtail sound, and of two small ones, tuned at thirds with it. The sound of this third and of the quivering fifth, which reechoed in the air, was exceedingly striking and strangely agreeable in this desert steppe. " The post is running," said my driver, as the first of the three sleighs came abreast ours. " How is the road ? Is it possible to travel upon it ? " he cried to the driver of the last sleigh ; but this one only shouted to his horses, and made no reply. The sound of the bells quickly died away in the wind as soon as the post passed us. Apparently my driver felt ashamed. " I suppose we had better go now, sir ! " he said to me. " People have just passed over it, and so their tracks will be fresh." I agreed with him, and we again turned against the wind, and moyed forward over the deep snow. I looked sidewise on the road, so as not to lose sight of the track 41 42 THE SiroW- STORM made by the sleighs. For about two versts the track was clearly visible ; then there could be seen only a small unevenness under the runners; but before long I was absolutely unable to tell whether it was a track or simply a drifted layer of snow. The eyes got tired looking at the monotonously disappearing snow under the runners, and I began to look ahead of me. We still saw the third verst-post, but were entirely unable to find the fourth ; as before, we travelled against the wind and with the wind, to the right and to the left, and finally we reached a point when my driver said that we had strayed to the right, while I said it was to the left, and Al^shka proved that we were going directly back. We again stopped several times, and the driver dragged out his large feet and went out to find the road, but all in vain. I myself went once to see whether that which so appeared to me was really the road ; but no sooner had I with difficulty made six steps against the wind, and con- vinced myseK that everywhere were the same monotonous, white layers of snow, and that the road existed only in my imagination, than I no longer saw the sleigh. I called out : " Driver ! Al^shka ! " but I felt how the wind caught the voice out of my mouth and in a twinkling carried it away far from me, into the distance. I went where the sleigh was, but it was not there ; I went to the right, and it was not there, either. I am ashamed to recall ia what loud, penetrating, yes, even a little despairing, voice I shouted once more, " Driver ! " when he was within no more than two feet of me. His black figure, with his small whip and enormous cap fallen to one side, suddenly loomed up before me. He took me to the sleigh, " Luckily it is warm," he said, " or else, if it should freeze, it would be terrible ! — O Lord ! " " Give the horses the reins : let them take us back," I said, seating myself in the sleigh. "Will they take us back ? Eh, driver ? " THE SNOW-STORM 43 " They certainly will." He dropped the reins, two or three times struck the harness pad of the centre horse with his whip, and we again went somewhere. We travelled about half an hour. Suddenly the fancier's bell and two others were heard in front of us : this time they were moving toward us.' Those were the same trdykas, which had deposited the mail and now were going back with return horses to the sta- tion. The courier trdyka of Wge horses with the fan- cier's beU. was swiftly running in front. A driver was sitting on the box and briskly calling out to his horses. Back of him, in the body of each empty sleigh, sat two drivers, a^d one could hear their loud and merry conver- sation. One of them was smoking a pipe, and a spark, fanned by the wind, illuminated part of his face. As I looked at them I felt ashamed of being afraid to travel, and my driver, evidently, was experiencing the same feeling, for we said in one voice : " Let us follow them!" in. Before allowing the last trdyka to pass by, my driver began awkwardly to turn back and drove the shafts into the horses tied behind. Three of the horses shied, tore off the halter, and started to run to one side. "You cross-eyed devH, can't you see how to turn? Straight upon people ! You devil ! " A short driver, an old man, so far as I could judge from his voice and stat- ure, who, was seated in the last sleigh, began to curse in a hoarse and quivering voice. He quickly jumped out of the sleigh and ran after the horses, continuing to curse profanely, and to call my driver all kinds of names. The horses were not easily taken. The driver ran after them, and in a minute the horses and the driver were lost in the white mist of the snow-storm. " Vasil-i ! Let me have the dun horse ! I can't catch them this way," his voice was still heard. One of the drivers, a very tall man, climbed out of the sleigh, silently unhitched his trdyka, over the side band climbed upon one of the horses, and, crunching over the snow at an ambling pace, was lost in the same direction. But we, with the other two tr6ykas, started across fields behind the courier sleigh, which, tinkling with its bell, raced at full gallop ahead of us. " Of course he will not catch them ! " my driver said, in respect to the one who had started after the horses. " Since the accursed centre horse has not gone back to the other horses, it will take them where there will be no way out," 4A •THE SNOW-STORM 45 From the time that my driver began travelliiig back of the others he became more cheerful and talkative, a fact of which I did not fail to take advantage, since I did not yet feel like sleeping. I began to ask him where he came from, what he was doing, and how he was getting on, and I soon learned that he was a countryman of mine, from the Government of Tiila, village of Kirpichnoe, and a manorial peasant • that they had little land left, and that since the cholera they had had no good crop of grain; that there were two brothers in the family, while a third was a soldier; that their grain would not last until Christmas, and so they lived by outside earnings ; that the younger brother was the manager of the household, because he was married, whUe he himself was a widower ; that peasants from his. village came here every year in artfls to hire out as drivers; that he had never driven before, but that he had taken a place on the post in order to support his brother ; that he, thank God, earned 120 roubles in assignats a year, from which sum he sent one hundred home ; and that life would be passable here, if the couriers were not such beasts, and the people such a swearing lot. " What reason did that driver have to swear so ? Lord ! Did I tear away the horses on purpose ? Do I mean anybody's harm? And what made him gallop away after them ? They would come back in time, any- way. As it is, he will only wear the horses out, and will be lost himself," repeated the God-fearing peasant. " What is that black spot ? " I asked, noticing a few black objects in front of us. " A caravan. How nice it is to travel that way ! " he continued, when we came abreast with huge, mat-covered wheeled wagons, following each other. " You see, not a man is to be seen, — they are all asleep. Those are intel- ligent horses: they know the way and can't go astray. I have travelled with freight," he added, " so I know." 46 THE SNOW-STOKM It was really strange to see those immense wagons covered with snow from the mat top to the wheels and moving all along. Only in the front corner a mat, covered two fingers deep with snow, was raised a little, and for a moment a cap stuck out from it just as our bells tinkled past the caravan. A large, piebald horse, stretching its neck and straining its back, stepped evenly over the trackless road, monoto- nously shook its shaggy head under the whitened arch, and pricked one of its snow-covered ears, as we came abreast with it. Having travelled another half-hour, the driver again turned to me : " Well, sir, what do you think ? Are we travelling in the right direction ? " " I do not know," I answered. "At first there was a terrible wind, but now we are having good weather. No, we are not going right, — we are wandering again," he concluded, with the greatest calm. It was evident that, notwithstanding the fact that he was inclined to be a coward, he — as the proverb says, In company death is agreeable — became entirely self -pos- sessed when he saw that there were many of us, and he did not have to guide or be responsible. He in the most indifferent manner made observations on the blunders of the guiding driver, as though he were not in the least concerned in the matter. And, in fact, I noticed that the sleigh in the van at times showed its profile on my left and at others on my right ; it even seemed to me that we were circling in a very small space. However, that might have been an optical illusion, even as I was led to believe that the van sleigh was going up-hill or down-hill, or on an incline, whereas the steppe was absolutely flat. Having travelled a little while longer, I noticed, as I thought, far away near the horizon, a long, black, moving THE SKOW- STORM 47 line ; a minute later it became clear to me that it was the same caravan which we had caught up with before. The snow just as before covered the squeaking wheels, several of which did not even turn ; the men were still sleeping under the mats, and the piebald horse of the van in the same way expanded its nostrils in order to scent the road, and pricked its ears. " I declare, we have been circling and circling and have come back to the same caravan," my driver said, in a dis- satisfied voice. " The courier horses are good, so it does not hurt them to run around recklessly, but ours will soon stop if we are going to travel all night." He cleared his throat. " Let us turn back, sir, to save ourselves." " What for ? We shall get somewhere soon." " Where ? We shall pass the night on the steppe. How it is blowing — O Lord ! " Although I was surprised to see the guiding driver, who obviously had lost both road and direction, not trying to find the road but racing at full gallop with merry shouts, I did not wish to fall behind them. " Follow them," I said. The driver staroed his horses and drove them more unwillingly than before. He no longer turned back to talk to me. IV. The storm grew stronger and stronger, and from above fell crisp, tiny flakes of snow. I thought it was beginning to freeze : my nose and cheeks felt more frosty than before, a spray of cold air more frequently found its way under my fur coat, and it became necessary to wrap my- self well. Now and then the sleigh rattled over a bare, crusted spot from which the snow had drifted, I had now travelled nearly six hundred versts without staying anywhere overnight, and so, although I was interested in the outcome of our straying, I involuntarily closed my eyes and began to doze. Once, as I opened my eyes, I was struck for a moment by what seemed to be a bright light that illumined the white plain : the horizon had widened considerably ; the low, black sky had suddenly disappeared ; on all sides could be seen white, slanting Hnes of falling snow. The form of the sleigh in front was more distinct, and as I looked up I thought in the first moment that the clouds were dispersed and that the falling snow covered the sky. Just as I awoke, the moon had arisen and was casting its cold bright light through the loose clouds and the falling snow. What I saw clearly was my sleigh, the horses, the driver, and the three sleighs in front of me : the first, the courier's, in which the. driver was sitting alone on the box and driving at an easy trot ; the second, in which sat two men, who, having thrown down the reins and made a 48 THE SNOW - STORM 49 windbreak of a cloak, were all the time smoking a pipe, as could be seen by the sparks which flashed there ; and the third, where no one was to be seen, and where in all hke- lihood the driver was sleeping in the body of the sleigh. The guiding driver, as I awoke, occasionally stopped his horses in order to look for the road. Every time we stopped the howling of the wind became more audible, and I could see more clearly a surprisingly large quantity of snow which was borne through the air. In the snow- shrouded moonlight I saw the short figure of the driver, with his whip-handle in his hand, testing the snow in front of him and moving up and down in the dim mist; then again he walked up to the sleigh, jumped sideways on the box, and again, above the monotonous whistUng of the wind could be heard his brisk, sonorous calls and the tinkling of the bells. Whenever the driver of the first sleigh climbed out to find signs of the road or haystacks, there proceeded from the second sleigh the vivacious, self- confident voice of one of the drivers calling out to the guide : " Oh, there, Ignashka ! We have borne too much to the left : bear to the right, under the wind ; " or, " Don't circle about in vain ! Keep to the snow just as it lies and we shall come out all right;" or, "How you are straying! Unhitch the piebald horse and let him lead: he will take you out to the road. That will be better ! " The one who was counseUing this not only did not unhitch the off-horse or go out on the snow to find the road, but did not even put his nose out from behind his cloak ; and when Ignashka, the guide, to one of his coun- sels shouted to him to take the lead himself if he knew so well where to drive, the counsellor replied that if he ran a courier sleigh that would be exactly what he would do, and he would bring us out on the road. " But our horses will not take the lead in a bhzzard ! " he called out. " They are not that kind of horses ! " 50 THE SNOW-STORM " Then don't bother me ! " Igndshka replied, merrily whisthng to his horses. The other driver who was sitting in the same sleigh with the counsellor said nothing to Igndshka, and in gen- eral took no part in the matter, although he was not yet asleep, as I concluded from his inextinguishable pipe, and because when we stopped I heard his measured, unin- terrupted talk. Only once, when Ignashka stopped for the sixth or seventh time, he apparently became annoyed at the interruption of his pleasant ride and called out to him : " What are you stopping for ? I declare, he wants to find the road ! Don't you know it is a snow-storm ? Even an engineer could not find the road now. Keep on as long as the horses pull you ! Don't be afraid, we shall not freeze to death — Go, I say ! " " Indeed ! A postilion was frozen to death last year ! " my driver interposed. The driver of the third sleigh did not wake up all that time. Once, during a stop, the counsellor shouted : " Filipp ! Oh, Filipp ! " and receiving no reply, he re- marked : " I wonder whether he is frozen. Igndshka, you had better take a look." Ignashka, who had time for everything, walked over to the sleigh and began to push the sleeper. " Just see how haK a bottle has knocked him down ! If you are frozen, say so ! " he said, shaking him. The sleeper muttered something and uttered a curse. "He is aKve, friends!" said Ignashka, and again he ran ahead. We started once more, this time . so fast that the small bay off-horse of tcj sleigh, which continually received the whip on its tail, more than once jumped up in an awkward small gallop. V. I THINK it must have beeu about midnight when the old man and Vasili, who had gone after the stray horses, came up to us. They had found and caught the horses, and then fell in with us ; but it will always remain a puzzle to me how they did that in the dark, blind snow- storm and on the barren steppe. The old man, swinging his elbows and legs, was riding at a trot on the centre horse, while the side horses were tied to the arch ; for in a snow-storm the horses may not be let loose. When he came abreast with us he again began to call my driver opprobrious names : " I declare he is a cross-eyed devil ! KeaUy — " " Oh, Uncle Mitrich," the story-teller in the second sleigh shouted, " are you alive ? Come into our sleigh ! " The old man made no reply to him, and continued to curse. When he thought he had said enough he rode up to the second sleigh. "Did you get them all?" somebody in the second sleigh asked. " I should say so ! " His small figure threw itself with its breast on the back of the trotting horse, then leaped down on the snow, and without stopping ran to the sleigh and rolled itself in, its legs sticking out above the rounds of the body of the sleigh. Tall Vasili silently seated himself, just as before, in the first sleigh with Ignashka, and both together began to look for the road. " What a swearer — ■ Lord ! " mumbled my driver. 51 52 THE SKOW- STORM We then travelled for a long time, without stopping, over the white desert, in the cold, transparent, and quiver- ing hght of the snow-storm. I would open my eyes, — and the same clumsy cap and back, covered with snow, towered before me ; the same low arch, under which the head of the centre horse, with its black mane evenly flaunting in the wind, was swaying the same length be- tween the tightly stretched bridle-straps ; beyond the back could be seen the same right-side horse, with its tail tied short and its splinter-bar occasionally striking against the wicker body of the sleigh. I would look down, — and there the same crisp snow was torn up by the runners and stubbornly raised by the wind and carried to one side. In front, the guiding sleigh ran at the same constant distance ; on the right and left everything looked white and dim. The eye looked in vain for a new object : there was to be seen neither post, nor stack, norience. Everywhere everything was white, white, and in motion : now the horizon seemed to be im- measurably distant, now to be reduced on all sides to within two feet of me ; suddenly a white, tall wall grew out on the right of me and ran along the sleigh, and now it disappeared to grow out in front again, in order to run farther and farther away and to disappear once more. I would look up, — and at first it seemed light, as though I could see the stars through the snow mist ; but the stars ran away from view higher and higher, and I saw only the snow which fell past my eyes upon my face and the collar of my fur coat. The sky was everywhere equally bright, equally white, colourless, monotonous, and constantly motionless. The wind seemed to change : now it blew into my face and stuck my eyes together with snow ; now it angrily on one side flapped the collar of my fur coat over my head or scornfully switched my face with it ; now it moaned behind me through some chink. There was heard the feeble, uninterrupted crunching of THE SNOW - STORM 53 the hoofs and runners on the snow, and the dull clanking of the bells, as we rode over the deep snow. Occasionally, when we went against the wind, and over a bared frozen crust, there were borne to us through the air the energetic whisthng of Ignashka, and the liquid sound of the bell with the echoing and tremulous fifth, and these sounds suddenly gave rehef to the dreary character of the desert, and then again sounded monotonously, playing all the time with insufferable exactness the tune which I imagined I was hearing. One of my feet began to freeze, and when I turned aroimd in order to wrap myself better, the snow, which covered my collar and cap, fell down be- hind my neck and made me shudder ; but I was, in gen- eral, still warm in my fur coat, and sleepiness overpowered me. VI. Eecollections and pictures with increased velocity alternated in my imagination. " The counsellor who is all the time calling out iu the second sleigh, I wonder what kind of a peasant he may be ? No doubt he is red-haired, stout, with short legs," I think, " just like F^dor Fillppych, our old butler." And I see the staircase of our big house, and five manorial serv- ants stepping heavily on towels, as they drag a piano out of the wiug. I see F^dor Filippych, with the rolled up sleeves of his nankeen coat, carrying one pedal, running ahead, unfastening a bolt, pulling here at the towel, giving a push there, creeping between the people's legs, being in everybody's way, and never ceasing to cry in an anxious voice : " Back, you people in front ! That's it ! Lift the tail end ! Up, up, and carry it through the door ! That's it ! " "Just let us do it alone, F^dor Filippych," timidly remarks the gardener, jammed against the balustrade, red with straining, with the greatest exertion holding up a comer of the grand. But F^dor Fihppych does not cease worrying. " What is this ? " I reflect. " Does he imagine that he is useful and necessary for the common work, or is he simply glad because God has given him that self-confident, persuasive eloquence, and delighted because he is squan- dering it ? It must be so." And I, for some reason, see the pond, the tired servants, who, knee-deep in the water, are dragging a seine, and again F^dor Filippych with a Hi THE SNOW-STORM 55 Watering-pot, shouting to everybody, running up and down the shore, and occasionally walking up to the pond in order, by holding back the golden carps with his hand, to let the turbid water flow out and to take up fresh water. . And now it is noon, in the month of July. I am going somewhere over the newly mown grass of the orchard, under the burning and direct rays of the sun ; I am still very young, and I am lacking something and wishing for something. I go to the pond, to my favourite place, be- tween the brier-bushes and the birch avenue, and lie down to sleep. I remember the feeling with which I, lying down, look through the red, prickly stems of the brier upon the black globules of dry earth, and the glinting light blue mirror of the pond. It is the feeling of a cer- tain naive self-satisfaction and sadness. Everything around me is so beautiful and all that beauty so affects me, that it seems to me that I myself am good, and the one thing that annoys me is that nobody admires me. It is hot. I try to fall asleep in order to iind consola- tion ; but the flies, the unendurable flies, give me no rest even here, begin to gather around me, and stubbornly and stiffly, like knuckle-bones, keep leaping from my forehead to my hands. A bee buzzes not far from me in the hottest place ; yel- low-winged butterflies fly exhausted from blade to blade. I look up: my eyes pain, — the sun bums too brightly through the light foliage of the curly birch-tree, which sways its boughs high above me and softly, and I feel hotter stilL I cover my face with my handkerchief: I feel suffo- cated, and the flies seem to stick to my hands on which exudes perspiration. In the brier thicket the sparrows begin to fuss. One of them has leaped' down on the ground, about two feet from me: he twice pretends to pick at the ground, and, rustling in the twigs, and giving a merry chirp, he flies 56 THE SNOW-STORISi out of the thicket ; another, too, leaps down on the ground, raises his tail, looks about him, and flies away after the first, like an arrow, with a twittering. On the pond are heard the strokes of the beetles on the wet clothes, and these strokes reecho, and are, as it were, carried downward, over the surface of the pond. I hear the laughter and chatting and plashing of bathers. A gust of wind makes the tops of the birches rustle at a distance from me ; now it comes nearer, and I hear it fitir the grass, and now the leaves of the brier thicket get into commotion and flap on their branches ; and now, raisiag a corner of my handkerchief and tickling my per- spiring face, a fresh spray has reached me. A fly has found its way through the opening of the raised handkerchief, and in fright flutters about my moist mouth. A dry twig presses against my back. No, I can't he any longer : I will go to take a swim. But just then I hear some hasty steps near that very brier thicket, and a woman's frightened voice : " Lord ! What shall we do ? And no men around ! " "What is^it? What?" I, running out into the sun, ask the servant woman who runs, sobbing, past me. She only looks back on me, sways her hands, and runs ahead. And now here is seventy-year-old Matr^na, hold- ing down the kerchief with her hand, as it slips from her head, tripping along, dragging one foot in a woollen stock- ing, and running to the pond. Two girls run, holding each other's hands, and a ten-year-old boy, in his father's coat, clutching the hempen skirt of one of them, foUows. " What has happened ? " I ask them. " A peasant has drowned." " Where ? " " In the pond." " Who ? One of ours ? " " No, a transient." Coachman Ivan, scuffing his huge boots over the mown THE SNOW - STORM 5"^ grass, and fat steward Ydkov, drawing breath with diffi- culty, run to the pond, and I after them. I remember the feehng which said to me : " Jump in and pull out the peasant ! Save him, and everybody will admire you," which was precisely what I wanted. "But where, where?" I ask the crowd of manorial servants collected on the shore. " Over yonder, right in the whirlpool, near the other shore, almost near the bath-house," says the laundress, putting the wet clothes on the yoke. '' I saw him dive under; then he appeared again, and again went out of sight ; he showed up once more, and cried, ' People, I am drowning ! ' and again went down, — nothing but bubbles came up. Then I knew that a man was drowning, so I yelled, ' People, a man is drowning ! ' " The laundress swings the yoke on her shoulder, and, waddling sidewise, walks over a foot-path away from the pond. " What a misfortune ! " says Yakov Iv^nov, the steward, in a desperate voice. " What a lot of trouble there will now be with the rural court! There will be no getting rid of it!" A peasant with a scythe makes his way through the crowd of women, children, and old men, who are gathered at the farther shore, and, hanging his scythe on the branch of a willow, slowly takes off his boots. " Where is it ? Where did he drown ? " I keep asking, wishing to jump in there and do something unusual. I have pointed out to me the smooth surface of the pond, which the passing breeze ripples now and then. I cannot make out how he has drowned : the water con- tinues to stand just as smoothly, beautifully, and indiffer- ently above him, resplendent in the gold of the afternoon sun, and it seems to me that I am unable to do anything, and that I shall not surprise any one, especially since I am a poor swimmer; meanwhile the peasant is pulling 58 THE SNOW-STORM the shirt over his head, ready to jump in. All look at him in hope and breathless expectancy ; but having gone iato the water up to his shoulders, the peasant slowly returns and puts on his shirt, — he cannot swim. More and more people run up, and the crowd grows bigger and bigger ; the women hold on to each other ; but nobody offers any aid. Those who have just arrived give all kinds of advice, and sigh, and fright and despair are depicted iu their faces ; of those who have been there awhile, some, being tired of standing, sit down on the grass, while others go back. Old Matr^na asks her daughter whether she has closed the damper of the stove ; the boy ia his father's coat with precision throws pebbles into the water. But now, barking and looking back in doubt, Trezdrka, F6dor Fihppych's dog, comes running down-hill ; and TX)iw his own form, running down-biJl End shouting something, appears from behind the brier thicket. " What are you standing for ? " he calls out, taking off his coat on the run. "A man has drowned, and they stand there ! Let me have a rope ! " Everybody looks in hope and fear at F^dor Fillppych while he, holding with his hand the shoulder of an obhgiag servant, with the tip of his left boot pulls off the heel of his right. '' Over there, where the people are standing, over there, a Httle to the right of the willow, F^dor Filippych ! Over there," somebody says to him. " I know," he answers, and, frowning, no doubt in reply to the signs of shame expressed in the crowd of women, puUs off his shirt and takes down his cross, which he hands to the gardener's boy, who is standing before him ia an attitude of admiration. Then, stepping energetic- ally over the mown grass, he goes up to the pond. Trezdrka, perplexed as to the cause of the swift move- ments of his master, has stopped near the crowd and, THE SNOW-STORM 59 having swallowed with a smacking noise several grass- blades near the shore, looks questioningly at him, and with a merry yap throws himself into the water with his master. At first nothing is seen but foam and spray, which reaches us on the shore ; then F^dor Filippych gracefully swings his arms and, evenly raising and lowering his back, with a hand over hand motion, briskly swims to the other shore. Trez6rka gets his mouth full of water, hurriedly turns back, shakes himseK off near the crowd, a,nd on his back dries himself on the shore. While F^dor Filippych is reaching the other shore, two coachmen run up to the willow with a seine rolled up on a stick. F^dor Filippych for some reason or other raises his arms, dives once, twice, a third time, every time letting a stream of water out of his mouth, handsomely tossing his hair, and not answering the questions which are hurled at him on all sides. Finally he comes out on the shore, and, so far as I can see, is busy merely with giving orders about the spreading of the seine. The seine is dragged out, but there is nothing in the net but ooze, and a few small carps wiggling in it. While the seine is thrown out again I pass over to the other side. All that is heard is the voice of F^dor Filippych giving orders, the plashing of the wet rope in the water, and sighs of terror. The wet rope, which is attached to the right wing, is ever more covered with grass, and comes ever farther out of the water. " Now pull together, as one man, pull ! " shouts F^dor Filippych. The water-soaked floats make their appear- ance. " There is something coming ! It pulls hard, friends," somebody calls out. Now the wings with two or three little carps wriggling in them are pulled out. on the shore, where the;y wet and 60 THE SNOW - STORM crush the grass. And now through the thin, quivering layer of troubled water there appears something white in the stretched net. A sigh of terror, not loud, but im- pressively audible amidst the dead silence, runs through the crowd. " Pull, harder, out to the shore ! " is heard the deter- mined voice of FMor Filappych, and the drowned man is dragged out to the willow, over the mowed-down stubbles of burdock and agrimony. And now I see my good old aunt in a silk dress ; I see her lilac parasol with a lace edge, which is somehow out of keeping with this picture of death, so terrible in its simplicity; I see her face, which is ready to burst out into tears. I remember the disappointment expressed in her face because she could not make any use of arnica in this case ; I also remember the painful, aggravating feel- ing which I experienced when she said to me, with a naive egotism of love : " Come, my dear ! Oh, how ter- rible this is ! And you always go out swimming by yourself ! " I remember how brightly and hotly the sun baked the powdery earth underfoot ; how it played on the mirror of the pond: how the large carps plashed near the shore, while schools of smaJi fish rippled the middl.e of the smooth pond; how a hawk circled high in the air, hov- ering over the ducklings which, dousing and splash- ing, swam out from the reeds into the pond; how the white, curly storm-clouds gathered near the horizon ; how the mud which had been brought out on the shore by the seine slowly receded, and how, walking along the dam, I again heard the strokes of the beetle, as they reScho over the pond. But this beetle sounds as though two beetles were tuned to thirds, and this sound torments and exhausts me, the more so since I know that this beetle is a bell, and F^dor Filippych will not make it stop. This beetle, THE SNOW-STORM 61 like an instrument of torture, compresses my foot, which is freezing, — and I fall asleep. I was awakened, as I thought, by our very rapid ride, and by two voices calling out right near me : " Say, Ignashka ! Oh, Ignashka ! " said the voice of my driver. " Take my passenger ! You have to drive there anyway, but why should I wander about uselesslv ? Take him ! " Ignashka's voice called out over me : " What pleasure is there for me to be responsible for the passenger ? WiU you put up a bottle ? " « A bottle ! Half a bottle will do." " Half a bottle, I declare ! " shouts another voice. " To wear out the horses for haK a bottle ! " I opened my eyes. The same insufferable, quivering snow blinded my eyes ; there were the same drivers and horses, but I saw some other sleigh near me. My driver had caught up with Ignashka, and we for a long time drove side by side. Although a voice from the other sleigh advised him not to take less than a bottle, Ignashka suddenly stopped his sleigh. " Load them over ! So be it ! It is your luck ! You wiU put up the half bottle to-morrow when we come back. Have you much luggage ? " My driver jumped out into the snow, with unusual vivacity for him, bowed to me, and asked me to seat myself iu Ignashka's sleigh. I had no objection ; it was evident that the God-fearing peasant was so happy over it that he wished to pour out his gratitude and joy on some- body : he bowed and thanked me, AMshka, and Ignashka. " Well, thank God ! What was it for anyway, O Lord ! We have been driving half the night, and we do not know whither we are going. He wiU get you there safely, sir, while my horses are all worn out." He transferred the things with increased alacrity. While the thiugs were beiug transferred, I went with 62 THE SNOW - STORM the wind, which almost lifted me off my feet, to the second sleigh. This sleigh was one-fourth covered with snow, particularly on the side where the cloak had heen put out as a protection against the wind over the heads of the two drivers; but back of the cloak it was pleasant and comfortable. The old man was lying as before with his legs dangling over the side, and the story-teller con- tinued his tale : " At the same time as the general comes, you see, in the name of the king, to Mary, in the prison, just at that time Mary says to him: ' General, I have no need of you, and cannot love you, and so, you see, you are not my lover ; but my lover is that same prince.' "At the same time — " he went on, but, seeing me, he grew silent for a moment and began to fan the spark on his pipe. " Well, sir, have you come to us to hear a tale ? " said the other, whom I have called the counsellor. " Yes, it is nice and jolly here with you ! " I said. " It drives away dulness. At least, you have no time to think." " Do you not know where we are now ? " This question did not please the drivers, so I thought. " Who can make out where ? Maybe we have driven into the Calmuck country," replied the counsellor. " What are we going to do ? " I asked. "What are we going to do? We will keep driving, and maybe we shall get somewhere," he said, in a dis- satisfied voice. " But if we do not, and the horses ,iick in the snow, what then ? " « Why, nothing." " But we shall freeze to death." " Of course, that is possible, because we can't see any haystacks now : evidently we have got into the Calmuck country. Above everything else we must watch the snow." THE SNOW - STORM 63 ^ "Are you afraid, sir, you will freeze?" asked the old man, in a trembling voice. Although he seemed to be makiog fun of me, he ap- parently was chiUed to his bones. " Yes, it is getting very cold," said I. " Ah, sir ! You ought to do the way I do : don't mind it, and take a run, and you will feel warmer." " It's great to run behind the sleigL," said the coun- sellor. VII. " Please, all is ready ! " AMshka cried to me, from the front sleigh. The snow-storm was so severe, that only by bending over and clutchiag the skirts of my overcoat with both my hands was I able with the greatest difficulty to make the few steps which separated me from the sleigh, over the drifting snow which was carried away from under my feet. My former driver was already kneehng in the middle of the empty sleigh; but, upon seeing me, he raised his large cap, whereat the wind furiously flaunted his hair, and asked me for a pourhoire. No 'doubt, he did not expect anything, for my refusal did not in the least disappoint him. He thanked me anyway, shoved his cap back on his head, and said to me : " Well, sir, God grant you — " and, jerking his reins and smacking his lips, he moved away from us. Soon after Ignashka, too, swayed with his whole back, and shouted to his horses. Again the sound of the crunching hoofs, of the shouting, and of the bells took the place of the howling wind, which became particularly audible whenever we stopped. For about fifteen minutes after the transfer I did not sleep, finding diversion in watching the form of my new driver and of his horses. Ign&hka sat on the box in a dashing fashion, kept leaping up, waved his hand, with the whip hanging down from it, at the horses, shouted, beat one foot against the other, and, bending over, adjusted the crupper of the centre horse, which kept sliding off to the right. He was not tall, but^ as I thought, well formed. THE SNOW - STORM 65 Above his short fur coat he wore a beltless cloak, the collar of which was almost thrown back ; his neck was entirely bare ; he wore not felt, but leather boots and a small cap, which he kept taking off and fixing on his head. His ears were covered by his hair only. In all his movements there was to be seen not only energy, but something more, I thought, namely, a desire to rouse this energy in himself. Still, the farther we travelled, the more frequently he, to adjust himself, jumped up in his seat, clapped his feet together, and started conversations with Alishka and me. I thought he was afraid of losing courage. And there was good reason for it : although the horses were good, the road became more difficult with every step, and we could see the horses running less willingly. It became necessary to use the whip, and the good, large, shaggy centre horse stumbled two or three times, even though, taking fright, it jerked forward and swung its shaggy head almost as high as the bell. The right side horse, which I involuntarily watched, visibly dropped the traces and the long leather tassel of the crupper which kept dangling and bobbing on the off side, and begged for the whip, but, being a good, and even a mettled, horse, it seemed to be annoyed at its own weakness, and angrily lowered and raised its head, begging for the reins. It was really terrible to see the snow-storm and frost growing stronger, the horses weakening, the road getting worse, and ourselves not knowing where we were, or whither we were going, or whether we should reach the station at all, or even a shelter, — and it was ridiculous and strange to hear the bell tinkling with such freedom and cheerfulness, and Ign&hka shouting so briskly and beautifully, as though it were a sunny day during the Epiphany frosts, and we were out for a holiday sleigh- ride along a village street ; but, strangest of all, was the thought that we were travelling, and travelling fast, some- 66 THE SNOW - STORM where away from the spot in which we were. Ignashka started a song, in a horrible falsetto, it is true, but in such a loud voice and with such pauses, during which he whistled, that it would have been strange to be timid while listening to him. "Ho, there! Don't yell that way, Ignashka!" was heard the counsellor's voice. " Stop a bit ! " " What ? " « Sto-o-op ! " Ignashka stopped. Again everything was silent, and the wind began to moan and howl, and the snow, whirl- ing, fell more heavily upon the sleigh. The counsellor walked over to us. "Well, what?" " What ? Where are we going ? " " Who knows ? " " Are your feet frozen that you strike them so ? " " I hardly feel them." "You had better get down: there is something glim- mering there, — maybe it is a Calmuck camp. You might be able to warm your feet." " All right. Hold the horses — here ! " Igndshka ran in the direction pointed out to him. " One must look at everything and watch it : something might be found. What sense is there in travelling at random ? " the counsellor said to me. " Just see how he has made the horses sweat ! " All the time that Ignashka was walking, — and that lasted so long that I was afraid he might have lost his way, — the counsellor told me in a self-confident, quiet tone of voice what was to be done during a snow-storm, — that it would be best to unhitch a horse and let it go, that, as God is holy, it would take them right, and how sometimes it is possible to go by the stars, and that, if he had the leading sleigh, we should long ago have been at the station. THE SNOW - STORM 67 " Well, did you find it ? " he asked Igndshka, who was coming back, with difficulty trailing his legs knee-deep in the snow. " I did find something, — some kind of a camp," Ig- nashka rephed, breathing heavily, " but I do not know what it is. My friend, we must have strayed into the Prolgdvskaya estate. We must bear more to the left." " What nonsense ! That is our camp, which is back of the Cossack village," retorted the counsellor. " But I tell you it is not ! " " I have looked at it, and I know : that's what it is ; and if not that, it is Tamj^shevsko. We must keep more to the right : we shall come out near the long bridge, at the eighth verst." " I tell you no ! I saw it ! " Ignashka replied, in anger. " O friend, and you call yourself a driver ! " " That's it, I am a driver ! Go down yourself ! " " What is the use of my going ? I know without going." Ignashka grew apparently angry : he jumped on the box, without answering him, and drove on. " I declare, my feet are numb : I can't warm them up," he said to AMshka, continuing ever more frequently to strike his legs together and to scoop out and throw away the snow which had got into his boot-legs. I was dreadfully sleepy. VIII. " Is it possible I am freezing to death ? " I thought through my sleep. " They say death always begins with sleep. It would be better to drown than freeze stiff. Let them drag me out with a seiae. Still, it does not make much difference whether I drown or freeze stiff, so long as that stick will not be pushing me in the back and I can forget myself." I forgot myself for a second. " What will aU this end in 1" I suddenly say mentally, opening my eyes for a moment and staring at the white space. " What will it all end in ? If we do not find any stacks and the horses stop, which, it seems, will soon happen, we shall all of us freeze to death." I must confess, although I was a little afraid, the desire that something unusual, something tragical, might happen with us, was stronger in me than my petty fear. It seemed to me that it would not be bad if the horses themselves brought us on the morning half-frozen to some distant, unknown village, and if a few of us were even completely frozen. Dreams of this kind hovered before me with unusual distinctness, and followed each other with extraordinary rapidity. The horses stop ; there is ever- more snow falHng, and nothing but the ears and the arch of the horses can be seen. Suddenly Ignashka appears above us with his troyka and hurries past us. We implore him, we cry to him, to take us ; but the wind carries away the sound, and there is no voice. Ignashka laughs, shouts to his THE SNOW - STORM 69 horses, whistles, and is hidden from us in a deep, snow- drifted ravine. The old man jumps on horseback, swings his elbows, and wants to gallop away, but cannot move from the spot. My old driver, with the large cap, throws himself upon him, drags him down to the ground, and tramples upon him in the snow. " You wizard ! " he cries, "you scold! Let us wander together!" But the old man knocks a hole through the drift with his head : he is not so much an old man as a rabbit, and he is leap- ing away from us. The counsellor, who is F^dor Klippych, tells us all to sit down in a circle and not to mind being covered up by the snow, for we will be warmer that way. And really, we are warm and comfortable ; only, I want to drink. I take out the lunch-basket, treat everybody to rum and sugar, and myself drink with great pleasure. The story-teller is telling some tale about the rainbow, — and above us there is a ceiling of snow and a rainbow. " Now let us each make a room out of the snow, and let us go to sleep ! " I say. The snow is soft and warm, like fur. I make a room for myself and want to enter it ; but FMor FiJippych, who sees the money in my lunch- basket, says to me: " Hold on ! Give me the money ! We shall have to die anyway ! " and he grabs me by the leg. I give him the money and only ask him to leave me alone ; but they do not believe that this is aU the money I have, and want to kill me. I seize the old man's hand and with unspeakable joy begin to kiss it : the old man's hand is tender and sweet. At first he tears it away from me, then he gives it to me of his own accord, and with his other hand pats me. Still, F4dor Filippych comes to me and threatens me. I run into my room : it is not a room, but a long, white corridor, and somebody holds me by my legs. I tear myself away. 70 THE SNOW-STORM My dress and part of my skin remain in the hands of him who is holding me ; but I am only cold and ashamed, — the more ashamed because my aunt with her parasol and homoeopathic medicine-chest, linking arms with the drowned man, are coming toward me. They are laughing, and do not understand the signs which I am making to them. I throw myself into the sleigh, and my feet trail in the snow ; but the old man is in pursuit of me, swinging his arms. The old man is very close to me, but I listen and I hear two bells ringing in front of me, and I know that I am saved as soon as I reach them. The bells sound louder and louder; but the old man has caught up with me and falls upon my face with his belly, so that the bells can scarcely be heard. I again grasp his hand and begin to kiss it — The old man is not an old man, but the drowned person — and he cries : " Ignashka, stop ! Those are Akhmdt's stacks, I think ! Go and take a look at them ! " " This is too terrible. No, I will wake up — " I opened my eyes. The wind had blown the flap of AMshka's overcoat on my face, and my knee was uncov- ered; we were travelling over the bare crust, and the thirds of the bells could be heard most distinctly with the quivering, fifth. I looked to see the stacks ; but instead of the stacks, I now see, with open eyes, a house with a balcony and the crenelated wall of a fortress. I am not much inter- ested in scrutinizing this house and fortress ; what I want is to see the white corridor, over which I run, and to hear the sound of the church-bell, and to kiss the hand of the old man. I again close my eyes and fall asleep. IX. I SLEPT soundly ; but the third of the bells was all the time audible and now appeared to me in the shape of a dog, barking and jumping at me, and now as an organ, of which I was one pipe, and now as French verses, which I was composing. Then again it appeared to me that this third was some instrument of torture, with which they did not cease compressing my right heel. This sensation was so strong that I awoke and opened my eyes and rubbed my leg. It was beginning to be numb. It was a light, turbid, white night. The same motion pushed me and the sleigh ; the same Igndshka was sitting sidewise and beating his feet together ; the same side horse, stretching its neck and indolently lifting its feet, ran at a trot over the deep snow, while the tassel bobbed up and down on the crupper and switched the horse's belly. The head of the centre horse with the floating mane shook its head in even measure, straining and loosen- ing the reins which were attached to the arch. All that was covered with snow more than ever before. The snow whirled in front; from the side it covered the runners and the feet of the horses up to their knees, and lodged from above on the collars and caps. The wind was now on the right, now on the left; it played with the collar and skirt of Ignashka's cloak and with the mane of the off horse, and moaned over the arch and between the shafts. It became dreadfully cold, and the moment I put my face out of my collar, the frosty, crisp snow, whirling. 7.1 72 THE SNOW -STORM packed itself on my eyelashes, mouth, and nose, and lodged behind my neck. I looked around me, and everything was white, bright, and snowy, — not a thing anywhere but turbid light and snow. I began in earnest to feel terribly. Al^shka was sleeping at my feet and in the very bottom of the sleigh ; his whole back was covered with a dense layer of snow. Igndshka did not lose courage : he kept jerking his reins, shouting, and clapping his feet. The bell sounded just as charmingly. The horses snorted a little, but continued to run, stumbling ever more frequently, and stepping more softly. Ignashka again leaped up, waved his mitten, and started a song in his thin, strained voice. Before finishing it, he stopped the sleigh, threw the reins on the seat, and climbed down. The wind howled furiously; the snow covered the skirts of his fur coat, as though shovelled upon it. I looked around : the third sleigh was not back of us, it had fallen behind somewhere. Near the second sleigh the old man could be discerned through the snow mist, jumping now on one foot, now on the other. Igndshka made about three steps from the sleigh, sat down in the snow, ungirded himself, and began to take off his boots. " What are you doing there ? " I asked. " I must change my boots, else I shall freeze off my feet," he replied, continuing at his work. I was too cold to put my neck out of my collar, in order to see what he was doing. I sat upright, looking at the side horse, which, spreading its feet, in a sickly and tired manner wagged its tied-up and snow-covered tail. The jar which Ignashka caused to the sleigh, as he jumped upon his box, woke me up. " Where are we now ? " I asked. " Shall we get there at least at daybreak ? " " Don't worry : we shall get you there," he replied. " My feet are now quite warm since I have changed my boots." THE SNOW - STORM 73 He started; the bell began to ring, the sleigh once more swayed from side to side, and the wind whistled under the runners. We again navigated the immeasurable sea of snow. X. I FELL soundly asleep. When Al^shka, kicking me with his foot, woke me up, and I opened my eyes, it was day. It seemed even colder than at night. There was no snow from above ; but a stiff, dry wind kept drifting the powdery snow on the field and especially under the hoofs of the horses and under the runners. The sky in the east, to the right of us, was of a dark blue hue and looked leaden ; but the bright, orange, slantiug rays were ever more clearly defined upon it. Overhead, the pale azure of the heaven could be seen back of white, fleet- ing, lightly tinged clouds; on the left the clouds were bright, light, and movable. All about us, so far as the eye could see, the field was covered by white, deep snow, scattered in sharp layers. Here and there could be seen a grayish mound, over which stubbornly swept crisp, powdery snow. Not one track, of sleigh, or man, or baast, was visible. The contour and colours of the driver's back and of the horses could be clearly discerned and were sharply d6fined on the white background. The visor of Ignashka's dark blue cap, his collar, his hair, and even his boots were wliite. The sleigh was completely covered with snow. The gray centre horse had the whole right side of its head and of the top-lock packed with snow; the off horse on my side had its legs covered with snow up to the knee, and on the right side the large sveat-drops were frozen into a roiigh surface. The tassel bobbed up in the same even manner, as though to keep time with any imaginable tune, 54 THE SNOW-STORM 75 and the horse was running as before ; but by its sunken, rising and falling belly and flabby ears one could see how tired it was. There was but one new object to arrest attention: it was a verst-post, from which the snow dropped upon the ground, and near which the wind had drifted a whole mound to the right and was still furiously transferring the crisp snow from one side to another. I was very much astonished to see that we had travelled a whole night for twelve hours with the same horses, without knowing whither we were going or stopping, and yet had managed to come out all right. Our bell seemed to tinkle more cheerfully. Igudshka wrapped himself in his coat and shouted. Behind us the horses snorted, and the bells tinkled on the sleigh of the old man and the counsellor ; but the one who had been asleep was positively lost some- where in the steppe. Having travelled about half a verst, we came across a fresh, not yet covered-up track of a sleigh and trdyka, and occasionally rose-coloured spots of blood, apparently from a horse that had grazed its foot, were seen upon it. " That is Filipp ! I declare, he has got ahead of us ! " said Igndshka. Now a little house with a sign was seen standing all alone in the snow, which had drifted almost up to the roof and windows. Near the inn stood a troyka of gray horses, with a curly nap from the frozen sweat, with outstretched legs and drooping heads. The space before the door was swept clean, and there stood a shovel; but the snow still drifted from the roof, and the moaning wind whirled it about. In reply to the sound of our bells, a tall, red-cheeked, red-haired driver came out of the door, holding a glass of liquor in his hands, and shouted something. Igndshka turned around to me and asked my permission to stop Then, for the firgt time, I saw his physiognomy. XL His face was ^swarthy and lean, and he had a straight nose, just such as I had expected, judging from his hair and build. It was a round, merry, very snub-nosed physiognomy, with an immense mouth, and sparkling, light blue eyes. His cheeks and neck were red, as if rubbed with a piece of cloth ; the eyebrows, the long eye- lashes, and the down which evenly covered the lower part of his face, were packed with snow and entirely white. There was but half a verst left to the station, and we stopped. " Only hurry np ! " I said. "Just one minute," rephed Ign^hka, jumping down from his box, and walking over to Filipp. " Let me have it, friend," he said, taking off the mitten from his right hand and throwing it with the whip on the snow. He threw back his head, and in one gulp emptied the glass of brandy which had been given to him. The innkeeper, no doubt an ex-Cossack, came out of the door with a bottle in his hand. " Who wants some ? " he said. Tall Vasili, a lank, light-haired man, with a goat-like beard, and the counsellor, a stout, white-haired man, with a thick white beard encasing his red face, went up to him and also drank a glass. Tlie old man, too, walked over to the group of the drinking men, but he was not served ; he went back to his horses, which were tied from behind, and began to pat one of them on the back and crupper. 76 THE SNOW - STORM 77 The old man was just as I had imagined him : small, haggard, with a wrinkled, Hvid face, scanty beard, sharp httle nose, and ground-down yellow teeth. He wore a new driver's cap, but his short fur coat, worn off, smeared with tar, and torn at the shoulder and the skirts, did not cover his knees and his hempen nether garment, which was tucked into his huge felt boots. He was all bent and wrinkled, and, with trembling face and knees, was busy about the sleigh, apparently trying to get warm. " "Well, Mitrich, you had better take half a bottle ! It would warm you up," the counsellor said to him. Mitrich was startled. He adjusted the harness of his horse, straightened out the arch, and walked over to me. " Well, sir," he said, taking his cap from off his gray hair, and making a low obeisance, " we have been wander- ing about with you the whole night, looking for the road : you might favour me with a half-bottle. Eeally, sir, your Serenity ! I have nothing to warm myself with," he added, with a servile smile. I gave him twenty-five kopeks. The innkeeper brought out a half -bottle and gave it to the old man. He took off his mitten and the whip, and stretched out his small, black, pockmarked, and somewhat livid hand toward the glass; but the thumb refused to obey him, as though it did not belong to him : he could not hold the glass, and he spilled the brandy and dropped the glass on the snow. All the drivers roared with laughter. " I declare, Mitrich is so frozen that he cannot hold the brandy." Mitrich was very much annoyed at having spilled the drink. However, they filled another glass for him and poured it into his mouth. He immediately became more cheer- ful, ran into the inn, lighted his pipe, began to grin, dis- playing his yellow, ground teeth, and to swear with every 78 THE SNOW-STORM word he spoke. Having finished the last glass, the drivers went back to their sleighs, and we started. The snow grew whiter and brighter, so that one felt blinded looking at it. The orange strips rose higher and higher, and shone brighter and brighter above on the sky ; even the red disk of the sun became visible near the horizon through the steel gray clouds : the azure became more brilliant and darker. On the road, near the village, the track was clear and distinct and of a yellowish consistency, and here and there we crossed over sink-holes ; in the frosty, com- pressed air one could feel a certain agreeable lightness and coolness. My sleigh went very fast. The head of the centre horse and its neck, with its mane fluttering up to the arch, swayed with a rapid motion, almost ia one spot, under the fancier's bell, the tongue of which no longei rang out, but rattled along the walls. The good side horses, tugging together at the frozen, crooked traces, leaped energetically, while the tassel bobbed against the 'belly and the crupper. Occasionally a side horse wan- dered off the beaten road into a snowdrif i, sending up a spray of snow into its eyes, in its attempt to get out again. Ignashka shouted in a merry tenor; the dry frost made the runners shriek ; behind us two little bells were tinkling in a melodious and holiday fashion, and I could hear the drunken exclamations of the drivers. I looked back: the gray, curly side horses, stretching out their necks and breathing evenly, their bits awry, leaped over the snow. Filipp adjusted his cap, waving the whip ; the old man lay in the middle of the sleigh, his legs being raised as before. Two minutes later the sleigh creaked over the planks of the swept driveway of the station, and Ign&hka turned to me his snow-covered, frost-exhahng, merry face. " We have brought you here after all, sir ' " he sajd- MEMOIRS OF A MARKER 1856 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER It was about three o'clock. The following gentlemen were playing : the big guest (that's the way our people called him), the prince (the one that travels with him all the time), and then the whiskered gentleman, the little hussar, Oliver, the one that was an actor, and the Pan? There was a good crowd of people. The big guest was playing with the priace. I was just walking all around the table, with the rest in my hand, and counting : ten and forty-eight, twelve and forty-eight. You know what it is to be a marker : I had not had a bite in my mouth, and had not slept for two nights, still I had to keep calling out and taking out the balls. As I was counting, I looked around, and saw a new gentleman had come in through the door: he just looked, and looked, and then sat down on a sofa. All right. " I wonder who he may be ? What kind of a fellow,. I mean ? " was what I thought to myself. He was neatly dressed, so neatly, as though the gar- ments had just come from the tailor: checkered tricot trousers, fashionable coat, short plush waistcoat, and gold chain, with all kinds of things hanging down from it. He was neatly dressed, and he himself looked neater still : he was slender, tall, hair curled toward the front, 1 Polish and Little-Eussian' word, meaning "gentleman." SI 82 MEMOIES OF A MARKER latest fashion, and his face white, with ruddy cheeks, — well, in short, a fine fellow. Of course, in our business, we see a lot of people : big bugs, and all kinds of trash ; and so, though you are a marker, you learn to size up people, that is, in case you have some gumption in politics. I looked at the gentleman, and I. saw that he was sit- ting quietly and was not acquainted with- any one, and his dress was the pink of perfection. So I thought to myself : " He is either a foreigner, one of those Enghsh- men, or some transient count. Though he looks young, he is a somebody." Oliver was sitting near him, and he even shied from him. The game was finished ; the big one had lost, and he shouted to me : " You," says he, " are lying. You are not counting right, — you are looking sidewise all the time." He cursed, flung down the cue, and went away. Curse them ! He is in the habit of playing a fifty-rouble game with the prince, and here he has lost a bottle of Macon, and is out of sorts. Such is his character. Many a time he plays with the prince until two o'clock at night ; they don't put any money into the pocket, and I know that neither the one nor the other has any, and that they are only putting on. " From twenty-five a corner," says he, " is it a go ? " "It is!" Let me just yawn, or not put a ball right, — a man is iiot made of stone ! — then I catch it. " We are not playing for chips, but for money ! " This one gets after me worse than anybody else. Well, all right. After the big one left, the prince turned to the new gentleman : " Wouldn't you like to have a game with me ? " " With pleasure," says he. While he was sitting he looked a regular doll, and MEMOIES OF A MARKER 83 such an important man ; but the moment he got up and walked over to the table, he lost his courage, — not exactly lost his courage, but evidently he was not in spirits. Either he did not feel comfortable in his new clothes, or he was afraid because they were all looking on, — only there was not that go to him. He was walking somehow sidewise, and catching his trousers in the table pockets, and if he began to chalk the cue, he dropped the chalk. If he did make a ball, he kept looking around and blush- ing. Not so the prince : he was used to it. He chalked the cue and his hand, rolled up his sleeve, and smashed the balls into the pockets, small though he was. They played two or three games, — I do not remember which, — when the prince put down the cue and said : " Permit me to ask your name." '■ Nekhlyudov," says he. " Your father," says he, " commanded a corps ? " " Yes," says he. Then they began talking in French, and I could not understand them. I suppose they went over their fam- ilies. « Au revoir," said the prince. " I am very glad to have made your acquaintance." He washed his hands and went to get something to eat, while the other remained at the table with the cue> pushing the balls. Of course, it is our business to be as rude to a new man as possible, so I began to pile up the balls. He blushed and said : " May I play some more ? " " Of course," says I ; " that is what a billiard-table is for." At the same time I paid no attention to him, but put away the cues. " Do you want to play with me ? " " Of course, sir," says I. 84 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER He put down the balls. " Shall it be a crawl ? " " What is a crawl ? " says he. " It's like this," says I, " you pay me half a rouble, and I crawl under the table." Of course, not having seen such a thing, it seemed strange to him, and he laughed. " All right," says he. "Very well." So I say: "How much will you give me?" " Do you play worse than I ? " says he. " Naturally," says I, " there are few players here who can take it up with you." We began to play^ He really thought he was a great one : he banged the balls dreadfully. The Pan sat there and kept repeating all the time : " Now that is a ball ! That is a hit ! " But what was it ? It is true he hit the balls, but there was no calculation in them. As is proper, I lost the first game ; I crawled under the table, groaning. Then Oliver and the Pan jumped up from their places and struck the floor with the cues. " Fine ! More ! " they cried. " More ! " They were crying" More ! " but the Pan would for half a rouble iiot only crawl under the table but under the Blue Bridge as well. He kept shouting : " Fine ! But you have not yet wiped iip all the dust ! " I am Petrushka the marker, and, I think, everybody knows me. There was Tyiirik, and now it is Petrushka the marker. Of course I did not show my game : I lost another. " I," says I, " cannot play with you, sir." He laughed. Later, when I had won three games, — and he had forty-nine and I nothing, — I put the cue down on the table and said : " Sir, shall you go the whole ? " MEMOIRS OP A. MARKER 85 " What do you mean ? " says he. " Either you owe me three roubles, or nothing." " What," says he, " am I playing with you for money ? Fool ! " He even blushed. Very well. He lost the game. '' Enough," says he. He drew out his pocketbook, — it was such a new one, bought in an English shop ; he opened it, and I saw he wanted to show off. It was chockful of money, — nothing but hundred-rouble bills. " I have no small change here." He fetched three roubles out of his purse. " Here are two roubles for the games, and the rest is for you, to buy drinks with." I thanked him most humbly. I saw he was a fine gentleman ! It would not hurt to crawl under the table for such a one. The pity was he would not play for money ; if he did, I should have managed to pull twenty or forty roubles out of him. When the Pan saw the money which the young gen- tleman had, " Should you not like to play a game with me ? " says he. " You play so nicely." He approached him Uke a fox. " No," says he, " excuse me ; I have no time." And he went away. I do not know who he really was, I mean the Pan. Somebody called him Pan, and that name has remained with him ever since. He used to sit day in and day out in the billiard-room, looking on. He was not invited to any game ; but he sat there, smoking a pipe which he carried with him. He played a clean game. All right. Nekhlyudov came a second time, and a third time ; he began to come often. He would arrive in the morning and in the evening. The English game, pool, fifteen-ball game, — he learned everything. He grew 86 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER bolder, became acquainted with everybody, and began to play a decent game. Of course, he was a young man, of a great family, with money, — and so everybody respected him. But he once had a quarrel with the big guest. The whole thing started from mere trifles. They were playing pool: the prince, the big guest, Nekhlyudov, Oliver, and somebody else. Nekhlyiidov was standing near the stove and speaking with some one, and it was the big one's turn to play. It so hap- pened that his ball was exactly opposite the stove ; it was a tight place, and he liked to play with a swinging stroke. Either he did not see Nekhlyiidov, or, maybe, he did it on purpose, only as he swung back to strike his ball, he gave Nekhlyiidov an awful whack in the chest with the butt. The poor fellow just groaned. Well? He was so rude, — . he did not even excuse himself. He went on playing and did not even look at him ; and he grumbled : " What business has one to stand there ? I lost a ball through it. There is plenty of room elsewhere." The other went up to him, and he was so pale, and he said to him politely, as though nothing had happened : '' You ought to ask my pardon first, sir. You have pushed me," says he. " I do not feel like asking any pardon now. I ought to have won," says he, " and now," says he, " somebody else will make my ball." So he again says to him : " You must ask my pardon ! " " Get away," says he. " Don't bother me ! " And he kept looking at his ball. Nekhlyiidov went up closer to him, and took him by the arm. " You are a boor, dear sir," says he. Though he was slender and young, like a fair maiden, there was fight in him : his eyes burned, as though he MEMOIRS OF A MARKER S7 wanted to eat him up. The big guest was a tall, strong man, and no match for Nekhlyiidov. " What ? " says he, " I am a boor ? " He just shouted at him and raised liis hand on him. Then all that were there seized their arms, and they were pulled away from each other. They palavered, and then Nekhlyudov said : " He must give me satisfaction, — he has insulted me." " I do not want to hear anything about satisfaction, — he is a mere boy, and nothing more. I will pull his ears for him." " If you do not wish to give me satisfaction," says he, " you are not a gentleman." And he almost burst out weeping. " You," says he, " are an urchin, and you can't insult me." Well, they were taken apart, to different rooms, as is always done under the circumstances. Nekhlyudov ana the prince were friends. " Go," says he, " for the Lord's sake, and persuade him — " The prince went. The big one said : " I," says he, " am not afraid of anything. I will have no explanations with an urchin. I won't, and that is the end of it." Well, they spoke and spoke, and stopped ; but the big guest quit coming to our place. What a rooster he was in respect to this matter, — how ambitious — I mean Nekhlyudov ; but he did not have much gumption in anything else. I remember once: "Whom have you here?" the prince said to Nekh- lyiidov. " Nobody," says he. " How," says he, " nobody ? " " Why should there be ? " says he. " Why should there be ? " 88 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER " I," says he, " have lived so until now, so why can't I keep it up?" " You did live so ? Impossible ! " And he roared with laughter, and the whiskered gen- tleman roared, too. They just made fun of him. " You mean to say, never ? " they said. " Never ! " They almost died with laughter. I immediately saw that they were making fun of him, and so I watched to see what would happen. " Let us go there at once," said the prince. " No, for nothing in the world," says he. " Nonsense ! It is too ridiculous," says he. " Come ' " They drove away. They came back about one o'clock. They sat down to supper. There were a lot of them, — the very finest gentlemen : Atanov, Prince E^zin, Count Shust^kh, Mir- tsov. And they all congratulated Nekhlyiidov and laughed. They called me in, and I saw that they were very jolly- " Congratulate the gentleman," they said. " On what ? " says I. What was it he said ? I do not remember whether he said imitation or initiation. " I have the honour," says I, " to congratulate you." He sat there, blushing and smiling. How they did laugh ! All right. Then they came to the billiard-room, and they were all so jolly; he walked over to the billiard- table, leaned over it, and said : " You," says he, "find it funny, but I am sad. Why," says he, " did I do it ? I shall never in my life forgive you, prince," says he. And he just burst out into tears. Of course, he did not know himself what he was saying. The prince walked over to him, smiling. MEMOIRS OF A MARKER 89 " Nonsense ! That will do ! Come, let us go home, Anatdli ! " " I sha'n'fc go anywhere," says he. " Why did I do it ? " And he wept more than ever. He would not leave the table. That's what comes of a young man not being used to it — And so he used to come often to our establishment. He once came with the prince and the whiskered gentle- man who always went with the prince. The gentlemen called him Feddtka. He had such high cheek-bones, and he was so homely, but he was neatly dressed and travelled in a coach. I really can't make out why they liked him so much. " Fedotka here, Feddtka there," and they gave liim to eat and drink, and paid his bills. He was such a cheat : if he lost, he did not pay, but if he won, look out ! He had everything of the best — and he walked with the prince, linking arms with him. " You," says he, " are lost without me. I am Feddt," says he, " like the rest I am not." What a jester ! Very well. They arrived. They said : " Let us three have a pool ! " " All right," says he. They began to play at three-rouble stakes. Nekhlyil- dov and the prince were talking together. " You just see," says he, " what a pretty foot she has. No," says he, " not her foot, her braid is beautiful." Of course, they paid no attention to the game, for they were talking together all the time. Feddtka kept his head level and rolled them off nicely, while they either missed or made fouls. He pocketed six roubles from each. He and the prince had God knows what kind of count between them, for they never paid each other, but Nekhlyiidov drew out two green bills and handed them to him. " No," says he, " I will not take the money from you. Let us play a straight game : gui tout double, that is, either double or nothing." 9C MEMOIRS OF A MARKER I placed the balls. Fedotka got the lead, and they began to play. Nekhlyudov scattered the balls, just to show o£f. At times he would hesitate at the game. " No," says he, " it is too easy." But Feddtka did not forget his advan- tage, and just waited for a chance. Of course, he did not at first show his game, and won a game as though by chance. " Let us play for the whole," says he. " All right." He won again. " It began with a trifle," says he. " I do not want to win so much from you. Does it go for the whole ? " " It goes." Whatever it was, fifty roubles was quite a sum and so Nekhlyudov began to ask, " Let us play for the whole." And so it went, further and further, growing larger and larger, until he had made 280 roubles on him. Peddtka knew what to do : he always lost a straight game, and won a double. The prince sat and looked on, and when he saw that it was getting serious, he said : " Assez ! " Not a bit of it ! They kept increasing the stakes. Finally it went so far that Nekhlyudov owed him more than five hundred roubles. Feddtka put down the cue and said: " Haven't you enough ? I am tired." In reality he was ready to play until daybreak, pro- vided there was money in it : of course, it was all calcu- lation with him. The other wanted now to play worse than ever : " Let us have one more ! " " No, upon my word, I am tired. Come," says he, " up- stairs ; there you may have your revenge." Up-stairs the gentlemen played cards. Ever since Feddtka did him up, he began to come every day to our establishment. He would play a game or two, nnd then he would go up-stairs. MEMOIRS OF A MARKER 91 God knows what went on up-stairs, only he became a different man ; but everything went right with Peddtka. Formerly he used to come fashionably dressed, clean, his beard and hair nicely trimmed, but now he looked right only in the morning ; when he came back from up- stairs it was hard to recognize him. Once he came down that way with the prince, and he was pale, and his lips quivered, and he spoke excitedly. " I will not permit him," says he, " to tell me (what did he call it) that I am not civil, or some such word, and that he will not play with me. I," says he, " have paid out five thousand to him, and so he might have been more careful before others." " Come now," says the prince, " is it worth while to be angry with Feddtka ? " " No," says he, " I will not leave it so." " Stop ! " says he. " How can you so lower yourself as to have an affair with Fedotka ? " " But there were strangers present." " What of it if there were ? " says he. " If you want me to I will make him ask your forgiveness this very minute." " No," says he. Then they muttered something in French, and I could not understand them. Well ? That very evening he again ate supper with Feddtka, and the old friendship was renewed. All right. Once he came all alone. " Well," says he, " do I play well ? " Of course, it is our business to please everybody, so I said : " Very well ! " But it was not well at all ; he just knocked thie balls at random, without any calculation. From the time he had taken up with Feddtka, he began to play for money. Before, he would not play for the supper or for the champagne. The prince would say : " Let us play for a bottle of champagne ! " 92 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER " No," says he, " I will order a bottle brought anyway, Ho there, bring us a bottle ! " But now he played only for money. He came every day to our place ; either he pla,yed billiards with some one or he went up-stairs. So I began to think, Why should others profit by him, and not I ? " Well, sir," I said to him, " you have not played with me for quite awhile." So we began to play. When I had won about ten half-roubles of him, I said : " Would you hke, sir, to play for the whole ? " He was silent. He did not call me fool as the time before. And so we began to play, all the time for the whole amount, until I won about eighty roubles of him. Well ? He began to play with me every day. He would just wait for no one to be present, for before strangers he was, naturally, ashamed to play with the marker. Once he became quite excited, and he owed me about sixty roubles. " Do you want," says he, " to play for the whole ? " " It goes," says I I won. " Hundred and twenty against hundred and twcmty ? " " It goes," says 1. I won once mor«. "Two hundred and forty against two hundred and forty ? " " Is it not a little too much ? " says I. He was silent. We began to play ; again my game. " Four hundred and eighty against four hundred and eighty ? " I said: " I do not wish to take advantage of you, sir. Let it be one hundred roubles, or else leave it as it is." How he yelled out at me ! Otherwise he was such a meek man. " Play, or don't play / " MEMOIRS OF A MARKEE 93 I saw there was nothing to do. " Three hundred and eighty," says I, " if you please." Of course, I lost on purpose. I gave him forty points. He had fifty-two, and I thirty-six. He let himself loose on the yellow ball and made eighteen points. Mine was on the roll. I hit the ball so that it should jump out; but no, i' turned out a double. Again it was my game. "Listen," says he, "Peter" (he did not call me Pe trushka), " I cannot pay you the whole now ; but in two months I could pay you three thousand if it were neces- sary." And he himself blushed dreadfully, and his voice trembled. " All right, sir," says I. He put away the cue. He walked up and down, and the perspiration just rolled down from him. " Peter," says he, " let us play for the whole ! " He almost wept as he said this. I said : " What use is there in plaiying, sir ! " " Gome, let us play ! " He brought me a cue himself. I took the cue, and so threw all the balls down on the table so that they fell down on the floor, — of course I had to show off. I said to him : " All right, sir ! " He was in such a hurry that he himself lifted up a ball. I thought to myself : " I won't get the seven hun- dred roubles, so I might as well lose." I began to make blunders. Well ? " Why,'' says he, " do you purposely play so badly ? " His own hands were trembling ; and when a ball rolled toward a pocket, he opened wide his fingers, screwed up his mouth, and his head and hands stretched out toward the pocket. I said to him : 94 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER " You don't help the ball that way, sir." All right. So he won this game, and I said : " One hundred and eighty roubles are against you and one hundred and fifty games; but I want to get my supper." I put up the cue and went out. I sat down at a small table, near the door, and began to watch him to see that he would do. Well ? He walked and walked, — I suppose he thought no- body saw him, — and kept puUing his hair, — and again he walked, and mumbled, and tore his hair dreadfully ! Then I did not see him for about eight days. He came once to the dining-room, and he looked so gloomy, and did not go to the bilUard-room. The prince noticed him : " Come, let us have a game ! " says he. " No," says he, " I will not play again." " Come, now, let us have a game ! " " No," says he, " I will not go. It will do you no good, if I go, but it will make me feel bad." So he did not come for about ten days. Then, on a holiday, he came in his evening dress, — evidently he had been out calling, — and he remained the whole day ; he played all the time ; he came back the next and the third day — Everything went as of old. I wanted to play ■with him again. " No," says he, " I will not play with you. The one hundred and eighty roubles which I owe you, you will get next month if you call at my house." Very well. I called in a month. " Upon my word," says he, " I have no money. Come back on Thursday ! " I came on Thursday, — he had such fine apartments. " Is the gentleman at home ? " says I. " He is resting," they said. MEMOIRS OP A MARKER 95 " All right, I will wait." He had a valet of his own ; he was such a gray-haired old man, — so simple and artless. We began to talk together. " What," says he, " are we doing here ? My master has been squandering all his money, and there is no honour nor advantage for us from this St. Petersburg. As we were coming from the village we thought that we should be calling on princes, counts, and generals, as we used to do when the lady — the kingdom of heaven be hers — was alive ; we thought that we should get some regal maiden, with a dowry, and we should live in right lordly fashion. But it turns out that we are only run- ning from one restaurant to another — it's very bad ! Princess Etishchev is an aunt of ours, and Prince Boro- t^ntsev is our grandfather. Well ? He was there only once, at Christmas, and otherwise does not show up there. The people just make fun of me : ' Your master,' they say, ' is not a bit like his father.' So I once said to him : " ' Why, sir, do you not call on your aunt ? She is anxious to see you.' " ' It is dull there, Demyanych,' says he. " It is dreadful — all the pleasure he finds is in res- taurants. If he only served, but no, that he won't do. He is doing nothing but playing cards, and so forth ; such things never lead to anything good — Oh, we are per- ishing, perishing for nothing ! The defunct lady — the kingdom of heaven be hers — has left us a very fine estate of more than three thousand souls, and there was more than three hundred thousand roubles' worth of timber. He has mortgaged everything, has sold the timber, ruined the estate, and there is nothing left. Without the mas- ter the superintendent is naturally more than the master. What does he care ? All he wants is to fill his pockets, if everything goes to the dogs. The other day two peas- ants came to complain in the name of the whole estate. 96 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER -' ' He has completely ruined the estate,' they said. "Well? He read the complaint, gave the peasants ten roubles each, and said : ' I will soon be there myself. As soon as I get money,' says he, ' I will pay my debts, and then I will go to the country.' " How can he pay what he owes, when we have been doing nothing but making debts ? This one winter which we have been here we have squandered eighty thousand at the very least ; now there is not a silver rouble in the house. All this comes from his virtue. He is such a simple master. It is this which ruins him so, ruins him so completely." The old man almost wept. He awoke at about eleven o'clock, and he called me in. " They have not sent me any money," says he, " but it is not my fault. Shut the door," says he. I shut the door. " Here," says he, " take my watch or diamond scarf-pin, and pawn it. They will give you more than one hundred and eighty roubles for it, and when I get the money I will redeem it," says he. " Well, sir, if you have no money, it can't be helped ; I will take the watch. I will do it for you." I saw that the watch was worth at least three hundred roubles. All right. I pawned the watch for one hundred roubles, and brought him the receipt. " You will owe me eighty roubles, and you can redeem the watch yourself." He has been owing me these eighty roubles ever sinca And thus he began to come to our place every day, I do not know what kind of calculations they had, but he always came with the prince, or he went with Feddtka up-stairs to play. The three had some very queer accounts : now this one gave to that one, now that one MEMOIRS OF A MARKER ^^ to this one, and I could not make out who was owing whom. He used to come to us for about two years in this manner. But he now looked quite different: he grew bold, and sometimes went so far as to borrow a rouble from me with which to pay the cabman ; and he played with the prince at a hundred roubles a game. He now looked gloomy, lean, and yellow. When he came, he at once asked for a wine-glass of absinthe, a lunch of anchovy sandwiches, and port with them; then he became more cheerful. Once he came before dinner, during the Butter-week, and began to play with some hussar. "Do you wish," says he, "to make the game inter- esting ? " " I don't mind it," says he. " What shall it be ? " " A bottle of Clos-Vougeot, if you wish." « It goes." All right. The hussar won the game, and they sat down to eat. When they were at the table, Nekhlyiidov said: " Simon ! A bottle of Clos-Vougeot ; be sure and have it well warmed." Simon went away and brought the dinner, but not the bottle. " Where is the wine ? " Simon ran away and brought the roast. " Let us have the wine," says he. Simon was silent. " Are you crazy ? We are finishing our dinner, and the wine is not yet here. Who would drink wine with the dessert?" Simon ran away. " The proprietor," says he, " wants to see you." He blushed all over, and jumped out from behind the table. 98 MEMOIRS OV A MARKER " What is it," says he, " that he wants ? " The proprietor was standing at the door. " I cannot trust you any more," says he, " if you do not pay me your bill." "I told you," says he, "that I would pay you about the 1st." " As you please, but I cannot give you on trust all the time, and receive nothing. As it is I lose," says he, " tens of thousands in debts." " Don't say that, mon cher ! " says he. " You may trust me. Send me a bottle, and I will try and pay you as soon as possible." And he himself ran away. " Why have they called you oiit ? " says the hussar. " He asked me a certain thing.'' " It would be a line thing," says the hussar, " to drink a glass of warm wine now." "Well, Simon?" My Simon ran away. Again there was no wine, nothing. Pretty bad. He rushed away from the table, and came to me. "For God's sake, Petrushka, let me have six rou- bles!" He looked beside himself. "I have no money, upon my word, and, as it is, you owe me a great deal." " I will give you forty for six," says he, " in a week." " If I had any I should not dare refuse it to you ; but, upon my word, I have no money." Well? He jumped away, set his teeth, clenched his fists, ran up and down the corridor like one mad, and banged his forehead. " Lord," says he, " what is this ? " He did not even go back to the dining-room, but jumped into a carriage, and drove off. How they laughed at him ! The hussar said : MEMOIRS OF, A MARKER 99 "Where is the gentleman that has been dining with me?" " He has gone,", they said to him. " How gone ? What word did he leave ? " "He did not leave any word. He just sat down in the carriage, and rode off." " He is a fine goose," says he. Well, I thought that after such disgrace he would not come back. But no, he came back on the following evening. He went to the billiard-room, and brought with him some kind of a box. He took off his overcoat. " Let us play," says he. He scowled and looked angry. We played a game. " Enoiigh," says he. " Bring me pen and paper ! I want to write a letter." Without thinking much I brought some paper and put it ,on the table in the small room. " It's all ready, sir," says I. Very well. He sat down at the table. He kept writing and writing, and muttering something all the time. Then he jumped up, with a frown : " Go and see whether my carriage is there ! " It was on a Friday of Butter-week when there were no guests present : they were all attending balls. I went to find out about the carriage, but I had barely gone outside the door, when he called : " Petrilshka ! Petriishka ! " as though he were frightened. I returned. I saw he stood up, as pale as a sheet, and looked at me. " Have you called me, sir ? " He was silent. " What do you wish ? " says I. He was silent. " Oh, yes ! Let us play one more game," says he, Very well. He woo the giime, 100 MEMOIRS OF A MARKER " Well," says he, " have I learned to play a good game ? " " Yes," says I. " That's it. Go now, and find out about the carriage ! " He himself walked up and down in the room. Without thinking about anything, I went out on the porch. I saw that there was no carriage there, so I went back. As I was walking back I heard a sound, as though some one had thumped with the cue. I walked into the billiard-room, and there was a strange odour there. Lo, there he was lying on the floor, all in blood, and the pistol was thrown away near him. I was so fright- ened that I could not say a word. He jerked and jerked his leg, and now stretched him- self. Then he seemed to snore and began to spread himself out. Why this misfortune happened to him, why he took his life, God alone knows. He left that piece of paper, other- wise I can't make it out at all. Queer things happen in the world ! " God has given me everything whicn a man can wish : wealth, a name, intelligence, noble striving. I wanted to enjoy myself, and have trampled in the mud everything good that there was in me. " I am not disgraced, not unhappy, have committed no crime ; but I have done something worse : I have killed my feelings, my reason, my youth. " I am enmeshed in a dirty net, from which I cannot free myself, and to which I cannot become accustomed. I am constantly falling, falling, and I feel my fall and cannot stop. " What has ruined me ? Did I have any strong passion which might justify me ? No. MEMOIRS OF A MARKEfe 101 '•■ I have pleasant recollections ! " One terrible minute of oblivion, which I shall never forget, made me come to my senses. I was horrified when I saw what an immeasurable abyss divided me from what I wished to be and could be. In my imagina- tion arose hopes, dreams, and thoughts of youth. " Where are those bright thoughts of life, of eternity, of God, which used to fill my soul with such distinctness and force ? Where is the objectless power of love which with cheering heat warmed my soul ? " Oh, how good and happy I might have been, if I had continued on the path which, upon entering life, my fresh mind and childlike, genuine feelings had discovered ! More than once did I try to leave .the rut in which my life was running, and to get back to this bright path. I said to myself, ' I will employ all the powers which I have,' and I could not. When I was left alone, I felt awkward and strange in regard to myself. When I was with others, I did not hear my inner voice at all, and I fell lower and lower. " Finally I reached the terrible conviction that I could not rise, stopped thinking of it, and wanted to forget myself ; but hopeless repentance agitated me more strongly .still. Then I was for the first time assailed by the thought of suicide, "I used to think that the proximity of death would elevate my soul. I was mistaken. In fifteen minutes I shall be no more, and my view has not changed. I see, hear, think in the same way ; there is the same strange inconsistency, frailness, and frivolity in my thoughts." TWO HUSSARS 1856 TWO HUSSARS ' ' Jomiui and Jomiui But of brandy not a word." — D. Davtdot. In one of the first decades of tlie nineteenth century, when there were not yet any railways, nor avenues, nor gas, nor stearine candles, nor low spring divans, nor un- varnished furniture, nor disenchanted youths with mcn- ocles, nor liberalizing, philosophical women, nor ch&rming dames-aux-camelias, of whom there is such a large brood in our day, — in those naive times, when leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow, in a wagon or carriage, people took with them a whole kitchen of home-made victuals, and travelled for eight days over a soft, or dusty, or muddy road, and believed in Pozharski cutlets and Val- day bells and cracknel rings ; when, in the long autumn evenings they burned tallow dips to illumine domestic circles consisting of twenty or thirty members, and at balls they put in candelabra wax tapers or spermaceti candles ; when furniture was placed symmetrically ; when our fathers were young, not only by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but were ready to have shooting affrays for women, and to rush, forward from the remote corner of the room in order to pick up accidentally or even not accidentally, dropped handkerchiefs ; while our mothers wore short waists and enormous sleeves, and 105 106 TWO HUSSARS decided domestic affairs by the drawing of lottery ; when charming dames - aux - camelias shunned daylight, — in those naive days of Masonic lodges, Martinists, Tugend- biinds, in the days of Miloradovich, Dav^dov, Pushkin, there was a meeting of the landed proprietors in K , the capital of a government, and the elections of nobility were just coming to an end " I don't care, even if it be in the parlour," said a young officer, in a fur coat and hussar cap, who had just stepped out of a stage sleigh and was entering the best hotel in K . " There is such an enormous meeting, your Serenity,'' said the hotel servant, who had had time to find oiit from the orderly that the hussar's name was Count Turbin, and who, therefore, honoured him with " your Serenity." " Proprietress Afrdmov with her daughters has promised to leave in the evening : you will occupy it as soon as it is free, — number eleven," he said, softly stepping through the corridor, in front of the count, and continually looking around. In the guest-hall, at a small table and near a dulled, full-sized portrait of Emperor Alexander, there sat at soine champagne several native gentlemen, so it seemed, and to one side some transient merchants, in blue fur coats. Walking into the room and calling in Bliicher, an immense gray bulldog which had arrived with him, the count threw off his overcoat, from the collar of which the hoarfrost had not yet disappeared, asked for brandy, and, wearing his blue velvet short coat, seated himself at the table and entered into a conversation with the gentlemen who were sitting there ; these, at once favourably disposed toward the handsome newcomer with the frank exterior, offered him a glass of champagne. The count at first emptied a small glass of brandy, then himself asked foj- a 107 108 TWO HUSSARS bottle in order to treat the new acquaintances. The driver came in to ask a pourloire. " S^shka, give him some ! " exclaimed the count. The driver went out with Sashka and returned, holding the money in his hand. ■ " Your Excellency, I think I have tried as hard as I could for you ! You promised me half a rouble, and he offered me only a quarter ! " " Sashka, give him a rouble ! " Sashka looked abashed at the driver's feet. " It will do for him," he said, in a bass voice, " and, besideSj I have no more money." The count took out of his pocketbook the only two blue bills that were in it, and gave one of these to the driver, who kissed his hand and went out. "Here I am," said the count, "with my last five roubles." " In hussar fashion, count," smiling, remarked one of the noblemen, who, to judge from his moustache, his voice, and a certain energetic agility in his legs, was an ex-cav- alryman. " Do you intend to stay here long, count ? " " I have to get some money, or else I should not stay here. Besides, they have no rooms — the devil skin them — in this damned dram-shop — " " Permit me, count," retorted the cavalryman, " to offer you my room ? I am here, in number seven. Maybe you will not disdain to stay overnight with me. You had better stay two or three days with us. To-night there is going to be a ball at the marshal's. He would be so glad to see you ! " " Eeally, count, be our guest," interposed another of the interlocutors, a handsome young man. '' What is the use in hurrying off? You know, elections take place but once in three years. You ought to take a look at our young ladies, count ! " " Sashka, let me have clean underwear : I will go to the TWO HUSSAKS 109 bath-house," said the count, getting up. " From there, maybe, I will actually make for the marshal's." Then he called up the hotel servant to tell him some- thing, to which the servant, smiling, repHed that it was " all the work of human hands," and went out. " So, my friend, 1 will order them to take my portman- teau to your room," the count called out beyond the door. " If you please ; you will make me happy," replied the cavalryman, running up to the door. " Number seven, don't forget ! " When his steps died away, the cavalryman returned to his seat and, moving up closer to the official, and looking straight at him with his smiling eyes, said : " That is that very fellow ! " " Indeed ? " " I tell you he is that same duelling hussar, — well, that same Tiirbin. He recognized me, I will wager, he did. Why, he and I caroused together at Lebedyan for three weeks in succession, when I was connected with the remount department. There was a fine trick we once played together. He is a brick, isn't he ? " " He is. How agreeable he is of address ! Nothing of the kind could be suspected," replied the handsome young man. " How easily we became acquainted ! — How old is he, twenty-five ? " " No, he looks so, but he is older. You ought to know the kind of a fellow he is ! Who ravished Miss Migundv ? He. He killed Sablin ; Matnev he put out of the window by his legs ; he won three hundred thousand of Prince N^sterov. I tell you, he is a desperate chap : a gambler, duellist, seducer, but a soulful hussar, — I tell you he is a dear. It's really glorious for us ; if people only knew what it means to be a genuine hussar ! Ah, what times those were ! " The cavalryman narrated to his companion the Lebed- yan carousal with the count, such a one as had never been 110 TWO HUSSARS nor ever could have been. It could not have been, in the first place, because he had never before seen the count, and because he had left the service two years before the count had entered it, and, in the second, because the cav- alryman had really never served in the cavalry, but had for four years been a most modest yunker in the By^levski regiment, and had left the army just as he had been advanced to the dignity of an ensign. Ten years before he, having received an inheritance, had actually gone to Lebedy^, where he spent seven hundred roubles with the remount officers, and ordered a uhlan uniform with orange facings, as he intended to join the uhlans. His desire to become a cavalryman and the three weeks passed at Lebedydn with the remount officers remained the bright- est, happiest period of his life, so that he at first trans- ferred this desire into reality, then into recollection, and finally began firmly to believe himself in his cavalry past, which did not keep him from being a truly worthy man, as regards gentleness and honesty. "Yes, he who has not seived in the cavalry will never be able to understand us fellows.'' He bestrode the chair and, thrusting forward his lower jaw, began to speak in a bass voice. " I would be riding in front of my squadron ; under me a demon, and not a horse, rearing all the time, and T upon it, a demon myself. Up would gallop the commander of the squadron at inspection. ' Lieutenant,' says he, ' please, without you there will be nothing, — lead out the squadron in parade fashion.' Very well, and I would look around and shout at my whiskered fellows — The devil take it, it was a great time ! " The count came back, all red and with wet hair, from the bath-house, and walked at once into number seven, where the cavalryman was sitting, in morning-gown and smoking a pipe, reflecting with delight and a certain meas- ure of fear on the happiness which had fallen to his share, — to live in the saroe room with famous Turbin. " Sup- TWO HtJSSAHS 111 pose How/' it occurred to him, " he will suddenly take and undress me and carry me naked beyond the toll-gate to drop me in the snow, or — he will tar me, or simply — no, he will not do it, as a friend — " he consoled himself. " Sashka, feed BlUcher ! " shouted the count. Sashka made his appearance. He had braced himself from the journey with a glass of brandy and was quite intoxicated. " You could not stand it any longer, and got drunk, you canaille ! Feed Bliicher ! " " He won't starve as it is ! How smooth he is ! " replied Sashka, patting the dog. " Shut up ! Get out and feed him ! " " All you care for is for the dog to be fed ; but if a man takes a dram, you berate him." " Look out, I'll thrash you ! " shouted the hussar in such a voice that the window-panes rattled and the cav- alryman became a little -frightened. " You ought to ask whether Sashka has had anything to eat to-day. All right, strike me, if your dog is more to you than a man," Sdshka muttered, and at the same time received such a terrible blow with the fist in his face that he fell down, struck his head against the partition, and, clutching his nose with both his hands, rushed out of tne door and fell in a lump on the clothes-chest in the corridor. " He has smashed my teeth," growled Sashka, with one hand wiping his bleeding nose, and with the other scratch- ing the back of Bliicher, who was licking himself. " He has smashed my teeth, Bluch, but still he is my count, do you understand, Bluch ? Do you want to eat ? " Having lain awhile, he got up, fed the dog, and, almost sobered up, went in to attend to his master and offer him tea. " You will simply offend me," the cavalryman said, timidly, standing in front of the count, who was lying on 112 TWO HUSSARS his bed, with his feet raised above the partition. " I am myself an old soldier and a comrade, I may say. What is the use of your borrowing from anybody else, as long as I am only too happy to let you have two hundred rou- bles ? I have not the sum just now, but only one hun- dred; however, I shall get it this very day. You will simply offend me, count ! " " Thanks, friend," said the count, immediately perceiv- ing the kind of relations that ought to be established between them and patting the cavalryman's shoulder, " thanks ! If so, let us go to the ball ! What are we going to do now ? Tell me what you have in town here. Any pretty girls here ? Any carousers ? Any card-players here?" The cavalryman explained that there would be a mass of pretty women at the ball ; that Kolkov, the chief of the rural police, lately elected, was the biggest carouser, but that he lacked the true hussar dash, though he was other- wise a good old fellow ; that Ilyushka's gipsy choir, with St^shka for a starter, had been singing in town since the beginning of the elections, and that in the evening every- body would go to hear them after the ball at the marshal's. " There is some fine gambling going on, too," he said. " Lukhnov, a stranger, is playing for money, and Ilin, who occupies number eight, a cornet of uhlans, has been losing a lot. It has begun there already. They are playing every evening, and I tell you, count, Ilin is a fine fellow : he is not in the least stingy, but will give away his last shirt." " So let us go to him ! We shall see what sort of people they are," said the count. " Let us go, let us go ! They will be awfully glad ! " II. CoENET Ilin had just wakened. On the previous even- ing he had sat down to the game at eight o'clock, playing fifteen hours straight, up to eleven o'clock. He had lost quite a sum, but how much he did not know, because he had about three thousand of his own and fifteen thousand of Crown money, — which he had long ago mixed up with his own, and was afraid of counting up, in order not to convince himself that his surmise that a certain amount of the Crown money was gone was just. He had fallen asleep at about noon and slept that heavy, dreamless sleep which only very young men sleep after a great loss. Upon awakening at six o'clock, just at the time when Count Tiirbin arrived at the hotel, and seeing cards and chalk all about him on the floor and dusty tables in the middle of the room, he in horror recalled his game of the previous night, and the last jack, which cost him five hun- dred roubles ; but, not quite sure of the facts, he took the money out from under the pillow and began to count it. He recognized several assignats which at " corners " and finals had several times passed from hand to hand, and he recalled the whole progress of the game. His three thou- sand were gone, and of the Crown money twenty-five hun- dred were lacking. The uhlan had been playing four nights straight. He was travelling from Moscow, where he had received the Crown money. At K the station inspector detained him under the pretext of having no horses, but in reality by an agreement, which he had long before made with the 113 114 TWO HUSSAES proprietor of the hotel, to hold all strangers back for one day. The uhlan, a youthful, merry lad, who had just received three thousand from his parents in Moscow, with which to fix himself properly in the army, was only too glad to pass several days in K during the elections, and hoped to have a glorious time here. He was acquainted with a landed proprietor, a father of a family, and he had intended to call on him, in order to court his daugh- ters, when the cavalryman came to introduce himself to the uhlan, and that very evening, without any evil thought, made him acquainted in the guest-hall with his friend Lukhnov and other gamesters. That very evening the uhlan sat down to play. He not only did not drive out to see the landed proprietor, but did not even ask for horses, and did not leave the room for four days. Having dressed himself and drunk tea, he walked over to the window. He wanted to take a walk in order to dispel the persistent memories of the game. He put on his overcoat and went out into the street. The sun had already hid itself behind the white houses with the red roofs ; it was evening twilight. The air felt warm. Moist snow fell in large flakes upon the muddy streets. He was suddenly overcome by inexpressible melancholy at the thought that he had slept through a day such as the one which was now ending had been. " You can never bring back a day that has passed," he thought. " I have ruined my youth," he suddenly said to himself, not because he actually thought he had ruined his youth, — he was not even thinking of it, — but simply because this phrase had occurred to him. " What am I going to do now ? " he reflected. " Borrow from somebody and get away." A lady passed along the sidewalk. " What a stupid lady," he thought for some reason. " There is nobody to borrow from. I have ruined my youth." He walked past the merchants' row. A TWO HUSSARS 115 merchant in a fox fur coat was standing at the door and inviting purchasers. " If I had not discarded the eight, I might have won back what I lost." A beggar woman moaned back of him. " There is nobody to borrow from." A gentleman in a bear fur coat passed by ; a sentry stood near his booth. " Can't I do something unusual ? Could I not shoot at them ? No, it is tiresome ! I have ruined my youth. Ah, what fine horse-collars with the trimmings are hanging there ! If I just could get into a sleigh ! Ah, my dear ones ! I will go home. Liikhnov will come soon, and we shall begin to play." He returned home, and again counted the money. No, he had not been mistaken the first time : again there was a deficit of twenty-five hundred roubles of the Crown money. "I will stake twenty-five, then a 'corner' — then seven, then fifteen, then thirty, then sixty — three thou- sand. I will buy the collars and get away. The rascals will not let me ! I have ruined my youth." That was what was going on in the uhlan's mind when Lukhnov actually entered in his room. '' Have you been up long, Mikhaylo Vasllijih ?" asked Lukhnov, leisurely taking ofi" his gold spectacles from his lean nose and carefully wiping them with his red silk handkerchief. " No, only a moment ago. I slept superbly." "A hussar has arrived here. He has stopped with Zavalsh^vski — have you heard ? " " No, I have not. Well, is no one here yet ? " " I think they have gone to Pryakhin's. They will be here before long." "Indeed, soon there entered an officer of the gar- rison who always accompanied Lukhnov ; some kind of a Greek merchant with an immense aquiline nose of a cinnamon hue and with sunken black eyes; a stout, puffed-up landowner, the proprietor of a distillery, who 116 TWO HUSSAES played through the whole night at half-a-rouble stakes. Everybody was anxious for the game to begin at once ; but the chief gamesters said nothing about this subject, while Liikhnov, more particularly, was in the quietest manner possible telling about highwaymen in Moscow. "You must consider," he said, "that Moscow is the first city of the realm, a capital, — and they walk about at night dressed as devils, and frighten the stupid rabble, and rob strangers, — and that's the end of it. What is the poUce doing ? That's what I should like to know." The uhlan listened attentively to the story about the highwaymen, but when it was over he got up, and in a soft voice ordered the cards. The stout proprietor was the first one to express his thought. " Gentlemen, why lose the golden time ? Let's to busi- ness ! " "Yes, you have taken away a lot with your half- roubles, so you like it," said the Greek. " That's so, it is time we should," said the officer of the garrison. Ilin looked at Liikhnov. Lukhnov, looking him in the eye, calmly continued his story about the highwaymen dressed as devils, with claws. " Shall you keep bank ? " asked the uhlan. " Is it not too early yet ? " " By^lov ! " exclaimed the uhlan, for some reason with a blush. " Bring me my dinner — I have not had anything to eat, gentlemen — bring champagne and cards ! " Just then the count and Zavalshdvski entered the room. It turned out that Tiirbin and Ilin were of the same division. They at once became friends, clinked glasses and drank champagne, and five minutes later addressed each other as " thou." It seemed the count took a great liking to Ilin. The count kept smihng, as he looked at him, and making fun of his youth. TWO HUSSAES 117 " What a brick of a uhlan ! " he said. " The whiskers i Look at the whiskers ! " Ilin had just a white down on his hps. "I see you are getting ready for a game," said the count. " I wish you good luck, Ilin ! You, I take it, are a master at it," he added with a smile. " Yes, we are getting ready for it," replied Liikhnov, tearing a dozen cards. " And you, count, won't you play?" " No, not to-day, or else I'll do you all up. When I begin to lay it on, any bank will crack ! I have no money. I lost everything in a game at Volochok station. I there fell in with an infantry chap with rings, — no doubt a cheat, — and he has scrubbed me out clean." " Did you stay long at that station ? " asked Ilin. " Twenty-two hours. That damned station will re- main memorable to me ! Well, the inspector won't forget it, either." " How so ? " " I arrived, you know ; out jumped the inspector, with the phiz of a thief and highwayman : ' I have no horses,' says he ; now it is my rule, I must tell you, that when there are no horses, I do not take off my fur coat, but go at once to the inspector's room, you know, — not the office, but to his private room, — and order at once that all the doors and ventilators be opened, claimiag that there is coal-gas in the room. Just so I did there. You will remember what frosts we had last month, — somethiug like twenty degrees. The inspector began to object, and I banged him in his face. Then some kind of an old woman, little girls, and other women raised a howl, grabbed the pots, and began to run to the village — I ran to the door. Says I : ' Give me horses, and I will go away ; if not, I will not let you out, and will freeze you all to death ! ' " " That's a fine way ! " said the pu£fed-up proprietor, 118 TWO HUSSARS roaring with laughter. " That's the way they freeze out cockroaches." " I somehow did not keep a good watch upon them, for the inspector and all the women got away from me. Only an old woman, on the oven, was left as my captive : she did nothing but sneeze all the time, and pray. Then we began to palaver : the inspector came back and, from a dis- tance, begged me to let the old woman go, but I set Bliicher on him, — Blucher is great on inspectors. Still the scoundtel did not give me any horses before the following day. In the meantime that infantry chap came. I went into another room, and we began to play. Have you seen Blucher ? — Blucher ! — Here ! " Bliicher ran in. The gamesters took a condescending interest in him, although, apparently, they were anxious to devote themselves to something quite different. " But, gentlemen, why doii't you play ? Please don't let me interfere with you. I am a great talker," said Tiirbin. " Whether you like it or not, it is a good thing." III. LuKHNOV moved two candles up to him, drew out an immense cinnamon-coloured pocketbook, filled with money, leisurely, as thouglj reveahng some mystery, opened it on the table, took out from it two one-hundred- rouble bills, and put them under his cards. " Then it is hke yesterday, — bank at two hundred," he said, adjusting his spectacles and breaking the seal of a pack of cards. " All right," said Ilm, without looking at him, during the conversation which he was having with Turbin. The game was started. Lukhnov kept bank in a pre- cise manner, like a machine, occasionally stopping and leisurely noting something down, or sternly looking over his glasses and saying, in a weak voice : " Send it over ! " The stout proprietor spoke louder than the rest, mak- ing all kinds of loud observations to himself, putting his chubby finger in his mouth every time he wanted to bend a card. The officer of the garrison wrote in a fine hand under the cards, and bent small corners under the table. The Greek was sitting to the right of the banker, and with his sunken black eyes carefully observed the game, as though waiting for something. Zavalsh^vski, who was standing at the table, suddenly came into motion, took a red or a blue hiU out of his trousers' pocket, placed his card on top of it, slapped it with the palm of his hand, and said : " Fetch it, seven ! " He bit his moustache, stood now on one foot, now on the other, blushed, and was all in commotion, 119 120 TWO HUSSARS which lasted until the card came out. Ilin ate veal with pickles, which had heen placed near him on the divan, and, rapidly wiping his hands on his coat, put down one card after another. Turbin, who at first was sitting on the divan, immediately saw what the matter was. Liikh- nov did not look at the uhlan at all ; only occasionally his eyes for a moment were directed over his glasses upon the hands of the uhlan, but most of his cards lost. " If I just could beat this card," Lukhnov muttered about a card of the stout proprietor, who was playing at half a rouble. " You beat Ilin, and not me," remarked the proprietor. Indeed, Ilin's cards were beaten more frequently than the rest. He nervously tore the losing card under the table, and with trembling hands selected another. Turbin arose from the divan and asked the Greek to let him sit down near the banker. The Greek took another seiat, and the count, having taken his chair, did not for a moment take his eyes off Lukhnov's hands. " Ilin ! " he suddenly said in his usual voice, which, quite involuntarily, drowned all the others, " why do you stick to the routieres ? You do not know how to play." " It makes no difference how you play." " This way you will certainly lose. Let me punt for you!" " No, excuse me : I prefer to do it myself. Play for yourself, if you wish." " I said I would not play for myself ; but I would do it for you. I am annoyed to see you lose." " That is, apparently, my fate ! " The count grew silent and, leaning on his elbows, again began to look steadily at the banker's hands. " It is bad ! " he suddenly said, in a loud and drawling voice. Lukhnov looked at him. TWO HUSSARS 121 " It is bad, bad ! " be said, still louder, looldng Liikbnov straight in the eye. The game went on. " It — is — not — good ! " again said Turbin, the mo- ment Lukhnov beat a big card of IHn's. " What is it you do not Hke, count ? " the banker asked, politely and indifferently. " That you allow Ilin to win the simples, and yourself take the corners. That's what is bad." Lukhnov made a shght motion with his eyebrows and his shoulders, which expressed an advice to submit to fate in everything, and continued to play. " Bliicher ! Here ! " shouted the count, getting up. " Sick him ! " he added, swiftly. Bliicher, hitting his back against the divan and almost upsetting the officer of the garrison, leaped out from underneath it, ran up to his master, and growled, looking at everybody and wagging his tail, as though asking: " Who is insulting you, eh ? " Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair away from the table. " It is impossible to play under these conditions," he said. " I despise dogs. What kind of a game will it be, if we are to have a whole kennel here ? " "Especially these dogs,: — I think they are called bloodsuckers," interposed the officer of the garrison. " Well, are we going to play, or not, Mikhaylo Vasi- hch ? " Lukhnov asked the host. " Count, please don't bother us ! " Ilin turned to Tiirbiu. " Come here for a minute," Turbin said, taking Ilin by the hand, and going with him beyond the partition. From there could be distinctly heard the words of the count, who was speaking in his habitual voice. His voice was always such that it could be heard three rooms away. " Have you lost your senses ? Do you not see that 122 TWO HUSSARS that gentleman in the spectacles is a cheat of the first water ? " " Nonsense ! Don't say that ! " " Not nonsense, but stop playing, I tell you ! It does not make much difference to me. Any other time I would gladly win money from you ; but just now I am somehow sorry for you, because you are going to be cleaned out. And, besides, aren't you playing on Crown money ? " " No ! What makes you think that ? " " My friend, I have myself run on that path, and I know all the tricks of a cheat. I tell you, the one in the spectacles is a cheat. Stop playing, I beg you. I ask you as a comrade." " I will just finish this one pack." " I know how it will be. Well, we shall see." They returned. In that one pack Ilin placed on many cards, and he lost a big sum on them. Tiirbin put his hand on the centre of the table. « That will do ! Come ! " " No, I cannot. Please leave me alone," Ilin said, in anger, shuffling the bent cards, and not looking at Tiirbin. " Well, the devil be with you ! Be sure and lose, if that's what you are after, but I must go. Zavalsh^vski ! Let us go to the marshal's ! " • They went out. All were silent, and Liikhnov did not keep bank until the thud of their steps and of Bliicher's claws died away in the corridor. " What a hothead ! " said the proprietor, smiling. " Well, now he will not bother us," the officer of the garrison added, hurriedly, and in a whisper. And the game went on. IV. The musicians — the marshal's manorial serfs — were standing in the buffet-room, which had been cleared away for the occasion of the ball, and, rolling up their coat sleeves, at a given signal began to play an old-fashioned Polish " Alexander, Elizabeth ; " and, under the bright and soft illumination of wax tapers, there sailed along the large parqueted parlour a governor-general of the reign of Catherine, with a star, linking arms with the haggard marshal's wife, the marshal with the governor's wife, and so forth, — all the governmental powers in all possible combinations and permutations, — when Zaval- sh^vski, in blue dress coat with an immense collar and buffs on his shoulders, in stockings and shoes, exhal- ing around him the odour of jessamine, with which his moustache, his facings, and his handkerchief were copi- ously besprinkled, and the handsome hussar, in blue tightly fitting riding-trousers and gold-embroidered red dolman, from which hung the cross of St. Vladimir and a medal of the year 1812, entered the parlour. The count was not tall, but exquisitely built. His light blue and exceedingly sparkling eyes, and his fairly long, thick-locked, dark blond hair gave a peculiar char- acter to his beauty. The count's arrival at the ball had been expected. The handsome young man, who had seen him in the hotel, had informed the marshal of his coming. The impression produced by this news was various, but, in general, not entirely agreeable. " That lad will put us to shame," was the opinion of the old men and women. 123 124 ■ TWO HUSSARS " What if he ravishes me ? " was more or less the opinion of the young women and maidens. The moment the Polish came to an end and the pairs made their bows to each other, the women again sepa- rating from the men, Zavalsh^vski, happy and proud, took the guest up to the hostess. The marshal's wife, experi- encing a certain internal trepidation, for fear the hussar might do something scandalous to her in the presence of everybody, turned haughtily and contemptuously away, as she said : " I am very glad, and hope that you will dance." She looked doubtfully at him, with an expres- sion which said : " If, after this, you will insult a woman, you are nothing but a scoundrel." However, the count soon vanquished this prejudice by his amiability, attention, and handsome, merry exterior, so that five minutes later the expression of the counte- nance of the marshal's wife told all the persons surround- ing her : " I know how to manage these gentlemen. He saw at once with whom he was speaking, and now he will be charming to me all the evening." Just then the governor, who had known his father, walked over to the count, very graciously led him to one side, and began to speak to him, which still more reassured the provincial society and in its eyes heightened the repu- tation of the count. Then Zavalsh^vski took him over to his sister, a young, plump little widow, who from the moment he had arrived had fastened her black eyes upon him. The count invited the widow to dance a waltz with him, which the musicians had just struck up, and by his elegant dancing completely vanquished the universal prejudice. " He is great at dancing ! " said a stout proprietress, watching the legs in the blue riding-trousers, as they gleamed through the parlour, and counting mentally : " One, two, three ; one, two, three — he is great ! " " He is. just stitching, just stitching," said another guest, TWO HUSSARS 125 who was regarded as not belonging to the best provincial society. " I wonder how it is he does not catch with his spurs ! He is wonderfully agile ! " The count, with his artistic dancing, put in the shadow three of the best dancers in the Government : the tall, white-haired adjutant of the governor, famous for his rapidity in dancing and for holding the lady very close to him ; and a cavalryman, famous for his graceful swaying during the waltz, and for a repeated and light thumping of his heel ; and another civilian, of whom all said that, though he had no great amount of brains, he danced superbly, and was the soul of all the balls. Indeed, this civilian, from the beginning of the ball up to the very last, engaged all the ladies in the order in which they were sitting, and never for a moment stopped dancing, resting just long enough to wipe with his cambric handkerchief his weary but cheerful face, covered with heavy perspiration. The count overshadowed them all, and danced with three leading ladies : with a tall, beautiful, and stupid lady; with another, of middle stature and slender, not very beautiful, but well dressed ; and the third, not a beau- tiful, but a very clever, lady. He also danced with others, — with all the pretty ones, and there were many of these. But the little widow, Zavalsh^vski's sister, was most to the count's liking ; he danced with her a quadrille, an ^cos- saise, and a mazurka. When they sat down at the qua- drille, he began to make her all kinds of compliments, comparing her to Venus, and to Diana, and to a wild rose, and to some other flower. To all these compliments the little widow only bent her white neck, lowered her eyes, looking at her muslin dress, or transferred her fan from one hand to another. But when she said, " Stop, count, you are only jesting," and so forth, her slightly guttural voice sounded so naively frank and ridiculously foolish, that, looking at her, the thought really occurred to one that she was not a woman, but a flower, and not a wild 126 ^ TWO HUSSARS rose, but a wild, voluptuous, white-rosed, odourless flower, which had all alone grown up amidst a virgin snow-drift, in some very remote land. This combination of naivete and of an absence of every- thing conventional with her fresh beauty produced such a strange impression upon the count that several times, in the intervals of the conversation, when he silently looked into her eyes, or at the beautiful lines of her arms and neck, he was so strongly assailed by the desire to lift her up in his arms and kiss her, that it cost him some effort to repress himself. The little widow was happy when she saw what an impression she produced upon him ; but there was something in the count's address which began to worry and frighten her, notwithstanding the fact that the young hussar was officiously amiable, and, accord- ing to modern conceptions, nauseatingly respectful. He ran to fetch her a glass of orgeat, picked up her handker- chief, tore a chair out of the hands of some scrofulous young landed proprietor, who also wanted to serve her, in order to hand it more quickly to her, and so forth. When he noticed that that which in those days was regarded as worldly politeness had no effect upon his lady, he tried to amuse her by telHng her funny anecdotes ; he assured her that, if she would order him to do so, he was ready to stand on his head, to crow like a cock, to jump out of the window, or to leap through an ice-hole. This stratagem succeeded completely: the little widow was amused and laughed in trills, displaying superb white teeth, and was quite satisfied with her cavalier. The count took with each moment a greater liking for her, so that by the end of the quadrille he was genuinely in love with her. When, after the quadrille, the little widow was ap- proached by her former eighteen-year-old admirer, the non-serving son of a very rich proprietor, the same scrofu- lous young man from whom Tiirbin had taken away the TWO HUSSARS 127 chair, she received him very coldly, and not one-tenth part of the embarrassment was visible which she had experienced in the presence of the count. " You are a nice one," she said to him, looking all the time at Turbin's back, and unconsciously reflecting on the amount of gold lace which was used up on the whole dolman. " You are a good one ! You promised to come for me for a sleigh-ride, and to bring me some confections." "But I did come, Anna FMorovna, and did not find you at home ; the confections I left there," said the young man, in a very thin voice, in spite of his tall stature. " You always find excuses ! I do not want your con- fections. Please, don't imagine — " " I see, Anna F^dorovna, that you have changed toward me, and I know why. But that is not good," he added, leaving his speech unfinished from some inward agitation, which caused his lips to tremble rapidly and strangely. Anna F^dorovna was not listening to him, and con- tinued to rivet her eyes on Turbin. The marshal, the master of the house, a majestically stout, toothless old man, went up to the count and, taking his arm, invited him to the cabinet to smoke and have something to drink, if he so wished. The moment Tur- bin stepped out, Anna F^dorovna felt that there was nothing to do in the parlour, and so she took the arm of a lean old maid, her friend, and went out with her to the cloak-room. " Well, is he nice ? " asked the old maid. "The only trouble is he is very persistent," replied Anna FMorovna, walking over to the mirror and examin- ing herself in it. Her face shone, her eyes smiled, she even blushed, and suddenly, iniitating the ballet-dancers, whom she had seen at these elections, she turned around on one foot, then laughed with her guttural but charming laugh, and even jumped up, bending her knees. 128 TWO HUSSARS " Think of it, he has asked me for a souvenir," she said to her friend, "only he sha'n't ha-a-ave any," she sang out the last words, and raised one finger in her dogskin glove, which reached up to her elbow. In the cabinet, whither the marshal took Turbin, there stood all kinds of brandies, hqueurs, appetizers, and cham- pagne. In the tobacco smoke sat and walked noblemen, discussing the elections. " If the whole worshipful nobility of our county has honoured him with the elections," said the newly elected chief of the rural police, who had imbibed freely, "he ought not to have failed before the whole society, — he ought never — " The arrival of the count interrupted the conversation. Everybody had himself introduced to him, and particu- larly the chief for a long time waited with; both his hands for his hand, and several times asked him not to refuse his company after the ball at the new restaurant, where he was going to treat the noblemen, and where the gip- sies were to sing. The count promised that he certainly would be there, and emptied with him several glasses of champagne. " Why do you not dance, gentlemen ? " he asked, before leaving the room. " We are no dancers," replied the chief, laughing. " Our specialty is more in the hne of wine, count — Besides, count, all these young women have grown up under my eyes ! I sometimes will walk like this in the fcossaise, count — I can, count ! " " Let us take a walk," said Turbin, " and amuse our- selves before we go to the gipsies ! " " Come, gentkmen, let us amuse the host^" And three oi four noblemen, who had been drinking in the cabinet from the very beginning of the ball, with red faces, put on some black gloves, and others silk knit gloves, and with the count were getting ready to go to TWO HUSSARS ^ 129 the parlour, when they were kept bLck by the scrofulous young man, who, all pale, and with difficulty repressing his tears, went up to Tiirbin. " You think that you are a count, and so you may push one as in the market-place," he said, barely drawing his breath. " That is not polite — " Again the lips that quivered agaiust his will arrested the torrent of his speech. " What ? " shouted Turbin, frowning suddenly. " What, boy ? " he exclaimed, grasping his hands and compressing them in such a way that the young man's blood rushed to his head, not so much from anger as from fear. "What ? You want to fight ? I am at your service." No sooner had Turbin let the hands go, which he had been squeezing so hard, than two noblemen grabbed the young man under his arms and pulled him away to the back door. " What is the matter with you ? Are you mad ? You must have been drinking. We shall have to tell your papa. What is the matter with you ? " they said to him. " No, I have not been drinking, but he has been push- ing me, and has not asked to be excused. He is a pig ; that's what he is ! " screamed the young man, now burst- ing out into tears. But they paid no attention to him and took him home. " Don't mind it, count ! " the chief and Zavalsh^vski, on their side, tried to soothe Turbin. " He is a mere boy who gets whipped, — he is only sixteen. We can't under- stand what is the matter with him. What flea has bitten him ? His father is such a respectable man, — he is our candidate." " Well, the devil take him, if he does not wish to — " The count returned to the parlour, and just as before merrily danced the ^cossaise with the pretty little widow, and laughed from his whole soul, watching the capers which the gentlemen who had come with him from the 130 ^ TWO HUSSARS cabinet were cutting, and he burst forth into a melodious laughter, which was heard through the whole parlour, when the chief slipped, and his whole form came down with a crash amidst the dancers. V. While the count went into the cabinet, Anna T^dor- ovna walked over to her brother, and, for some reason or other considering it necessary to be little interested in the count, began to ask him : " Who is that hussar that has been dancing with me? Tell me, brother!" The cavalryman explained to his sister as best he could what a great man the hussar was, and at the same time told her that the count stayed in town only because he had been robbed of his money on his way, and that he him- self had loaned him one hundred roubles, which was not enough, so could she not loan him two hundred roubles more ? Zavalsh^vski asked her under no consideration to tell this to anybody, more especially to the count. Anna F^dorovna promised to send the sum to him that very day and to keep the affair secret, but for some reason, during the fcossaise, she burned herself to offer to the count as much money as he wished. She for a long time tried to say something and blushed, but finally made an effort over herself and approached him in the following manner : " My brother told me that you had a misfortune on your journey and that you are left without money. If you need any, won't you take it from me ? I should be ever so glad." But, having said this, Anna F^dorovna suddenly became frightened at something and blushed. The whole merri- ment in a twinkle disappeared from the count's face. " Your brother is a fool ! " he said, bluntly. " You know that when a man insults another, the result is a duel ; and 131 132 TWO HUSSAES do you know what is done when a woman insults a man ? " Poor Anna F^dorovna's neck and ears flushed crimson from agitation. She looked abashed and made no reply. " The woman is kissed in the presence of everybody," softly said the count, bending over her ear. " You permit me at least to kiss your little hand," he softly added, after a long silence, taking pity on his lady's confusion. "Ah, only not just now," muttered Anna FMorovna, drawing a deep breath. " When, if not now ? I am going to leave to-morrow morning — And you owe it to me ? " " In that case you can't," said Anna F^dorovna, smiling. " You just permit me to find an occasion of seeing you to-day, in order to kiss your hand. I will find it." "How shall you find it?" " That is not your affair. In order to see you, every- thing is possible for me — Is it all right ? " " Yes." The ^cossaise was ended. They danced a mazurka, in which the count did wonders, catching handkerchiefs, standing on one knee, and striking his spurs in a peculiar Warsaw fashion, so that all the old men left their boston for the parlour to watch him, and the cavalryman, the best dancer, acknowledged himself to have been surpassed. Then they ate supper and danced another Grossvater, and began to depart. The count did not for a moment take his eyes off the little widow. He did not at all pretend when he said that he was ready to jump through an ice- hole for her. Whether it was a mere fancy, or love, or stubbornness, — on that evening all his mental powers were concentrated on the one desire to see and love her. The moment he noticed that Anna F^dorovna was bid- ding the hostess good-bye, he rushed into the lackey's room, and from there, without his fur coat, into the yard vp to the place where the carriages stood. TWO HUSSAKS 133 " The carriage of Anna F^dorovna Zaytsov ! " he ehouted. A tall foui^seated carriage with lamps started a«d drove up to the porch, " Stop ! " he called out to the coachman, running up to the carriage, knee-deep in the snow. " What do you wish ? " said the coachman. "I want to get into the carriage," replied the count, opening the door on the run and trying to chmb in. " Stop, you devil ! Stupid ! " " Vaska, stop ! " the coachman called out to the out- rider and stopped the horses, "Don't cliroh into other people's carriages. This is the carriage of the Lady Anna FMorovna, and not your Excellency's." " Shut up, blockhead ! Here is a rouble, and get down and close the door," said the count. But as the coachman did not stir, he himself hfted the steps and, opening the window, managed somehow to slam the door. In the carriage, as in all old carriages, especially in those that were trinimed with yellow gimp, there was an odour of decay and singed bristles, The count's legs were covered up to his knees with thawiug snow, and froze in the thin boots and trousers, and his whole body was chilled by the wintry frost. The coachman on his box growled and, so it seemed, wanted to climb down. But' the count neither heard nor felt anything. His face was aflame, his heart beat strongly. He tensely clutched the yellow strap and bent out through the side window. His whole life was concentrated in one expectancy. This expectancy did not last long. Somebody on the porch called out: " Madame Zaytsov's carriage ! " The coachman shook his reins, the body of the carriage swayed on its high springs, and the illuminated windows of the house rushed one after the other past the carriage window. " Look there, you rascal, if you say a word to the lackey that I am here," the count said to the coachman, thrusting his head through the front window, " I'll thrash you ; but if you don't, you get ten roubles." 134 TWO HUSSARS He had barely let down the window, when the carriage again swayed more violently and stopped. He pressed himself into the corner, and even closed his eyes : he was so very much afraid that for some reason his passionate desire would not be fulfilled. The door opened, one after another the steps fell down, a lady's dress rustled, the odour of jessamine penetrated the close carriage, swift feet ran up the steps, and Anna F^dorovna, the skirt of her opened wrap catching on the count's foot, dropped silently, but breathing heavily, in the seat near him. Nobody, not even Anna F^dorovna, could have decided whether she saw him or not ; but when he took her hand and said : " Now I certainly will kiss your little hand," she expressed very little fright and gave him her arm, which he covered with kisses, far above the glove. The carriage started. " Do say something ! Are you angry ? " he said to her. She silently pressed into her comer, but suddenly burst into tears and herself dropped her head upon his bosom. VI. The newly elected chief, with his company, the cavalry- man, and other noblemen had long been listening to the gipsies and drinking in the new restaurant, when the count, in a bear fur coat covered with blue cloth, which belonged to Anna F^dorovna's late husband, joined the company. " Your Serenity ! We did not expect you," said a cross- eyed black gipsy, displaying his shining teeth, as he met him in the vestibule. He rushed up to him to take off his overcoat. " We have not seen you since Lebedyan — St^shka has been wasting away longing for you — " St^shka, a slender, young gipsy maiden, with a brick- red blush on her cinnamon-coloured face, with deep, sparkling black eyes, shaded by long lashes, ran out to meet him. " Ah, my little count ! Darling ! Golden one ! What a joy ! " she spoke through her teeth, with a merry smile. Ilyushka himself ran out, pretending to be very happy to see him. The women and girls leaped up from their places and surrounded the guest. They claimed sponsor- ship with him. Tiirbin kissed all the young gipsy maidens on their lips; the old women and men kissed his shoulder and hand. The noblemen, too, were glad of the arrival of the guest, the more so since the carousal, having reached its apogee, was now beginning to cool off, and everybody was experiencing satiety ; the wine, having lost its stimulating effect upon the nerves, merely weighed heavily on the 135 136 TWO HUSSARS stomach. Everybody had discharged his whole ammunition of bluster and had seen all the dash of everybody else ; all the songs had been sung and were mixed up in the head of each, leaving nothing but a loose, noisy impres- sion. No matter what strange or dashing thing one did, it began to occur to them that there was nothing nice or funny in it. The chief, lying in a disgraceful attitude upon the floor, at the feet of some old woman, wriggled his legs and called out : " Champagne ! The count has arrived ! — Cham- pagne ! — He has arrived ! — Well, the champagne ? — I will make a bath of champagne, and will bathe in it — Gentlemen of the nobility ! I love the worshipful society of noblemen ! — ■ Steshka, sing ' The Eoad ' ! " The cavalryman was also jolly, but in a different way. He was sitting in the corner of a divan, very close to a tall, beautiful gipsy maiden, Lyubasha by name. Feeling that the intoxication was dimming his eyes, he flapped them vigorously, shook his head, and, repeating all the time the same words, in a whisper tried to persuade her to run with him somewhere. Lyubasha, smiling, listened to him, as though that which he was telling her was very jolly and, at the same time, sad ; she now and then cast glances at her husband, cross-eyed Sashka, who was stand- ing behind a chair opposite her, and, in response to the cavalryman's declaration of love, bent over his ear and asked him secretly to buy her some perfume and ribbons, which no one should see. " Hurrah ! " exclaimed the cavalryman when the count entered. The beautiful young man, with a careworn face, was walking up and down the room with firm steps, and singing tunes from the " Rebellion in the Seraglio." An old father of a family, who had been enticed into the company of the gipsy girls by the urgent entreaties of the noblemen, who insisted that without him the TWO HUSSARS 137 whole fun -would be gone and, therefore, they had better not go, was lying on a divan, upon which he had thrown himself soon after his arrival, and nobody was paying any attention to him. An official, who was also there, having taken off his dress coat, was sitting with his feet on a table ; he was tousling his hair and in that way proving that he was out on an awful spree. The moment the count came in, he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and sat up higher upon the table. Altogether the carousal received a new lease of life with the arrival of the count. The gipsy maidens, who had scattered throughout the room, again sat down in a circle. The count put St^shka, the song starter, upon his knees, and ordered more champagne. Ilyiishka stood up with his guitar in front of the song starter, and there began the dance, that ^ is, the gipsy songs : " When I walk along the street," " Oh, you hus- sars," " Do you hear and understand ? " and so forth, in a certain order. St^shka sang superbly. Her pliable, melodious contralto, which gushed from her very chest, her smiles during the singing, her laughing, passionate eyes, her foot involuntarily moving to keep time with the song, her despairing shriek at the beginning of the chorus, — all that touched a certain sonorous, but rarely struck, string. It was evident that she lived only in the song which she was singing. Ilyiishka, with his smile, his back, his feet, his whole being expressing sympathy for the song, accompanied her on the guitar and, riveting his eyes upon her as though he were for the first time hearing the song, attentively and solicitously keeping time with the song, inclined and raised his head. Then he suddenly straightened himself up with the last melodious note and, as though feeling himself higher than anybody else in the world, proudly and firmly threw up the guitar with his foot, turned it upside down, tossed his hair, and, frowning, surveyed the 13S TWO HtJSSARS chorus. His whole body, from his neck to his heels, began to dance with every muscle — twenty energetic, strong voices, each trying to second the other in the strangest and most unusual manner possible, mingled in the air. The old women leaped about on the chairs, waving their kerchiefs, and, displaying their teeth, shouted in harmony and in time, one louder than the other. The basses bent their heads sidewise and, straining their throats, uttered their deep voices, while standing back of the chairs. As St^shka sang out her high notes, Ilyiishka carried the guitar up to her, as though wishing to help her, and the handsome young man exclaimed in ecstasy that now began the B minors. When they started to play a dancing song and Dun- ydsha, with quivering shoulders and bosom, passed by and, making evolutions before the count, glided on, Tilrbin jumped up from his seat, threw off his uniform, and, being left in his red shirt, danced around with her in proper time and cut such capers with his feet that the gipsies smiled approvingly and cast glances at each other. The chief sat down in Turkish fashion, hit his chest with his fist, and shouted, " Hail ! " Then he seized the count by the leg and began to tell him that he had had two thousand roubles, but that now there were only five hundred left, and that he could do anything he wished, if only the count would let him. The old father of a family awoke and wanted to leave ; but he was not per- mitted to do so. The handsome young man begged a gipsy maiden to dance a waltz with him. The cavalry- man, desiring to brag of his friendship with the count, got up from his corner and embraced Tilrbin. " Ah, you darling ! " he said, " why did you run away from us ? Eh ? " The count was silent, apparently thinking of something else. " Where did you go to ? Oh, you rogue, count, I know where you went." TWO HUSSARS , 139 Turbin for some reason did not like this hail-fellow-well- met. He looked, without smiling, into the cavalryman's face, and discharged such a terrible, coarse oath at him that he became offended and for a long time did not know how to accept this insult, whether as a joke or not. Finally he decided to regard it as a joke, and so he smiled and again went to his gipsy maiden, and assured her that he would marry her by all means after Easter. Another song was started, and a third ; and again they danced and drank healths, and they all continued to think that it was all very jolly. The count drank much. His eyes seemed to be shrouded by moisture; he did stagger, but he danced even better, spoke firmly, and him- self sang with the chorus and seconded St&hka when she sang " Friendship's Gentle Agitation." In the middle of the dance the merchant proprietor of the restaurant stepped in to ask the guests to depart, as it was now three o'clock in the morning. The count grabbed the merchant by the collar and commanded him to dance the national jig. The merchant refused. The count grasped a bottle of champagne and, turning the merchant head downward, told them to keep him in that position, while he, under a universal roar of laughter, slowly emptied the whole bottle upon him. Day was breaking. All were pale and exliausted, except the count. "Well, I must start for Moscow," he suddenly said, getting up. " Boys, come all of you with me ! See me off — and we shall have tea together." All consented, except the landed proprietor, who was asleep and was left there. They packed three sleighs that were standing at the entrance, and drove to the hotel. VII. " Hitch up ! " shouted the count, as he entered the guest-room of the hotel with all the guests and the gipsies. " Sashka ! — not Gipsy Sashka, hut mine, — tell the in- spector that I will thrash him if the horses are not good. Let us have tea ! Zavalsh^vski, attend to the tea, and I will go to Ilin, to see how he is getting on," added Turhin. He went out into the corridor and directed his steps to Ilin's room. Ilin had just finished playing and, having lost the last kopek of all his money, was lying face downward upon a torn haircloth couch, pulling out one hair after another, putting them into his mouth, cutting them with his teeth, and spitting them out again. Two tallow dips, one of which had burned down to the paper, were standing on the card-covered green table and feebly struggling with the daylight which was penetrating through the windows. There were no ideas passing through the uhlan's mind : the dense mist of a gambling passion shrouded all his mental capacities ; there was not even any repentance. He tried just once to think of what he ought to do, how to leave without a kopek, how to pay back the fifteen thousand of Crown money, what the commander of the regiment would say, and what his mother and friends would say, — and he was assailed by such terror and such disgust with himself that, wishing in some way to forget himself, he arose, began to pace through the room, trying to step on the cracks of the deals only, and again recalled all the minutest circumstances of the game which had WO TWO HUSSARS 141 just taken pl&ce. He vividly imagined that he was win- ning back and taking off the nine and putting down the king of spades on two thousand roubles ; to the right fell a queen, to the left an ace, to the right a king of diamonds, — and everything was lost; if A six had fallen on the rightj and on the left the kmg of diamonds, he would haVe won it all back. Then he would have staked every- thing on p and would have won fifteen thousand clean ; then he would have bought the ambling charger of the commander of the regiment, and another span of horses, and a phaeton. And what else ? Yes, it would have been a glorious, a glorious thing ! He again lay doWn on the couch and began to chew the hair. " Why are they singing there, in number seven ? " he thought. '' It must be at Tiirbin's that they are having a jollification. I will go there and take a good drink of something." Just then the count entered. " Well, my friend, are you brokC) eh ? " he shouted. "I will pretend I am asleep," thought IliUj "or else I shall have to talk with him, and I am sleepy." Tiirbin walked over to him and stroked his head. " Well, my dear friend, are you broke ? All lost ? Speak!" Ilin made no reply. The count pulled him by the arm. " I have lost, — what is that to you ? " muttered Illn, in a sleepy, indifferent, and dissatisfied voice, without changing his position. " Everything ? " "Well, yes. What of it? Everything. What is it to you?" " Listen. Do tell me the truth, as to a comrade," said the count, inclined to tenderness under the influence of the wine which he had drunk, and continuing to stroke 142 TWO HUSSARS his hair. "Eeally, I have taken a liking to you. Tell me the truth : if you have lost Crown money, I will get you out of trouble ; else it will be too late — Was there any Crown money ? " Ilin jumped up from his couch. '' If you want me to tell you, you had better not speak with me, because — Please, don't speak to me — all that there is left for me to do is to send a bullet through my brain ! " he muttered, with genuine despair, dropping his head on his hands and bursting out into tears, although but a minute ago he had been quietly thinking of ambling horses. " Oh, you are a pretty maiden ! To whom has such a thing not happened ? It is no misfortune : maybe we can mend it. Wait here for me ! " The count went out of the room. "Where does Proprietor Liikhnov stop?" he asked a hotel servant. The servant offered to take him there. The count, in spite of the lackey's remark that his master had only just returned and was undressing himself, entered the room. Lukhnov was sitting at a table, dressed in a morning- gown, and was counting several heaps of assignats that were lying before him. On the table stood a bottle of port, of which he was very fond. He permitted himself that pleasure on account of his winning. Lukhnov looked coldly and sternly, above his spectacles, at the count, as though not recognizing him. "You do not seem to recognize me," said the count, walking over to the table with determined steps. Lukhnov recognized the count, and asked : " What do you wish ? " " I want to play with you," said Tilrbin, sitting down on the couch. "Now?" " Yes," TWO HUSSARS 143 " Any other time with pleasure, count ! But now I am tired and am about to retire. Won't you have some wine ? It is good wine." " I want to play now a little." " I am not disposed for playing now. Maybe some of the other gentlemen will play with you, but I will not, count ! You must excuse me." " So you will not ? " Liikhnov made with his shoulder a gesture which ex- pressed regret at his inability to comply with the count's wish. " Under no considerations ? " Again the same gesture. " I beg you — "Well, will you play ? " Silence. " Will you play ? " the count asked for the second time. « Hear ! " The same silence and rapid glance over the spectacles at the count's face, which was beginning to frown. " Will you play ? " the count shouted, in a loud voice, banging the table so hard with his fist that the bottle of port fell down and the wine was spilled. " You have not been playing fair ! Will you play ? I ask you for the third time." " I told you, no. This is indeed strange, count ! It is not a bit polite to put a knife to a man's throat," remarked Lukhnov, without raising his eyes. There ensued a brief silence, during which the count's face grew ever more pale. Suddenly a terrible blow in the head stunned Liikhnov. He fell down on the couch, trying to seize his money, and cried out in a penetrating and despairing voice, such as could not have been expected from this ever calm and imposing figure. Tiirbin swept up all the money that was left on the table, brushed aside the servant, who had run in to help his master, and with rapid strides left the room. 144 TWO HUSSARS ■' If you wish satisfaction, I am at your service. I shall remain in number seven half an hour longer," added the count, coming back to Liikhnov's door. " Scoundrel ! Eobber ! " was the voice that proceeded from within. " I will have you criminally prosecuted ! " Ilin, without paying the least attention to the count's promise to save him, was lying on the couch in his room in the same attitude, and tears of despair choked him. The consciousness of reality, which the kindness and sympathy of the count had evoked through the strange maze of feelings, thoughts, and recollections that filled his soul, did not leave him. Youth rich in hopes, honour, the respect of society, dreams of love and friendship, — every- thing was for ever lost. The spring of tears was begin- ning to run dry ; a much too calm sensation of hopelessness ever more took possession of him, and the thought of sui- cide, no longer provoking disgust and terror, ever more frequently arrested his attention. Just then were heard the count's firm steps. On Turbin's countenance could still be seen the traces of anger, and his hands trembled a little, but bis eyes beamed with kindly merriment and self-satisfaction. " Here ! I have won it back ! " he said, throwing several packages of assignats upon the table. "Count them up and see whether it is all there ! Come directly to the guest-room, — I shall leave at once," he added, as though not noticing the terrible agitation of joy and gratitude which was expressed in the uhlan's face, and, whistling some gipsy song, left the room. VIIL Sashka, girding on his belt, informed him that the horses were ready, but insisted that it was necessary first to go down and get the count's overcoat, which, he said, ^/ith the collar was worth three hundred roubles, and to return the accursed blue fur coat to the rascal who at the marshal's had exchanged it for the overcoat. Tiirbin told him that it was not necessary to look for the overcoat, and went to his room to change his clothes. The cavalryman incessantly hiccoughed, sitting silently near his gipsy maiden. The chief ordered some brandy, invited all the gentlemen to his house to eat breakfast, and promised them that his wife would certainly come out and dance with the gipsies. The handsome young man thoughtfully explained to Ilyiishka that there was more soulfulness in the piano, and that it was not possi- ble to play B minors on a guitar. The of&cial sadly drank tea in a corner, and in the daylight seemed to be ashamed of his debauch. The gipsies disputed among themselves in gipsy language, and insisted that the gentlemen ought to be hailed again, to which St^shka was opposed, saying that the laroray (in gipsy language it means " count " or « prince," or, more correctly, " a great gentleman ") would be angry. Altogether, the last spark of the riotous debauch was burning low. " Well, give us another song before parting, and march ! home ! " said the count, fresh, merry, beautiful more than ever, as he entered the room in travelhng attire. 146 146 TWO HUSSARS The gipsies again placed themselves in a circle, and were just getting ready to sing, when Ilin entered with a batch of assignats in his hand and called the count aside. " I had in all fifteen thousand of Crown money, and you gave me sixteen thousand three hundred," he said. " This must be yours." " That's nice ! Let me naye it ! " Ilin gave him the money. He looked timidly at the count and opened his mouth, wishing to say something, but only blushed so that the tears stood in 'his eyes ; then he seized the count's hand, and began to press it. " Get away ! Ilyushka ! Listen ! Here is some money for you, if you will take me to the toll-gate with songs." And he threw down on his guitar one thousand and three hundred roubles, which Ilin had brought him. Still, the count forgot to pay back the hundred roubles which he had borrowed the day before of the cavalryman. It was ten o'clock of the forenoon. The sun had risen above the roofs ; people were hurrying through the streets ; the merchants had long ago opened their shops ; noblemen and officials were driving through the streets ; ladies were walking through merchants' row, — when the band of gipsies, the chief, the cavalryman, the handsome young man, Ilin, and the count went out on the porch of the hotel. It was a sunny day and a thaw. Three stage troykas, with shortly tied up tails, plashing with their feet in the liquid mud, drove up to the porch, and the whole merry company took their seats. The count, Ilin, St^shka, Ilyushka, and Sashka, the orderly, sat down in the first sleigh. Bliicher was beside himself, and, wagging his tail, barked at the centre horse. The other gentlemen and the gipsies seated themselves in the other sleighs. The sleighs started abreast at the very hotel, and the gipsies began to sing a choral song. The sleighs, with their songs and bells, compelling all TWO HUSSAES 147 the passing sleighs to take to the sidewalk, crossed the whole city up to the toll-gate. The merchants and passers-by, strangers, and espe- cially acquaintances, were surprised when they saw the noblemen driving in daylight through the streets with songs, gipsy women, and drunken gipsy men. When they reached the toll-gate, the sleighs stopped and all began to bid the count farewell. Ilin, who had drunk a great deal at parting, and who had all the time handled the horses, suddenly grew sad and began to ask the count to stay there another day; but when he became convinced that this was impossible, he quite unexpectedly, with tears in his eyes, started to kiss his new friend, and promised him that as soon as he got back, he would ask to be transferred as a hussar to the same regiment in which Turbin served. The count was unusually happy ; he threw the cavalry- man, who had persisted since morning in saying "thou" to him, into a snowdrift ; he urged Blucher on the chief ; he caught St^shka in his arms and wanted to take her to Moscow, and finally leaped into the sleigh and put near him Blucher, who wanted to stay by all means in the middle. Sashka again asked the cavalryman to get the count's overcoat from them and to send it to them, and jumped on the box. The count shouted, " Go ! " took off his cap and waved it over his head, and in driver's fashion whistled at the horses. The sleighs parted from each other. Far in front could be seen a monotonous, snow-cov- ered plain, through which wound the yellowish dirty road. The bright sun, playing, shone on the thawing snow with its transparent crust, and pleasantly warmed both face and back. Steam rose from the perspiring horses. The bell clattered merrily. A peasant, with a hamper on a swaying sleigh, pulled at his rope reins 148 TWO HUSSABS and swiftly took to the side, in his run plashing with his wet bast shoes in the thawing road ; a stout, red peasant woman, with a baby in the bosom of her sheepskin, was sitting in another wagon, urging on a white, scanty-tailed dobbin with the ends of the reins. The count suddenly thought of Anna FMorovna. " Turn back ! " he shouted. The driver did not understand at first. " Turn back ! Back to the city ! Lively ! " The troyka again passed through the toll-gate and briskly drove up to the frame porch of the house of Madame Zaytsov, The count swiftly ran up the stairs, passed through the antechamber and drawing-room, and finding the little widow still asleep, took her in his arms, lifted her out of her bed, kissed her sleepy eyes, and rapidly ran out again. Anna FMorovna smacked her lips half-rasleep, and asked what had happened. The count jumped into his sleigh, shouted to the driver, and, no longer stopping, nor even thinking of Lukhnov, nor of the widow, nor of St^shka, but only of what awaited him in Moscow, left the city of K for ever. IX. Twenty years passed. Much water had flowed since then ; many people had died ; many were born ; many had grown up or grown old ; still more thoughts had been born and had died; many beautiful and many bad old things had perished, and still more half-grown, ugly, and youthful things had made their appearance in God's world. Count F^dor Turbin had long been killed in a duel with some foreigner, whom he had flogged with a hunting- whip in the street ; his son, resembling him as two drops of water resemble each other, was at that time a twenty- three-year-old, charming young man, and served in the horse-guard. Morally, young Turbin did not resemble his father in the least. There was not even a shadow left in him of those riotous, impassioned, and, to tell the truth, perverse inclinations of the past generation. To- gether with his intelligence, culture, and inherited natural talent, love of decency and comfort of life, a practical view of men and affairs, propriety and caution were his distinctive qualities. In the army the young count was very successful ; at twenty-three he was already a lieu- tenant. At the opening of the war he concluded that it was more profitable for advancement to pass over to the active army, and so he joined a regiment of hussars as a captain, and soon received the command of a squadron. In the month of May of the year 1848, the S ■• regiment on its march passed through the Government 149 150 TWO HUSSARS of K , and the squadron under the command of young Count Turhin had to stay overnight at Mordzovka, Anna FMorovna's village. Anna F^dorovna was alive, but so advanced in age that she called herself old, which means a great deal for a woman. She had grown very stout, which, they say, makes a woman look young ; but even on this white obesity could be seen large wrinkles. She never visited the city, and with difficulty climbed into her carriage; but she was just as good-natured and just as sUly, one may now say truly, when she no longer bribed people with her beauty. With her lived her daughter, Liza, a twenty-three-year-old Russian country beauty, and her brother, our friend the cavalryman, who, as a result of his good nature, had gone through with his whole small estate, and in his old age had found a refuge with Anna F^dorovna. His hair was entirely gray, his upper lip drooped, but the moustache was carefully black- ened. Wrinkles covered not only his forehead and cheeks, but even his nose and neck ; his back was bent, and yet, in his weak, crooked legs, one could perceive the manner of an old cavalryman. In the small drawing-room of an old little house, with the open door and windows of the balcony facing an ancient star-shaped linden garden, sat the whole family and the house-folk of Anna F^dorovna. Anna F^dorovna, with gray head, dressed in a lilac jacket, was sitting on a couch at a round red wood table, and laying cards. Her old brother had taken up a position near the window. He wore white pantaloons and a blue coat, and was braid- ing a thin strip of white paper on a forked needle, an occupation which his niece had taught him, and which he liked very much, since he was unable to do anything else, and his eyes were too weak for his favourite occu- pation, the reading of newspapers. Pimochka, Anna . F^dorovna's adopted child, was sitting near him, and learning a lesson under the guidance of Liza, who, at Two fitJSSAftS 151 the same time, was knitting stockings of goat wool for her uncle on wooden needles. The setting sun, as always at that period of the year, was casting its last broken, slanting rays through the linden avenue, and through the farthest window and upon the ^tagfere which was standing near it. In the garden and the room it was so quiet that one could hear the flapping of a swallow's wings beyond the window, or the soft sigh oi Anna F^dorovna in the room, or the light groan of the old man, as he- placed one leg over the other. " How do you lay the cards ? Liza, dear, show me ! I keep forgetting," said Anna F^dorovna, stopping in the middle of her solitaire. Liza, without laying aside her work, walked over to her mother and, looking at the cards, she said : "Ah, you have mixed it all up, mother, dear!" and putting the cards right : " This is the way it ought to be. Still, that which you have in mind will come to pass," she added, taking away a card so as not to be seen. " Oh, you are always cheating me ! You always say that it has come out right." " Eeally, I tell you, it will come out. Surely." " All right, all right, you joker ! Is it not time for tea ? " " I have ordered them to get the samovar ready. I will go at once and see. Shall I have it brought here ? — Well, Pimochka, get through with your lesson, and we will go out running." Liza went out through the door. " Liza, Liza ! " said the uncle, looking fixedly at his forked needle, " I think I have again lost a mesh. Catch it for me, darling ! " " Directly, directly ! I will only order the sugar chopped." Indeed, three minutes later she ran into the room, walked over to her uncle, and took him by the ear. 152 TWO HUSSARS "That's what you get for losing meshes," she said, laughing. " You have not finished braiding your lesson." "That will do, that will do! Fix it! There must have been some knot." Liza took the fork, took a pin out of her kerchief, which the wind, coming in through the window, in the meantime fluttered a little, and managed with the pin to get at the mesh ; she pulled it through two or three times and returned the fork to her uncle. " Kiss me for it," she said, offering him her ruddy cheek and pinning up her kerchief. " You will get rum with your tea this evening. To-day is Friday." She again went into the tea-room. " Uncle, go and see ! Hussars are coming here ! " was heard from there her melodious voice. Anna F^dorovna and her brother went into the tea- room, the windows of which looked out upon the village, in order to look at the hussars. Very little could be seen from the window ; all that could be made out through the dust was that a crowd was in motion. " It is a pity, sister," the uncle remarked to Anna F^dorovna, " that these quarters are so crowded, and that the wing has not yet been fixed, or we might have invited the officers to stay here. The ofl&cers among the hussars are all such splendid and merry young people. I should like to look at them." " I should be quite willing to have them, but you know yourself, brother, that we have no place for them : my sleeping-room, Liza's chamber, the drawing-room, and your room, — that is all. Where can we put them here ? Judge for yourself. Mikhaylo Matvy^ev has cleaned up the elder's house for them; he says it is clean there now." " Liza, we might have found a husband for you among them, — some fine hussar ! " said the uncle. " No, I do not want a hussar ; I want a uhlan. Did you / TWO HUSSARS 153 not serve as a uhlan, uncle ? These people I do not care to know. They are desperate people, they say." Liza blushed a little, but again laughed her sonorous laugh. " Ustyiishka is running this way. I must ask her what she has seen," she said. Anna FMorovna sent for Ustyiishka. "There is no such a thing as sticking to your work. What need was there to run to see the soldiers?" said Anna FMorovna. "Well, where have the officers been stationed ? " " At the Er^mkins', madame. Two of them are so hand- some, and one of them, they say, is a count." " What is his name ? " " I do not remember right whether it was Kaz^rov or Tiirbinov, I am sorry to say." " Stupid girl, she can't even tell a thing straight. If she had only found out the name." " Well, I'll run down again." " I know that you are a great hand on that. No, let Danilo run down. Tell him, brother, to run down and ask whether the officers need anything. I must be polite, and let him tell them that the lady has asked about them." The old people again sat down in the tea-room, and Liza went to the maids' room to put the chopped sugar into a box. Ustyiishka was there telling about the hussars. " My lady dear, what a beauty that count is ! " she said. " He is simply a black-eyed cherub. What a fine pair you and he would be ! " The other chamberijiaids smiled approvingly. The old nurse, who was sitting with a stocking at the window, sighed and pronounced a prayer, drawing in her breath. " So you like the hussars very much," said Liza. " You are clever at telling about them. Ustyiisbka, bring me 154 TWO HUSSARS some must, — to give the hussars something sour to drink." Liza, smiling, left the room, with the sugar-bowl in her hands. " I should like to see what kind of a hussar he is," she thought, " whether he is dark-complexioned or a blond ? I think he would be glad to become acquainted with us. If he marches off, he will not know that I was here and thought of him. How many such have passed by me ! Nobody sees me but uncle and Ustyiishka. It makes no difference how I comb my hair and what sleeves I put on, nobody admires me," she thought, with a sigh, looking at her white, plump hand. " He must be tall and he, no doubt, has large eyes and a small black moustache. No, twenty-two years are past, and no one has yet fallen in love with me, except freckled Ivdn Ignatych ; and four years ago I was even prettier : my girlish youth has gone without any joy to any one. Oh, I am an unfortunate village maiden." Her mother's voice, calling her to serve the tea, brought the village maiden out of her momentary meditation. She tossed her little head and went into the tea-room. The best things always happen by accident; but the more you try, the worse they come out. In the country they seldom endeavour to give an education, and thus without premeditation they generally give something beautiful. This was particularly the case with Liza. Anna F^do- rovna, on account of her limited capacity and careless manner, had given Liza no education whatever ; she had taught her no music, nor the so useful French language. She without premeditation bore by her deceased hus- band a healthy, pretty child, whom she gave to a nurse to feed and bring up; she dressed her in chintz dresses and kid leather shoes, sent her to pick mushrooms and berries, and had her taught reading and arithmetic by a TWO HUSSARS 155 seminarist hired for the purpose ; she without premedita- tion found in her, sixteen years later, a friend and an ever cheerful and good-natured soul and an active mistress of the house. Anna F^dorovna, through the goodness of her heart, always had some girls to bring up, either peasant babes or foundlings. Liza began to busy herself with them in her tenth year: she taught them, dressed them, took them to church, and stopped them when they became too naughty. Then there appeared the decrepit, good-natured uncle, who had to be attended to like a child. Then there were the servants and peasants, who turned to the young lady with all kinds of requests and in their ailments, which she cured with elderberries, mint, and spirit of camphor. Then the whole house incidentally passed over into her hands. Then there was the unsatisfied need of love, which found its expression in Nature and rehgion alone. Thus, without premeditation, Liza turned out to be an active, good-natured, independent, pure, and deeply relig- ious woman. It is true, there were small sufferings of vanity at the sight of neighbours in fashionable hats brought from K , who were standing at her side in church ; there were annoyances, leading to tears, at her old, grumbhng mother for her caprices ; there were also dreams of love in the most insipid and at times in coarse forms, — but her useful activity, which had become her second nature, dispersed all these, and at twenty-two years not one spot, not one pang of conscience, had fallen into this bright, calm soul of the girl who had grown up full of physical and moral beauty. Liza was of medium stature, rather plump than slender ; her eyes were hazel, small, with a slight dark tinge on her lower lid ; her hair was long and blonde. She had a broad and swaying gait, — what is called a duck's waddle. 156 TWO HUSSAKS The expression of her face, when she was busy working and nothing in particular agitated her, told everybody who looked at it : '' It is a joy to live in the world, if you have some one to love and if your conscience is pure." Even in moments of vexation, confusion, alarm, or sorrow, there beamed, through a tear, through the frowning left side of her brow, through the compressed lips, — there beamed, as though in spite of her wish, a good, frank heart, uncor- rupted by reason, and so, too, in the dimples of her cheek, in the corners of her lips, and in her sparkling eyes, which were accustomed to smile and enjoy life. X. It was still warm in the air, although the sun was set- ting, when the squadron entered Mordzovka. In front, along the dusty road of the village, there galloped, looking around and now and then stopping to low, a brindle cow, which had strayed from the herd, without considering that all she had to do was to step to one side. The village old men, women, and children eagerly watched the hussars, crowding on both sides of the road. The hussars moved with a clatter through a dense cloud of smoke, on black horses with bridle-bits, that were snorting now and then. On the right side of the squadron rode two officers, sitting loosely on their black chargers. One of these was the commander. Count Tiirbin, and the other a very young man, who had lately been promoted from yunkership, P6I0ZOV. From the best hut there issued a hussar in a white blouse. He took off his cap and walked over to the officers. " Where have we been assigned quarters ? " asked the count. " For your Serenity ? " replied the quartermaster-ser- geant, jerking his whole body. " Here, at the elder's, — the house has been cleaned. I demanded a place at the manor, but they said there was none. The proprietress is such a cross woman." " Very well," said the count, dismounting and stretch- ing his legs near the elder's hut. "Has my carriage arrived ? " 157 158 TWO HUSSARS " It has, your Serenity ! " replied the quartermaster-ser- geant, pointing with his cap to the leather body of the carriage, which was visible through the gate, and rushing ahead into the vestibule of the hut, which was filled with a peasant family looking at the officer. He even knocked over a woman, as he dashingly opened the door to the cleaned-up room, and stepped aside before the officer. The room was quite large and spacious, but not very clean. A German valet, dressed as a gentleman, stood in the room. He had put up an iron bed and had made it up, and was now taking things out of the portmanteau. " Fie ! What horrible quarters ! " said the count, in vexation. " Dyad&ko ! Could you not have found any- thing at the manor ? " "If your Serenity so order, I will go to the manor," replied Dyad^nko, " but the house is not much : it does not look much better than a hut." " It is too late now. Be gone ! " The count lay down on his bed, putting his arms back of his head. " Johann i " he called out to his valet. " You have again made a mound in the middle ! Why can't you make a bed decently ? " Johann wanted to fix it. " No, not now. Where is the morning-gown ? " he con- tinued, in a dissatisfied voice. The servant handed him his morning-gown. Before putting it on, the count looked at the skirt of the morning-gown. " Precisely : you have not taken out the spot. I won- der whether it is possible for one to be a worse servant than you are," he added, pulling the morning-gown out of his hands, and putting it on. " Tell me, are you doing it on purpose ? — Is tea ready ? " " I did not have time," replied Johann. " Fool ! " TWO HUSSARS 159 After that the count took a French novel, which had been placed near him, and for quite awhile read it in silence ; in the meantime, Johann was fanning the samo- var on the outside. It was apparent that the count was in bad humour, no doubt, under the influence of fatigue, a dusty face, tight clothing, and a hungry stomach. " Johann ! " he called out again. " Let me see the account of the ten roubles. What did you buy in town ? " The count ran through the account which was handed to him and made dissatisfied remarks in regard to the expensiveness of the purchases. " Let me have rum with the tea ! " " I have not bought any rum," said Johann. "Very well! How many times have I told you to have rum ! " " There was not enough money." "Why did Pdlozov not buy it? You ought to have taken from his man." " Cornet P61ozov ? I do not know. He bought tea and sugar." " Beast ! Get out ! You are the only one that makes me lose my patience : you know that I always drink tea with rum on marches." '' Here are two letters for you from the staff," said the valet. The count remained lying as he opened the letters and began to read them. The comet, who had taken the squadron to quarters, came in with a cheerful countenance. "Well, Tiirbin? It seems nice here. I am tired, I must confess. It was hot." " Very well ! An accursed, stinking room, and through your kindness there is no rum : your blockhead has not bought any, and this one neither. You ought to have told him." He continued reading. Having finished his letter, he crumpled it and threw it on the floor. 160 TWO HUSSARS "Why did you not buy any rum?" the comet in the nieantime asked his orderly in a whisper in the vestibule. '' You did have money ! " " Why should we be buying all the time ? As it is I keep the accounts, while that German in there only smokes his pipe, and that's all." The second letter was evidently not unpleasant, because the count read it with a smile. " From whom is it ? " asked Pdlozov, upon returning to the room and fixing a bed for himself on boards, near the oven. " From Mina," merrily replied the count, handing him the letter. " Do you want to read it ? What a charming woman she is ! Eeally, much better than qur young ladies — Just see how much feeling and sense there is in this letter ! — There is just one bad thing, — she asks for money." " Yes, that is not good," remarked the cornet. " It is true, I have promised her ; but now we have the expedition, and — still, if I am going to command the squadron three months longer, I wiU send her some. I do not begrudge it. What a charming girl ! Isn't she ? " he said, smiling, watching the expression of Pdlozov's face, as he read the letter. " Terribly misspelled, but sweet, and, I think, she really loves you," replied the cornet. " Hem, I should say so ! These women love genuinely, when they love one." " And the other letter, from whom is it ? " asked the cornet, giving him back the one he had been reading. " Well — there is a gentleman, a pretty worthless one, to whom I owe at cards, and this is the third time he reminds me of it — I can't give it to him now — a pretty stupid letter ! " answered the count, apparently saddened by this recollection. The two officers kept silent for quite awhile after this TWO HUSSARS 161 conversation. The cornet, who, obviously, was under the influence of the count, drank tea in silence, occasionally looking at the handsome, clouded countenance of Tiirbin, who was looking through the window, and could not make up his mind to start a conversation. " Well, I may turn out pretty well," the count said, suddenly turning to Polozov and merrily tossing his head. " If there is any promotion this year along the line, and we get into action, I may get ahead of the captains of the guard." The conversation on the same theme was continued at the second glass of tea, when old Danilo entered and transmitted Anna F^dorovua's order. . " She has also ordered me to find out whether you were not the son of Count P^dor Ivanovich Tiirbin ? " Danilo added on his own account, when he heard the officer's name, and recalled the stay of the late count at K . " Our lady, Anna F^dorovna, used to be very well ac- quainted with him." " That was my father ; tell your lady that I am very much obliged and that I need nothing, only I should like to have a little cleaner room, in the house, or some- where." " Why are you doing that ? " said Polozov, when Danilo left. " What difference does it make ? We might just as well stay here one night, while it will incommode them." " I declare ! It seems to me we have had enough of smoky rooms ! One can see at once that you are not a practical man — Why not make use of the opportunity of being housed even one night like decent people ? They, on the contrary, will be very happy themselves. There is just one annoying thing : if this lady really knew father," continued the count, displaying his white, shining teeth with a smile. " I shall always have to feel ashamed for fapa: it is always some scandal or some debt. For this 162 two fiUSSAHS reason I hate to meet these acquaintances of father. Still, that was such an age," he added, seriously. " I have not told you," said Polozov, " that I happened to meet Ilin, the commander of a brigade of uhlans. He was very anxious to see you, and was desperately in love with your father." "It seems to me this Ilin is a horrible fellow. The main thing is that all these gentlemen who insist that they knew father tell me, in order to gain my favour, as pleasant little stories, such dreadful things about father that I am ashamed to listen to them. It is true, I am not carried away, and I look with an unbiassed mind at things, — he was an exceedingly ardent nature, and some- times did quite unseemly things. Still, it is all a matter of the times. In our day he, very likely, would have been a V3ry decent kind of a man, because he had enor- mous capacities, — I must give him justice." Fifteen minutes later the servant returned and informed them of the lady's request to come for the night to the house. XL Having learned that the officer of hussars was the son of F(5dor Tiirbin, Anna Fddorovna was all in a flutter. " Ah, my dear ones ! It is he, the darling ! — Danilo ! Eun fast, and tell him that the lady invites him to the house," she exclaimed, jumping up and with rapid steps moving toward the maids' chamber. " Liza ! Ustyiishka ! Your room, Liza, will have to be fixed up. You go to uncle's room ; and you brother — brother ! you sleep in the drawing-room. It won't hurt you just one night." " Never mind, sister ! I will sleep on the floor." " He must be a handsome fellow if he is like his father. I would just like to get a look at him, my darling — Look here, Liza ! His father was such a handsome man — Where are you taking the table to ? Leave it here," Anna F^dorovna was all in a flutter, " and bring two beds, — get one from the steward, — and take the crystal candlestick, the one brother gave me on my name-day, down from the dtagfere, and put into it a Callet candle." At last everything was in order. Liza, in spite of her mother's interference, arranged her room for the two officers according to her own idea. She took out clean, mignonette-scented bedclothes and made the beds, ordered a decanter of water and candles to be placed on a little table near by, lighted the candles with a piece of paper in the maids' room, and betook herself with her little bed to her uncle's room. ^^Bua F^dorovna quieted down a little, again sat doy/^i) 163 164 TWO HUSSARS in her chair, even took the cards in her hands, but, -with- out laying them out, leaned on her plump elbow and fell to musing. " How time flies ! " she said to herself in a whisper. " It is but recently, it seems, that I saw him. Ah, what a jester he was ! " Tears appeared in her eyes. " Now it is Liza — but she is not what I was at her age — She is a good girl, but no, not the same — " " Liza, you ought to put on your muslin delaine dress for this evening." " Are you going to invite them in, mamma ? You had better not," replied Liza, experiencing an insuperable agi- tation at the thought of seeing the officers. " You had better not, mamma ! " Indeed, she was not so desirous of seeing them as she was afraid of a certain agitating happiness which, so it seemed to her, was awaiting her. "They may themselves wish to become acquainted, Liza ! " said Anna F^dorovna, stroking her hair and thinking at the same time : " No, not the air I had at her age, Liza, how I should wish for you — " She really wanted something for her daughter, but she could not imagine a marriage with the count, nor could she wish for such relations as had existed between her and his father, — still, there was something which she wanted very much for her daughter. Maybe she wanted, through her daughter's soul, to live over the life which she had lived with the deceased count. The old cavalryman, too, was somewhat agitated by the arrival of the count. He went to his room and locked himself in. Fifteen minutes later he issued from it in a Hungarian coat and blue pantaloons, and, with an embarrassed and satisfied expression on his countenance, such as a girl has when she for the first time puts on a ball dress, went into the room which was set aside far the guests. TWO HUSSARS 165 ♦' I will take a look at the hussars of these days, sister ! The late count was, indeed, a genuine hussar. I wiU take a look at him, I will." The officers arrived by the back porch at the room prepared for them. " Well, don't you see," said the count, throwing himself as he was, in his diisty boots, on the bed made up for them, "is it not better here than in the hut with the cockroaches ? " "Of course it is better, but why put yourself under obligation to the hostess — " " Nonsense ! You must in everything be a practical man. They are, no doubt, extremely flattered — Serv- ant!" he called out. "Ask for something to hang in front of the window, or it will blow here in the night." Just then the old man came in to make the acquaint- ance of the officers. He blushed a little arid, of course, did not fail to say that he was a friend of the late count, that he had enjoyed his favour, and even said that he more than once had been benefited by him. The old man did not stop to explain whether he meant by the benefits that the count had never paid him back the hun- dred roubles loaned to him, or that he had thrown him into a snow-drift, or that he had berated him. The count was exceedingly polite to the old cavalryman and thanked him for his visit. '^You must pardon us, count, for the absence of luxury " (he almost addressed him as " your Serenity," so unaccustomed had he become to keeping company with important personages). " Sister's house is rather small. But we will ' hang something here, and it will be all right," added the old man, and, under the pretext of fetching a curtain, but mainly in order to tell all he had found out from the officers, he scraped and left the room. Pretty Ustyushka came with the lady's shawl to screen 166 TWO HUSSARS the window. Besides, the lady ordered her to ask if the gentlemen did not wish any tea. The good housing apparently affected the count's dis- position favourably : he smiled merrily, jested with Ustyiishka, so that Ustyushka called him naughty; asked her whether the lady was good, and to her question whether they wished any tea replied that it would do no hurt to have some, that above everything else their supper was not yet ready, and that he would be obliged for some brandy, a little lunch, and some sherry if they had any. The uncle was ecstatic from the young count's polite- ness and extolled to the sky the young generation of officers, saying that the men of the present were far superior to those of the past. Anna F^dorovna did not agree with him, — there could be nothing better than Count F^dor Ivdnovich, and finally became angry in earnest, dryly remarking : " For you, brother, he is best who was the last to show you any favour. Of course, people have now grown much more clever. Still, Count Fidor Ivanovich then danced the ^cossaise so exquisitely and was so amiable that all, one might say, were beside themselves looking at him, and he paid no attention to anybody else but me. Consequently, in old times there were nice people too." At this time came the news of the request for brandy, a lunch, and sherry. " Just like you, brother ! You always do things wrong. You ought to have ordered a supper," said Anna FMo- rovna. " Liza, give your order, my dear ! " Liza ran into the pantry for mushrooins and fresh butter, and the cook was ordered to make forcemeat cutlets. "But how about the sherry? Brother, have you any left ? " " No, sister ! I never had any." "What, you have none? And what is it you drink with your tea ? " TWO HUSSARS 167 " That is rum, Anna FMorovna." " Isn't it all the same ? Give that ! Let it be rum ! Would it not be better to invite them in here, brother ? You know. I think they will not be offended." The cavalryman informed her that he guaranteed that the count, in the kindness of his heart, would not refuse, and that he certainly would bring them. Anna F^do- rovna went to put on, for some reason, her gros dress and new cap, while Liza was so busy that she had no time to take off her pink gingham dress with the broad sleeves which she had on. Besides, she was terribly agitated: it seemed to her that something striking was awaiting her, as though a low, black storm-cloud were hovering over her soul. This handsome hussar count appeared to her as an entirely new, incomprehensible to her, but beau- tiful being. His manner, his habit, his speech, — every- thing must be something quite unusual, such as she had never seen before. Everything he thought and said must be clever and true ; everything he did must be honest ; his whole exterior must be beautiful. She did not doubt it. If he had asked not a lunch and sherry, but a scented sage bath, she would not have been surprised, would not have complained to him, and would have been firmly con- vinced that that was right and proper. The count consented at once when the cavalryman expressed to him his sister's wish. He combed his hair, put on his overcoat, and took his cigar-holder. " Come," he said to Pdlozov. " Eeally, it will be better if we don't go," replied the cornet, '^ Us feront des frais pour nous recevoir." " Nonsense ! It will make them happy. Besides, I have found out that there is a pretty daughter there. Come," said the count in French. " Je vous en prie, messieurs!" said the cavalryman, to let them know that he knew French and understood what the of&cers bad said. XII. Lf ZA blushed and, lowering her eyes, pretended to be busy filling the teapot, being afraid to look at the officers as they entered the room. . Anna F^dorovna, on the con- trary, jumped up hurriedly, bowed, and, without taking her eyes off the count's face, began to talk to him, now finding au extraordinary resemblance to his father, now introducing her daughter, now offering tea, or jam, or country preserves. Nobody paid any attention to the cornet, on account of his modest appearance, and of this he was very glad, becauge^ as far. as propriety permitted, he watched and scrutinized in detail the beauty of Liza, which apparently had startled him veiy muchi The uncle, hstenitig to liis sister's conversation - with the count, was waiting, with a speech ready upon hife lips, for a chance of relating to them his cavalry reminiscences. The count at tea lighted a strong cigar, which made it hard for Liza to keep from coughingi. He was very talk- ative and amiable. At first he interposed his stories in the intervals of Anna F^dorovna's unceasing speeches, and finally himself monopolized the conversation. There was one thing which affected his hearers a little strangely : in his stories he frequently employed words which were not regarded as improper in the society to which he belonged, but which here were somewhat bold, so that Anna Fddo- rovna was a little afraid, while Liza blushed up to her ears; but the. count did not notice it, and was just as simply calm and amiable. Liza silently filled the glasses. She did not hand the 168 TWO HUSSARS 169 glasses to them, but placed them near. She had not yet overcome her agitation and was eagerly listening to the speeches of the comit. His unpretentious stories and the hesitation of his speech slowly calmed her. She did not hear, from him the very clever things she had expected to hear from him, nor did she see that elegance in every- thing which she dimly had expected to find in him. Even at the third glass of tea, after her timid eyes had met his and he did not lower them, but, on the contrary, continued, barely smihng, to look calmly at her, she felt a little hostile toward him, and soon found that there was not only nothing especial in him, but that he in no way differed from all those whom she knew ; that it was not worth while being afraid of him ; that his nails, indeed, were long and clean, but that otherwise he was not at all handsome. Abandoning her dream not without internal sadness, Liza suddenly grew calm, and only the glance of the taciturn cornet, which she felt directed upon her, dis- quieted her. " Maybe it is this one and not that one," ^e thought. XIII. Aftee tea the old lady invited the guests to another room, and again sat down in her seat. " Don't you wish to rest yourself, count ? " she asked. " What can I do to entertain our dear guests with ? " she continued, after a negative answer. " Do you play cards, count? If you, brother, could join us, we might start some kind of a game." " You yourself play preference," replied the cavalry- man, "so let us play together. Shall you play, count? And you, too ? " The officers expressed their willingness to do anything that would be agreeable to their kind hosts. Liza brought from her room some old cards, with which she had been divining whether Anna Pddorovna's cold would soon pass, whether uncle would come back the same day from town, when he was away, whether a neighbour would call, and so forth. These cards, though they had been in service for something like two months, were, cleaner than those which Anna Fddorovna had been using for her solitaire. " Only you, probably, will not play at small stakes," said the uncle. " Anna F^dorovna and I play at half a kopek stakes — As it is, she always wins from us." " Anything you wish — I am very glad to," replied the count. " Well, then at a kopek in assignats ! Let it be so much in honour of the dear guests : let them win from me, an old woman," said Anna F^dorovna, seating herself comfortably in her chair and spreading her mantilla. 170 TWO HUSSARS 171 « And maybe I shall win a rouble from them," thought Anna F^dorovna, who in her old age had acquired a small passion for cards. " If you wish, I shall teach you to play with Tables and Miseres," said the count. " It is a jolly game ! " Everybody liked the new-fashioned St. Petersburg game. The uncle even assured him that he knew it, that it was the same as in boston, but that he had for- gotten it a little. Anna FMorovna did not understand a thing, and continued so long not understanding it that she felt herself compelled, smihng and approvingly nod- ding, to affirm that now she would understand, and that everything was at last clear to her. There was no small amount of laughter in the middle of the game, when Anna F^dorovna, with ace and a king blank, said Misere and was left with a six. She became confused, began timidly to smile and hurriedly to assure them that she was not yet quite used to the new game. Still, they scored against her, and a great deal, too, the more so since the count, accustomed to play a big, commercial game, played with reserve, calculated very well, and was entirely .un- able to understand the cornet's signs with the foot under the table and his terrible blunders in going whist. Liza brought some more preserves, three kinds of jam, and Oporto apples of a peculiar pickling. She stopped behind her mother's back, looking at the game, and now and then watching the officers, especially the count's white hands, with their thin, pink, well-kept nails, as he firmly, prettily and with agQity threw down cards and took in the stakes. Anna FMorovna, again hazarding to announce above the others, and, buying in seven, lost without three, and at her brother's demand, who monstrously represented some kind of a figure, was entirely at a loss and played hastily. " Never ipind, mamma ; you wil] win back • " femilinglj 172 TWO HTJSSARS said Liza, wishing to get her mother out of hei* ridiculous position. "Let uncle forfeit once, and then he will be caught." " If you only helped me, Liza ! " said Anna F^dorovna, looking at her daughter in fright. " I do not know how itis — " " I can't play this way," said Liza, mentally counting her mother's f orfeitsi " You will lose a great deal in this fashion, mamma ! There will be nothing left for a dress for Pimochka," she added, jestingly. " In this way one may lose ten roubles in silver," said the cornet, looking at Liza, and wishing to enter into a conversation with her. "Are you not playing with assignats?" Anna F^do- rovna asked, looking at everybody. " I do not know how it is, — I can't count by assignats," said the count. "How is it? What is an assignat?" "Nowadays nobody any longer counts by assignats" interposed the uncle, who had been winning, playing with the flintstone. T^he old woman ordered some frothy drink, herself emptied two beakers^ grew red in het face, and, it seemed, submitted to, fate; A strand of her gray hair strayed out from under her cap, and she did not even put it back. It evidently seemed to her that she had lost millions, and that she was completely lost The cornet ever more frequently , pushed the Count with his foot. The count noted down the old lady's for- feits. Finally the game came to an end. No matter how much the old lady, compromising with honesty, tried to add to her marks and to pretend that she was making mistakes in her calculationsj and was unable to coilnt it all up ; however much she was horrified at the enormity of her loss, it turned out at the end, when the accounts were squared, that she had lost 920 points. " Does this mean nine roubles in assignats ? " Anna TWO HUSSARS 173 F^dorovna asked several times, and failed to grasp the enormity of her loss, until her brother^ to her terror, explained to her that she had lost, thirty-two roubles and a half in assighats, and that she must by aU means pay the amount. The count did not even figure out his gain, but imme- diately after the game arose and walked over to the window, where Liza was setting the table for the appe- tizer, and taking mushrooms out of a jar and putting them on a plate for supper. He did in the calmest and simplest manner that which the cornet had wished to do all the evening, and was unable to do, — he entered into a conversation with her about the weather. The cornet was, in the meanwhile, in a very unfortu- nate position. In the absence of the count, and, especially, of Liza, who had sustained her in her cheerful mood, Anna F^dorovna became frankly angry. "Eeally it is aggravating to have made you lose so much," said Pdlozov, to have something to say. " It is simply disgi'aceful." "There they have invented Tables and MiseresJ I can't play with them : how much does it come to in assignats ? " she asked. "Thirty-two roubles, thirty-two and a half," repeated the cavalryman, being, on account of his gain^ in a playful mood. " Give us the money, sister ! Give it to us ! " "I wUl give you allj only you will never catch me again, no ! I sha'h't win it back in a hfetime." Anna FMorovna went with a rapid waddling gait to her room, came back, and brought with her nine roubles in assignats. Only at the urgent request of the old man did she pay everything she owed. PdlozOv was seized with a certaiu terror lest Anna F^dorovna should berate him if he said something to her. He silently and softly went away from her and joined the count and Liza, who were conversing at the open window 174 TWO HUSSARS Two tallow dips stood in the room on the table set for the supper. Their flames occasionally flickered in the fresh, warm breeze of the May night. The window which opened upon the garden was bright, but with a light entirely different from the one in the room. The almost full moon, losing its golden tinge, was swimming out above the tops of the tall lindens and ever more illtiminated the white, thin clouds which now and then shrouded it. The frogs croaked in the pond, the surf9,ce of which, sQvered in one place by the moon, could be seen through the avenue of trees. Some little birds softly hopped about and shook their wings in a fragrant lilac-bush, which occasionally slowly swayed its moist flowers under the very window. " What charming weather ! " said the count, walking over to Liza and seating himself on the low window-silL " I suppose you walk a great deal ? " " Yes," replied liza, for some reason no longer feeling the least embarrassment in conversing with the count. " In the morning, about seven o'clock, I walk out to look after the farm, and I go out for pleasure with Pimochka, mamma's prot^gfe." " It is a pleasure to live in the country ! " said the count, putting his monocle in his eye, and looking now at the garden and now at Liza. " And don't you walk at night, in the moonlight ? " " No. But three years ago uncle and I walked every night when the moon was shining. He had a strange disease — insomnia. Whenever there was a full moon he could not fall asleep. His room is the one over there that faces the garden, and the window is low, so the moon just beat through it." " That is strange," remarked the count. " But that is your room, I think ? " " No, but I shall stay there to-night, because you occupy my roon;i." TWO HUSSARS 175 " Indeed ? Lord, I will not forgive myself in all my life for having disturbed you," said the count, allowing the monocle to drop out of his eye in token of his genuine feeling. " If I had known that I was putting you out — " " Not at all ! On the contrary, I am very glad : uncle's room is so charming and cheerful ; the window is low, and I will sit there until I fall asleep, or I will climb into the garden, and walk around in the night." " What a charming girl ! " the count thought, again adjusting his monocle. He looked at her, and, pretend- ing to seat himself better on the sill, tried to touch her leg with his. " How cleverly she has hinted to me that I may see her in the garden near the window, if I wish." Liza lost the greater part of her charm for him, so easy did his victory over her appear to him. '' What a joy it must be," he said, thoughtfully looking at the dark avenues of trees, " to pass such a night in the garden v/ith a being whom you love ! " Liza was a little embarrassed by these words, and by the repeated, as it were accidental, touching of her leg. Even ijefore thinking, she said something, only that her embarrassment might not become apparent. She said, " Yes, it is glorious to walk about in the moonlight." She felt uncomfortable. She tied up the jar, from which she had taken out the mushrooms, and was getting ready to go away from the window, when the cornet went up to them. She wanted to know what kind of a man he was. " What a charming night ! " he said. "AH they talk about is the weather, I see," thought Liza. " What a charming view ! " continued the cornet. " I suppose you are tired of it," he added, following his pecul- iar bent toward telling somewhat unpleasant things to people to whom he took a special liking. « Do you really think so ? The same food, a dress, one gets tired of, but one will never tire of a garden, when 176 TWO HUSSAKS one is fond of walking through it, especially when the moon rises higher. From uncle's room the whole pond can be seen. I shall look at it to-night." "It seems to me you have no 'nightingales here," said the count, very much displeased with Pdlozov's company, who interfered with his finding out more positively the conditions of the rendezvous. ''We have always had them. Only last year the hunters caught one, and a week ago one sang out beauti- fully, but the country judge came by with the bells on his vehicle, and scared him away. Three years ago, uncle and I used to sit down in the covered avenue of trees and listen to them for two hours at a time." "What is this prattling girl telling you?" asked the uncle, coming up to the speakers. " Won't you have a bit of something ? " After the supper, during which the count, by the praises bestowed upon the food, and by his appetite, managed somewhat to dispel the gloomy mood of the hostess, the of&cers bade them good night, and went to their room. The count pressed the uncle's hand, to the surprise of Anna F^dorovna, and her hand, without kissing it, and even Liza's hand, looking her straight in the eye and slightly smiling his pleasant smile. This glance again embarrassed the girl. " He is very nice," she thought, " only he is too much interested in himself." XIV. "Eeally, are you not ashamed?" said Pdlozov, when the officers returned to their room. " I tried on purpose to lose, and I kept pushing you under the table. Aren't you ashamed ? The old woman was dreadfully put out about it." The count laughed out loud. " What a funny lady ! How offended she was ! " He again laughed so merrily that even Johann, who was standing in front of him, lowered his eyes, and slightly smiled aside. " And here is the son of the family's friend ! Ha, ha, ha ! " the count continued to smile. " Really, it is not good. I was sorry for her,'' said the comet. , " What nonsense ! How young you are ! Did you want me to lose ? Why should I ? I used to lose, when I did not know how to play. Ten roubles will be useful to me. You must look practically at life, or else you will always be left." Pdlozov grew silent. He wanted to think to himself of Liza, who appeared to him an unusually pure and beau- tiful being. He undressed himself and lay down in the soft and clean bed prepared for him. " What nonsense these military honours and glory are ! " he thought, looking at the window curtained with the shawl, through which stole the pale moonbeams. " It would be happiness to live in a quiet nook with h dear, 177 178 TWO HUSSARS intelligent, simple wife, — yes, this is a lasting and a true happiness ! " Tor some reason or other he did not impart these medi- tations to his friend ; he did not even mention the coun- try maiden, although he was convinced that the count, too, was thinking of her. " Why do you not undress yourself ? " he asked the count, who was walking up and down in the room. " I do not yet feel like sleeping. Put out the light if you want ; I will find my bed without it." He continued to pace up and down. " I do not yet feel like sleeping," repeated Pdlozov, feeling himself, after this evening, more than ever dissat- isfied with the count's influence, and disposed to rebel against it. "I imagine," he reflected, mentally, turning to Tiirbin, " what thoughts are rummaging through your well-groomed head ! I saw that you took a Hking to her. You are not capable of understanding this simple, honest creature: you need a Mina, and the epaulettes of a colonel. Truly I will ask him how he likes her." Pdlozov turned to him, but changed his mind : he felt that he not only should not be able to dispute with him, if the count's view of Liza was what he expected it to be, but that he should not even have the strength to disagree with him, so accustomed had he become to submit to his influence, which with every day became more oppressive and unjust. " Where are you going ? " he asked, when the count put on his cap and went toward the door. , "I will go to the stable to see whether everything is in order." " That is strange," thought the cornet, but he put out the light, and, trying to dispel his stupidly jealous and hostile thoughts in respect to his friend, which beset him, he turned on his other side. In the meantime Anna F^dorovna, crossing, and, as TWO HUSSARS 179 usual, tenderly kissing her brother, her daughter, and adopted child, betook herself to her room. The old ■woman had for a long time not experienced so many impressions in one day, so that she was not able to pray in peace : the whole sadly vivid recollection of the late count and of the young dandy, who had won money from her in such a godless manner, did not leave her mind. Still, undressing herself by habit, and drinking half a glass of kvas, which stood on a little table near her bed, she lay down to sleep. Her favourite cat softly crept into the room. Anna FMorovna called her rip and began to stroke her ; she listened to her purring, and could not fall asleep. " The cat is bothering me," she thought, and drove her away. The cat fell softly to the -floor, slowly turning her fluffy tail, and jumped on the bench. The maid who slept on the floor of this room brought her felt blanket, put out the candle, and lighted p. small lamp. Soon the maid began to snore; but sleop did not come to Anna Fddorovna and did not soothe her disturbed imagination. Whenever she closed her eyes, the face of the hussar stood before her, and seemed to appear in all kinds of strange shapes every time when she with open' eyes looked, in the dim light of the lamp, at the dresser, the table, and the white garments on the wall. Now she felt warm in her feather-bed; now the clock was striking annoyingly on the table, or the maid snoring dreadfully through her nose. Again her thoughts of her daughter, of the old and the young count, of the preference, became strangely mixed in her head. Now she saw herself danc- ing a waltz with the old count, saw her full, white shoul- ders, and felt upon them somebody's kisses, and then she saw her daughter in the embrace of the young count. Ustyiishka began to snore again — " No, it is not that now, — not the same people. He was ready to go into the fire for me. And there was 180 TWO HUSSARS cause for it. But this one, of course, sleeps like a fool, and is glad that he has won money from me, he does not even think of running after a woman. How the old count said on his knees •: ' I will do anything you wish ; I will kill myself, or I will do anything else you may ask me to ! ' and he would have lulled himself, if I had told him to." Suddenly somebody's bare feet were heard in the corridor, and Li?a, with nothing but the kerchief over her, all pale and trembling, ran into the room, and almost fell on her mother's bed. After having bid her naother good night, Liza went all alone to her uncle's room. She put on a jacket, put up her long, thick braid in a kerchief, extinguished the Hght, raised the window, and sat down with her feet on the chair, resting her dreamy eyes upon the pond, which now was all silvered over by the moon. All her i;sual occupations and interests suddenly appeared to her in an entirely new light : her old capri- cious mother, the unreasoning love for whom had become part of her soul, the decrepit, but amiable uncle, the manorial servants, the peasants, who worshipped the young lady, .the milch-cows, and the heifers, — aU this so fre- quently dying and renovated Nature, amidst which she had grown up, loving others and loved by them, all which gave her such a hght and pleasant soulful rest, — all this suddenly seemed different to her, — all this seemed dull and unnecessary, as though some one had said to her : " Foolish girl ! Twenty years you have been acting fool- ishly, — you have served some one, for some purpose, and you did not know what life and happiness were ! " Peering into the depth of the bright, immovable garden, she now thought of it intently, much more intently than ever before. What was it that had induced these thoughts in her? Not at all a sudden love for the count, as one might be inclined to suppose. On the contrary, she did not hke TWO HUSSAKS 181 bim. The cornet might have interested her much more ; but he was somehow foohsh, wretched, taciturn. She invokmtarily forgot him, and with anger and vexation evoked in imagination the picture of the count. " No, it is not that," she said to herself. Her ideal was so charm- ing ! It was an ideal which, amid this night, this Nature, without impairing its beauty, could be loved by her, — an ideal which had never been curtailed in order to weld it with some coarse reality. At first, solitude and the absence of men, who might have attracted her attention, had had the effect of leaving in her heart whole and untarnished the whole power of love, which Providence has placed equally in the hearts of all of us ; now she had been living too long with the melancholy happiness of feeUng within her the presence of that something, and, now and then opening the myste- rious vessel of the heart, of enjoying the contemplation of its riches, to pour forth unpremeditatedly upon some one all that there was within. God grant that she enjoy to her grave that scant happiness ! Who knows whether it is not better and stronger ? and whether it is not the only true and possible happiness ? " Lord my God ! " she thought, " have I really lost my happiness and youth for nothing ? and will it not be — will it never be ? Is it the truth ? " and she peered into the high, bright heaven near the moon, covered with white, fleecy clouds, which, shrouding the little stars, were moving up toward the moon. "If the moon will be caught in this upper white cloudlet, it means that it is the truth," she thought. A mistlike smoky stripe scudded across the lower half of the bright moon, and slowly the light grew fainter on the grass, on the tops of the lindens, and on the pond : the black shadows of the trees became less noticeable. As though in harmony with the murky shadow, which veiled Nature, a light breeze was borne athwart the leaves and brought to the window the dewy 182 TWO HUSSARS odour of leaves, of the moist earth, and of the blooming lilac. " No, it is not true," she consoled herself, " but if the nightingale will sing to-night, then everything I have been thinking about is nonsense, and there is no cause for despair," she thought. And she sat for a long time in silence, waiting for some one, although everything was again refreshed and revived, and again cloudlets scudded across the moon several times, and all was merged in darkness. She was falling asleep, sitting at the window, when a nightingale awoke her with his frequent trills, sonorously borne over the surface of the pond. The coun- try maiden opened her eyes. Again all her soul with full enjoyment was renovated in this mysterious union with Nature, which calmly and brightly extended in front of her. She leaned on both her arms. A pining, sweet sensation of sadness compressed her heart, and tears of a pure, broad love, thirsting to be satisfied, — good, consol- ing tears filled her eyes. She put down her arms upon the window-sill and lowered her head upon them. Her favourite prayer came to her soul of its own accord, and she dozed off with moist eyes. The touch of somebody's hand awoke her. But the touch was gentle and agreeable. The hand pressed hers more strongly^ She suddenly became conscious of reality, screamed, leaped up, and, assuring herself that she did not recognize the count, who was standing under the window, bathed in moonlight, ran out of the room. XV. Indeed, it was the count. Hearing the girl's screamj and the groan of the watchman beyond the fence, in response to this scream, he rushed headlong, with the sensation of a thief caught, over the damp, dew-covered grass into the depth of the garden. "Ah, what a fool I am ! " he unconsciously repeated to himself. " I have frightened her. I ought to have done it more cautiously : I ought to have wakened her with words. Ah, what an awkward beast I am !" He stopped to listen : the watchman went through the gate into the garden, trailing a stick over the sandy path. It was necessary for him to conceal himseK. He ran down to the pond. The frogs hurriedly leaped into the water from underneath his feet, making him shudder. In spite of his wet feet, he here squatted down and began to recall all that he had done, — how he had climbed over the fence, how he had searched for her window, and how, at last, he espied her white shadow ; how, listening to the least rustling sound, he went up to the window and walked back again; now it seemed to him beyond any doubt that she was waiting for him, annoyed at his slow- ness, and now again that it was impossible that she should have so easily appointed a meeting. At last he concluded that she, with the embarrassment of a provincial lady, only pretended to be asleep, and walked over to her with determination and clearly saw her situation, but for some reason rushed headlong back, and, shaming himself for such a display of cowardice, went boldly up to her and touched her hand. 183 184 TWO HUSSAES The watchman again made a noise and, causing the gate to creak, went out of the garden. The window of the young lady's room was slammed to and was closed with a shutter from within. It annoyed the count very much to see this done. He would have given much if it liad been possible to begin everything anew : he would not act so stupidly again. " She is a charming young lady ! So fresh ! Simply exquisite ! How I have missed my chance — I am a stupid beast ! " He no, longer felt like sleeping, and so he strode v/ith the determined steps of an angered man at haphazard ahead of him, over a path of the bowery linden avenue. Here the night brought to him its peace-bearing gifts of soothing melancholy and necessity of love. The clayey path, with here and there a sprouting grass blade or dry stick, was lighted up in circles, through the dense foliage of the lindens, by. the direct, pale moonbeams. Some bent twig, as though overgrown with white moss, shone toward one side. The leaves, silvered over, now and then whispered. In the house the lights were out, and all sounds had died down ; only the nightingale seemed with his song to fill all the immeasurable, silent, and illuminated space. " God, what a night ! What a charming night ! " thought the count, inhaling the fragrant freshness of the night. " I am sorry for something, as though dissatisfied with myself and with others, and with life in general — " Here his reveries became mixed : he imagined himself in this garden with the provincial young lady in various, very strange attitudes ; then the r8le of a lady was taken up by his dear Mma. " What a fool I am ! I ought to have just clasped her waist and kissed her." With this regret the count returned to his room. The cornet was not yet asleep. He immediately turned his face to the count. " Are you not asleep ? " asked the count TWO HUSSAES 185 " No." " Shall I tell you what has happened ? " "Well?" " 'No, I had better not tell — or yes, I will. Pull up your legs ! " The count, mentally dismissing the spoiled intrigue, with an animated smile sat down on the bed of his comrade. " Would you believe it ? The young lady appointed a rendezvous with me." " You don't say ! " exclaimed Pdlozov, jumping up from his bed. "Well, listen!" " How was it ? When ? Impossible ! " "While you people were counting the preference, she told me that she would be sitting at the window in the night, and that one could climb in through the window. You see what it means to be a practical man ! While you were casting accounts with the old woman, I ar- ranged this matter. Did you not hear her say in your presence that she would be sitting in the night at the window and looking at the pond ? " " Yes, she did say that." " I do not know whether she said that accidentally or not. Maybe she did not want to do it all at once, only it looked like it. It turned out to be a terrible thing. I acted a complete fool ! " he added, smiling contemptu- ously at himself. " How so ? Where were yoii ? " The count told everything that had happened, except his preliminary indecisive attempts. " I spoiled it myself : I ought to have been bolder. She screamed and ran away from the window." " So she screamed and ran away," said the cornet, with an awkward smile, in response to the count's smile, which made a strong and lasting impression upon him. 186 TWO HUSSAES " Yes. Now it is time to go to bed." The comet again turned his back to the door and lay for ten minutes in silence. God knows what took place in his soul; but when he turned around again, his face expressed suffering and determination. " Count Turbin ! " he said, in a halting voice. " What is the matter with you ? Are you delirious ? " calmly replied the count. " What is it, Cornet P<51ozov ? " " Count Turbin, you are a scoundrel ! " cried Pdlozov, and jumped up from his bed. XVI. On the following day the squadron departed. The officers did not see their hosts and did not bid them fare- well. Nor did they speak to each other. Upon arriving at the first day's halt it was proposed to have a duel. But Captain Schulz, a good fellow, an excellent horse- man, the favourite of everybody in the regiment, and having been selected by the count to be his second, so managed to arrange matters that not only was there no duel, but no one in the regiment ever knew anything about the affair. Tiirbin and Pdlozov, although no longer abiding in their former amicable relations, kept addressing each other as " thou " and met at dinners and at parties. ALBERT A Story \%S7 ALBERT A Story Five rich young men arrived in the third hour of the night to enjoy themselves at a small St. Petersburg party. A great deal of champagne was drunk. The greater number of the gentlemen were very young ; the maidens were beautiful ; the piano and violiu indefatigably played one polka after another, the dances and the din never stopped ; but it was somehow dull and awkward. Every- body felt, as often happens, that it all was not the right thing, and that it was unnecessary. They tried several times to heighten the merriment, but the forced merriment was even worse than the ennui. One of the five young men, more than the rest dissatis- fied with himself, and the others, and the whole evening, rose with a feeling of disgust, found his hat, and went out with the intention of leaving without being noticed. There was no one in the antechamber, but in the adjoining room, behind the door, he heard two altercating voices. "You can't, there are guests there," said a feminine voice. 191 192 ALBERT " Let me, please. I won't do anything ! " implored a feeble masculine voice. " I will not let you without the madame's permission," said the woman. "Where are you going? Oh, what a man ! " The door opened wide, and on the threshold appeared a strange figure of a man. Upon noticing a guest, the maid no longer held him back, and the strange figure, bowing timidly, staggering on his bent legs, entered the room. It was a middle-sized man, with a narrow, stoop- ing back and long, dishevelled hair. He wore a short overcoat and torn, tight pantaloons over rough, uncleaned boots. The necktie, twisted into the shape of a rope, wound around his long white neck. A dirty shirt stuck out from the sleeves over lean hands. Yet, in spite of the extraordinary leanness of the body, his face was tender and white, and a fresh ruddiness lay on the cheeks above the scanty black beard and side whiskers. The uncombed hair, thrown up, revealed a low and exceedingly clear forehead. His dark, fatigued eyes looked softly, imploringly, and, at the same time, earnestly ahead of him. Their expression captivatingly blended with the expression of the fresh lips, bent at the corners, which could be seen back of the scanty moustache. Having made a few steps, he stopped; turned around to the young man, and smiled. He smiled as though with difficulty; but when the smile brightened up His face, the young man — himself not knowing why — smiled too. " Who is that ? " he asked the maid in a whisper, when the strange figure had entered the room from which came the sounds of dancing music. " A demented musician from the theatre," replied the maid. " He sometimes calls on the lady of the house." "Where did _you go to, Del^sov?" some one justthen called out in the parlour. ALBERT 193 The youtig man, who was named Del^sov, returned to the parlour. The musician was standing at the door and, looking at the dancers, by his smile, his look, and the tapping of his foot expressed the satisfaction which this spectacle afforded him. " Well, go and dance yourself," one of the guests said to him. The musician bowed and looked interrogatively at the hostess. " Go, go, the gentlemen want you to," interposed the hostess. The lean, feeble limbs of the musician suddenly came into intensified motion, and he, winking, smiling, and jerk- ing, began heavily and awkwardly to leap about in the room. In the middle of the quadrille, a merry officer, who was dancing beautifully and with animation, accidentally hit the musician with his back. The feeble, tired legs did not keep their balance, and the musician, having made a few swaying steps toward one side, fell his whole length upon the floor. Notwithstanding the dull, dry sound produced by his fall, nearly all at first burst out laugh- ing. But the musician did not get up. The guests grew silent, even the piano ceased playing, and DeMsov and the hostess were the first to run up to the prostrate man. He was lying on his elbow and staring with a dull expression at the floor. When he was picked up and placed on a chair, he with a quick motion of his bony hand brushed aside the hair from his brow and began to smile, without answering any question. " Mr. Albert ! Mr. Albert ! " said the hostess. " Are you hurt ? Where ? I said he ought not to dance, — he is so feeble ! " she continued, addressing her guests. " He barely stands up, so how can he ? " " Who is he ? " they asked the hostess. 194 ALBERT " A poor man, — an artist. A very good fellow, only wretched, as you see." She said this, not at all embarrassed by the presence of the musician. The musician came to and, as though frightened at something, curled all up and brushed aside the people standing near him. " All this is nothing," he suddenly said, with obvious effort rising from his chair. To prove that he was not hurt, he walked into the middle of the room and wanted to jump up, but staggered, and would have fallen again, if he had not been held up. All felt ill at ease ; they looked at him and kept silent. The musician's look again became dimmed, and he, apparently forgetting all, rubbed his knee with his hand. Suddenly he raised his head, put forward his trembhng foot, with the same trite gesture as before threw back his hair, and, walking up to the violinist, took, his violin. " All this is nothing ! " he repeated once more, swinging the violin. " Gentlemen, we shall have music now." " What a strange face ! " the guests said to each other. " Maybe a great talent is perishing in this unfortunate creature ! " said one of the guests. " Yes, he is miserable, miserable ! " said another. " What a beaiutiful face ! There is something extraor- dinary in him," said Del^sov. " We shall see — " 11. In the meantime Albert, paying no attention to any one, pressed the vioUn to his shoulder and slowly walked up and down near the piano, tuning it. His lips were curved into an impassionate expression, his eyes could not be seen ; but his narrow, bony back, his long, white neck, his crooked legs and shaggy black head presented a queer, but for some reason not laughable, spectacle. Having tuned the violin, he briskly struck a chord and, tossing up his head, turned to the pianist, who was getting ready to play his accompaniment. " Melancolie G-dur ! " he said, turning with an im- perative gesture to the pianist. Soon after, as though begging pardon for his imperative gesture, he smiled meekly, and with this smile surveyed the audience. Throwing back his hair with the hand in which he held the bow, he stopped at the corner of the piano and touched the strings with a flowing motion of his bow. A clear, melodious sound passed through the room, and all grew silent. The notes of the theme flowed freely, artistically, after the first chord, suddenly illuminating the inner world of each hearer with some unexpectedly clear and soothing light. Not one false or extravagant sound impaired the submissiveness of the listeners : all the notes were clear, artistic, and significant. Everybody followed their evolu- tion in silence, with a trepidation of hope. From ■ a con- dition of ennui, of noisy distraction, and of the soul's sleep, in which these people were, they were suddenly 196 196 ALBERT imperceptibly transferred into an entirely different, for- gotten world. Now there arose in their souls the contemplation of the past, of an impassioned recollection of some happiness, of an unlimited desire for power and splendour, of a feel- ing of humility, of unsatisfied love and sadness. Now the sadly tender and the iiLpulsively despairing sounds, freely intermingling, flowed and flowed one after another so artistically, so strongly, and so unconsciously, that it was not the notes that were heard, but a beautiful stream of a long famihar, but now for the first time expressed, poetry, that flowed of its own accord into the soul of each. With every note Albert grew out taller and taller. He was far from being misshapen or strange. Pressing down the violin with his chin and listening to his notes with the expression of impassioned attention, he convuls- ively changed the position of his feet. Now he would straighten himself up to his full stature, and now again he would carefully bend his back. His left, tensely bent hand seemed to have congealed in its place, and only the bony fingers convulsively moved over the strings ; his right moved smoothly, artistically, imperceptibly. His face was agleam with an uninterrupted, ecstatic joy ; his eyes burned with a bright, dry splendour, his nostrils were expanded, his red lips opened through sheer enjoyment. Occasionally the head bent nearer to the viohn, his eyes closed, and his face, half-covered by his hair, was lighted up with a smile of humble bliss. Occasionally he suddenly straightened himself up, put forward a foot, and his clear brow and shining look, which he cast upon the room, gleamed with pride, with majesty, with the con- sciousness of power. Once the pianist made a mistake and took a wrong chord. Physical suffering was expressed in the whole figure and face of the musician. He stopped for a second and, with an expression of malice, stamping ALBERT 197 his foot, he exclaimed : '• Moll, ce moll ! " The pianist corrected himself, Albert closed his eyes, smiled, and, again forgetting himself, and others, and the whole world, blissfully abandoned himself to his work. All those who were present in the room during Albert's playing preserved a submissive silence and seemed to live and breathe only by his sounds. The merry officer sat motionless on a chair near the window, directing a lifeless glance upon the floor, and occasionally drawing a laboured breath. The maidens sat in absolute silence along the walls, and only rarely cast approving, nay, perplexed, glances at each other. The fat, smiling face of the hostess melted with joy. The pianist riveted his eyes upon Albert's face and, for fear of making a mistake, which found its expression in his stretched form, tried to keep up with him. One of the guests, who had drunk more than the rest, lay with face downward, upon a divan and tried not to move in order net to betray his agitation. DeMsov experienced an unusual sensation. A cold circle, now compressing, now expanding, held his head as in a vice. The roots of his hair became sensitive ; a chill ran up his spine ; something seemed to rise higher and higher in his throat, stinging his nose and palate as though with needles, and tears imperceptibly moistened his cheeks. He shook himself, tried unnoticed to draw them in again and wipe them, but new ones came out again and coursed down his face. By a strange concatenation of impressions, the first sounds of Albert's violin transferred Delfeov to his first youth. He — no longei% young man, tired of life, an exhausted man — suddenly felt himself a seventeen-year- old, self-contentedly pretty, blissfully stupid, and uncon- sciously happy being. He recalled his first love for his cousin in a pink little dress ; he recalled his first confes- sion in the linden avenue ; he recalled the heat and the 198 ALBERT incomprehensible charm of the first kiss ; he recalled the magic and unsolved mysteriousness of the Nature that then surrounded him. In his retrospective imagination, she gleamed through the mist of indefinite hopes, incom- prehensible desires, and unquestioned faith in the possi- bility of an impossible happiness. All the unappreciated minutes of that time, one after another, arose before him, but not as insignificant moments of a fleeting present, but as arrested, expanding, reprobating forms of the past. He contemplated them with joy and wept, — he wept not because the time had passed which he might have employed to better advantage (if that time were given back to him, he would not undertake to make better use of it), but because that time was past and would never return. The recollections arose of their own accord, and Albert's violin kept saying one and the same thing. It said : " Past is the time for you, for. ever past the time of strength, of love, and of happiness, past, — and it shall never return. Weep for it, weep all your tears, die in the tears for that time, — this is the one, best happiness which is left for you." Toward the end of the last variation Albert's face became red ; bis eyes burned, without growing dim ; large drops of perspiration coursed down his cheeks. The veins on his brow were swoUen ; his whole body came into an ever increasing motion ; the pale lips no longer closed up, and his whole figure expressed an ecstatic eagerness of enjoyment. Making a desperate flourish with his whole body and tossing his hair, he took down ms violin and with a smile of proud majesty and happiness surveyed the audience. Then his back became bent, his lips were folded, his eyes were dimmed, and he, as though ashamed of himself, looking timidly about him and stumbling, went into another room. III. Something strange took place with all the persons present, and something strange was felt in the dead silence which ensued after Albert's play. It was as though each wanted to express what all this meant, but could not. What is meant by a bright and warm room, brilliant women, the dawn in the windows, agitated blood, and the pure impression of fleeting sound? Nobody attempted to say what all this meant ; on the contrary, nearly all, feeling themselves incapable of passing entirely over to the side of that which the new impression had revealed to them, were provoked against it. " He really plays beautifully," said the officer. " Wonderfully," replied DeMsov, stealthily wiping off his cheeks with his sleeve. " Gentlemen, it is about time to depart," said, adjusting^ himself a little, the one who was lying on the divan. " We ought to give him something, gentlemen ! Let us take up a collection ! " Albert was in the meantime sitting alone, in the other room, upon a couch. Leaning with his elbows on liis bony knees, he stroked his face with his perspiring, dirty hands, dishevelled his hair, and smiled a happy smile to himself. They took up a good collection, and DeMsov offered to take it to him. Besides, it had occurred to DeMsov, upon whom the music had produced such a strong and unusual impres- sion, to do the man some good. It occurred to him that 199 200 ALBERT he could take him to his rooms, dress him up, find some place for him, — in general, tear him away from his sordid position. " Well, are you tired ? " asked DeMsov, walking into the room where he was. Albert smiled. " You have real talent ; you ought to make a serious matter of music ; you ought to play in public." "I should like to have a drink of something," said Albert, as though awakening. Del^sov brought him wine, and the musician eagerly emptied two glasses. " What excellent wine ! " he said. " Melancholy, what a superb thing it is ! " said Del^sov. " Oh, yes, yes ! " Albert replied, smiling. " But excuse me : I do not know with whom I have the honour of speaking; you may be a count, or a prince; can't you loan me some money ? " He was silent for a moment. " I have none — I am a poor man. I cannot return it to you." Del^sov blushed ; he felt awkward, and he hastened to give the musician the collection. "Thank you very much," said Albert, grasping the money. " Now let us have music : I will play for you as much as you wish. Only let me have something to drink, something to drink," he added, rising. Del^sov brought him some more wine and asked him to sit down near him. " Excuse me for being frank with you," said Deldsov, " your talent has interested me so much. It seems to me that you are not in a good position." Albert looked now at Del^sov, and now at the hostess, who had entered the room. " Permit me to offer you my services," continued Del^- sov. " If you are in need of anything, I should be very happy if you took up your abode with me. I live all alone, and I might be useful to you." ALBERT 201 Albert smiled and made no reply. " Why don't you express your thanks ? " said the hostess. " Of course, this would be an advantage for you. Only, I should not advise you," she continued, turning to DeMsov and giving a negative shake with her head. "I am much obliged to you," said Albert, pressing DeMsov's hands with his clammy hands, " but let us have music now, if you please." The other guests were getting ready to leave and, no matter how much Albert begged them to stay, went out into the antechamber. Albert bade the hostess good-bye and, putting on his shabby broad-brimmed hat and old summer cape, which was the only winter wrap he had, went out on the porch with Delesov. When Delesov seated himself with his new acquaint- ance in the carriage and smelled that unpleasant odour of intoxication and uncleanliness, with which this musician was saturated, he began to regret his act and to accuse himself of a childish softness of heart and lack of common sense. Besides, everything which Albert said was so stupid and trite, and he suddenly became so dirtily drunk in the air, that Delesov was nauseated. " What am I going to do with him ? " he thought. After travelling fifteen minutes, Albert grew silent ; his hat fell down to his feet, and he threw himself down in the corner of the carriage and began to snore. The wheels creaked evenly over the frosty snow ; the feeble Hght of the dawn barely penetrated through the frozen windows. Delesov looked at his neighbour. His long body, cov- ered with the cape, lay lifelessly near him. It seemed to Delesov that the long head with the large, dark nose was shaking on that body ; but, upon looking more closely, he saw that that which he had taken for a nose and face was hair, and the real face was lower down. He bent over 202 ALBEbT and made out the features of Albert's face. The beauty of the brow and of the calmly shut mouth again startled him. Under the influence of his tired nerves, of the irritating sleepless morning hour, and of the music which he had heard, Del^sov, looking at that face, again was transferred to that blissful world into which he had taken a glance that same night ; again he thought of the happy and mag- nanimous time of youth, and he stopped regretting his deed. At that moment he sincerely, warmly loved Albert and firmly intended to do him some good. IV. On the following morning, when he was awakened to go to his office, Deldsov, in disagreeable surprise, saw before him the same old screen, the same old servant, and the watch on the little table. " What else is it that I should like to see, if it is not that which always surrounds me ? '' he asked himself. He then recalled the black eyes and the happy smile of the musician ; the motive of the " melancholy " and the whole strange pre- vious night passed through his imagination. He had no time to consider whether he had acted right or wrong in taking with him the musician. As he dressed himself, he mentally apportioned his day ; he took his documents, gave the necessary orders about the house, and hurriedly put on his overcoat and galoshes. As he passed the dining-room, he looked in through the door. Albert, spreading out in his dirty and torn shirt, with his face stuck in a pillow, was sleeping the sleep of the dead on a morocco leather divan, where he had been placed the night before. " Something is wrong," was the thought that involuntarily occurred to Del&ov. " Please go down to Boryuzovski and ask for his violin for two or three days. I want it for him," he said, to his servant. " When he wakes up, give him coffee and let him put on some of my underwear and old clothes. In general, satisfy his wishes, if you please." Upon returning home late in the evening, Deldsov, to his surprise, did not find Albert. " Where is he ? " he asked his servant, 203 204 ALBERT " He went away directly after dinner," replied the ser- vant. " He took the violin and went away. He promised to be back in an hour, but has not yet shown up." "Tut, tut, this is annoying!" said Del^sov. "How could you let him go, Zakhar ? " Zakhar was a St. Petersburg lackey, who had been for eight years in Del^sov's service. Being a lonely bachelor, Deldsov involuntarily confided to him his intentions, and liked to know his opinion in regard to each of his under- takings. " How could I dare not let him ? " replied Zakhar, playing with the fob of his watch. " If you had told me, Dmitri Ivdnovich, to keep him, I might have been able to hold him at home. But you only said something about his garments." " Tut ! This is annoying ! Well, what was he doing here without me ? " Zdkhar smiled. '' Really, he may be called an artist, Dmitri Ivdnovich. When he awoke he asked for Madeira ; then he passed all .the time with the cook and with the neighbour's ser- vant. He is so funny. Still, he has a good character. I gave him tea and brought him dinner ; but he did not want to eat, and invited me in. But when it comes to playing the violin, you will find few such artists at Isler's. It is worth while keeping such a man. As he played ' Down the Mother Volga ' for us, it was as though a man were weeping. It was too good ! People came from all the stories to our vestibule to listen to him." " Well, did you dress him up ? " his master interrupted him. " Of course. I gave him your nightshirt and put my overcoat on him. It is proper to help such a man, he is such a dear fellow ! " Zakhar smiled. " He kept asking me what your rank was and whether you had influential acquaintances, and how many souls of peasants you had." ALBERT 205 " All right, but we must find him now, and never again give him anything to drink, or you will only make him worse." , " That is true," interposed Z^khar. " He is evidently feeble ; our master had just such a clerk — " Del^sov, who had long known the story of the desper- ately drinking clerk, did not give Zakhar a chance to finish his story, and, ordering everything fixed for the night, sent him out to find Albert and bring him back He lay down in his bed, put out the light, but could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking of Albert. " Although this may appear very strange to many of my acquaintances," thought Del^sov, "it is so seldom that one does something for somebody else that one ought to thank God when an opportunity presents itself, and I will not miss it. I will do everything, absolutely everything I can in order to aid him. Maybe he is not at all insane, but only a drunkard. This will not cost me very much : where one has enough to eat, two may have. Let him first live with me, and then we will find him a place or will arrange a concert for him ; we will pull him off the shallow, and then we shall see." A pleasant feeling of self-satisfaction took possession of him after this reflection. " Eeally, I am not an entirely bad man, not at all a bad man," he thought. "I am positively a very good man if I compare myself with others — " He was falling asleep, when the sounds of an opening door and of steps in the antechamber distracted him. "Well, I will treat him a little more severely," he thought. " That will be better ; I must do so." He rang the belL " Well, has he come ? " he asked Zakhar, who came in. " He is a wretched man, Dmitri Tvduovich," said Zakhar, significantly shaking his head and closing his eyes. 206 ALBERT « Well, is he drank ? " " He is very weak." " Has lie the violin with him^? " " Yes, the lady gave it to me." " Please do not let him in here ! Put him to hed, and to-morrow don't let him out under any consideration." Zakhar had not yet gone away, when Albert entered the room. " You want to sleep ? " asked Albert, smiling. " I was there, at Anna Ivanovna's. I passed a very pleasant evening : we had music, and we laughed, and had pleas- ant company. Permit me to drink a glass of something," he added, taking hold of the water-bottle, which was standing on the table, " anything but water." Albert was just as he was the night before : there was the same beautiful smile in his eyes and on his lips, the same bright, inspired brow and feeble limbs. Zakhar's overcoat fitted him well, and the clean, long, unstarched collar of the nightshirt picturesquely encircled his thin white neck, giving him a pecuHarly childlike and innocent aspect. He sat down on Del^sov's bed and looked at him in silence, with a joyous and grateful smile. Del^- sov looked into Albert's eyes, and suddenly again felt himself in the power of his smile. His sleepiness van- ished ; he forgot that it was his duty to be severe ; on the contrary, he wanted to make merry, to listen to music, and to talk in a friendly way with Albert until morning, if possible. Del^sov ordered Zakhar to bring a bottle of wine, cigarettes, and the violin. " That is excellent," said Albert. " It is early yet, and we will have music. I will play for you as much as you please." Zakhar with apparent pleasure brought a bottle of Lafitte, two glasses,'weak cigarettes, which Albert smoked, and the violin ; but, instead of going to bed himself, as 207 208 ALBERT his master had ordered him to, he lighted a cigar and sat down in the adjoining room. "Let us talk together," Del&ov said to the musician, as he took the violin. Albert submissively sat down on the bed and again smiled joyfully. " Ah, yes ! " he said, suddenly striking his brow with his hand and assuming a careworn and curious expres- sion. (The expression of his face always preceded that which he was about to say.) " Permit me to ask you " — he hesitated awhile — " that gentleman who was with you last night, and whom you called N , is he not the son of the famous N ? " " His son," rephed DeMsov, unable to understand how that could interest Albert. " That's it," he said, with a self-satisfied smile. " I at once noticed something peculiarly aristocratic in his manners. I love aristocrats: there is something beau- tiful and elegant in an aristocrat. And that officer who danced so well," he asked, " I liked him very much, too, — he was so joUy and so noble. He is Adjutant S , I think?" " Which one ? " asked Del^sov. " The one that knocked against me as we danced. He must be a very fine fellow." " No, he is an empty-headed man," replied Del^sov. " Oh, no," Albert warmly defended him. " There is something very, very pleasant about him. He is a fine musician," added Albert. "He played there something from an opera. I have not taken such a Hking to any one for a long time." " Yes, he plays well, but I do not like his manner of playing," said Del^sov, wishing to lead his interlocutor to a conversation on music. "He does not understand classical music ; Donizetti and Bellini are not music You are, no doubt, of the same opinion." ALBERT 209 "Oh, no, no, pardon me," said Albert, with a softj interceding expression, " the old music is music, and so is the new. There are extraordinary beauties in the new music. What about ' Sonnambula ' ? and the finale in ' Lucia ' ? and Chopin ? and ' Eoberto ' ? I often think " — he stopped, apparently collecting his thoughts — " that if Beethoven were alive he would weep for joy listening to ' Sonnambula.' There are beauties everywhere. I heard ' Sonnambula ' for the first time when Viardot and Eubini were here, — it was like this," he said, with glis- tening eyes, making a gesture with both his hands, as though tearing something out of his breast. "A little longer, and it would have been impossible to endure it." " And how do you find the opera now ? " asked Del^sov. " Bosio is good, very good," he replied, " extremely elegant ; but she does not touch here," he said, pointing to his sunken breast. " A singer needs passion, and she has none. She gives pleasure, but does not torment you." " Well, and Lablache ? " " I heard him in Paris in the ' Barber of Seville ; ' then he was unexcelled, but now he is old, — he cannot be an artist, he is old." " Even though he is old, he is good in morceaux d'ensemUe," said Del^sov, who always said that of Lablache. "Even though he is old?" Albei;J; retorted, severely. " He must not be old. An artist must^ not be old. Much is needed- for art, but above everything else fire!" he said, with glistening eyes, uplifting both his hands. Indeed, a terrible internal fire was burning in bis whole figure. " Ah, my God ! " he suddenly exclaimed, « do you not know Petr6v, the artist ? " ^ " No. I don't," Del^sov replied, smiling. 210 ALBERT " How I wish you would make his acquaintance 1 You would find pleasure in speaking with him. How well he, too, understands art! We used to meet often at Anna Iv^novna's, but she is now for some reason angry with him. I am very anxious for you to know him. He has great, great talent." " What does he do, paint ? " asked Del^sov. "I do not know. I think not; but he was an artist of the Academy. What ideas he has ! It is wonderful to hear him speak sometimes. Oh, Petrdv is a great genius, but he leads too merry a hfe — It is a pity," added Albert, smiling. After that he arose from the bed, took the violin, and began to tune it. " How long is it since you were last at the opera 1 " DeMsov asked him. Albert looked around him and sighed. "Ah, I can't," he said, clasping his head. He again sat down near Deldsov. " I will tell you," he muttered, almost in a whisper : " I can't go there, I can't play there, — I have nothing, nothing ! I have no clothes, no lodging, no violin. It is a miserable life ! a miserable life ! " he repeated several times, " and why should I go there ? Why 1 No, I must not," he said, smiling. " Ah, ' Don Juan ' ! " He struck his head with his hand. " We shall sometimes go there together," said Del^sov. Without making any reply, Albert leaped up, grasped the violin, and began to play the finale of the first act of "Don Juan," in his way telling the contents of the Opera. Del^sov's hair began to stir on his head, as he played the voice of the dying commander. - - "No, I cannot play to-day," he said, putting down the violin, " I have been drinking too much." But immediately after he walked over to the table, poured out a full glass of wine for himself, -gulped it ALBERT 211 down, and again seated himself on the bed near De- l^sov. Del^sov looked at Albert, without taking his eyes off him. Occasionally Albert smiled, and so did DeMsov. They were both silent; but in their looks and smiles there grew up an ever closer relation of love. Del^sov felt that he loved that man more and more, and he experienced an inexpressible joy. "Have you been in love ? " he suddenly asked him. Albert fell to musing for a few seconds, then his face was lighted up by a melancholy smile. He bent down to DeMsov, and looked him attentively in the eye. " Why did you ask me that ? " he muttered, in a whisper. "I will tell you everything, because I like you," he continued, looking awhile at him and casting side glances. " I will not deceive you, but will tell you all from the beginning just as it was." He stopped, and his eyes stopped in a strange and wild manner. " You know that I am weak of intellect," he suddenly said. "Yes, yes," he continued, "Anna Iv^novna, no doubt, has told you so. She tells everybody that I am insane ! That is not so. She says it as a joke, — she is a good woman, — though it is true I have not been quite well for sonie time." Albert again grew silent and looked at the dark door with arrested, widely open eyes. " You asked me whether I ever was in love. Yes, I was," he whispered, raising his eyebrows. " It happened long ago, at the time when I was still connected with the theatre. I played second violin at the opera, and she used to come to a lettered parterre stall on the left." Albert got up and bent down to Del^sov's ear. " No, there is no reason for giving her name," he said. " You, no doubt, know her, — everybody does. I was silent and only looked at her. I knew that I was a poor artist, and she an aristocratic lady. I knew it very well. I only looked at her, thinking nothing." 212 ALBERT Albert became meditative at this recollection. " I do not remember how it happened ; but I was once called to her house to accompany her on the violin — I, poor artist ! " he said, shaking his head and smiling. " No, I can't tell it, I can't — " he added, clasping his head. " How happy I was ! " " Well, did you often go there ? " asked Del^sov. " Once, only once — but it was my own fault. I lost my mind. 1, poor artist, and she, an aristocratic lady. I ought not to have said anything to her. But I lost my mind, I did foolish things. Since then everything has been lost for me. Petrdv told me the truth: it would have been better to see her in the theatre only — " " What was it you did ? " asked DeMsov. " Ah, wait, wait, I cannot tell it." He covered his face with his hands, and was silent for some time. " I came late to the orchestra. Petrov and I had been drinking that evening, and I was distracted. She was sitting in her box, and talking to a general. I do not know who that general was. She sat at the very edge, and had placed her hand on the balustrade ; she wore a white dress and pearls around her neck. She spoke with him and looked at me. Her hair was made up Mke this. I was not playing, but standing near the bass and watch- ing. It was then that I for the first time felt strange. . She smiled at the general and looked at me. I felt that she was speaking about me, and suddenly I saw that I was not in the orchestra, but in her box and holding her hand, like this. What is this ? " asked Albert, growing silent. " This is vividness of imagination," said Del&ov. "No, no — I do not know how to tell it," Albert replied, frowning. "I was poor even then; I had no lodging, and when I went to the theatre, I generally remained there overnight." ALBERT 213 " What ? In the theatre ? In the dark, empty hall ? " "Ah, I am not afraid of these foolish things. Ah, wait ! As soon as they had all gone away, I would go to the box which she used to occupy, and there I would sleep. This was my one joy. What nights I passed there! But once it started again. Many things ap- peared to me in the night, — I cannot tell you all." Albert looked at DeMsov, with his pupils lowered. " What is it ? " he asked. " It is strange ! " said Del&ov. " No, wait, wait ! " He continued to tell him the rest ip a whisper, bending over his ear. " I kissed her hand ; I wept by her side; I talked much with her; I inhaled the odour of her perfume ; I heard her voice. She told me much one night. Then I took my violin and began to play softly. I played superbly. But I felt terribly I am not afraid of these foolish things, and do not be- lieve in them ; but I felt terribly about my head," he said, with a sweet smile, and touching his brow with his hand. " I felt terribly for my poor intellect ; I thought that something had happened to my head. Maybe that is nothing, — what do you say ? " Both were silent for awhile. " ' Und wenn die Wolken sie verhtillen, Die Sonne bleibt doch ewig klar,' " Albert sang out, smiling softly. " Is it not so ? " he added. « < Ich auch habe gelebt und genossen.' Ah ! how well old Petrdv could have explained it all to you!" DeMsov in silence and terror looked at the agitated and pale face of his interlocutor. " Do you know the ' Juristen-walzer ' ? " suddenly ex- 214 ALBEET claimed Albert, and, without waiting for a reply, he jumped up, seized his violin, and began to play a merry waltz. Forgetting himself completely, and apparently imagining that a whole orchestra was playing with him, Albert smiled, swayed, changed the position of his feet, and played magnificently. " Pshaw, enough of merrymaking ! " he said, finishing and swinging his violin. " I will go," he said, after sitting silently for awhile. " Won't you go ? " " Whither ? " Del&ov asked, in surprise. "Let us go again to Anna Ivanovna's; it is jolly there : there is a noise, people, music.'' Del^sov in the first moment almost consented. But, considering the matter, he began to persuade Albert not to go there that day. " Only for a minute.'' " Eeally, don't go ! " Albert sighed and put down the violin. " So I had better stay here ? " He looked again at the table (there was no wine there) and went put, wishing him a good night. Del^sov rang the bell. " Be sure and don't let Mr. Albert out anywhere without my special order," he said to Zakhar. VI. The following day was a holiday. Del^sov, after wak- ing, sat in his drawing-room at the coffee and read a book. Albert in the next room was not yet stirring. Zakhar cautiously opened the door into the dining- room and looked in. " Would you believe it, Dmitri Ivanovich, he is sleeping on the bare couch ! He did not want anything put under, upon my word. Like a little chUd. Truly, an artist." At noon groaning and coughing were heard behind the door. "Zakhar again went into the dining-room; the master heard Zakhar's kind voice and Albert's voice of entreaty. " Well, what^ is it ? " the master asked Zakhar, when he came out of it. , "He is melancholy, Dmitri Ivanovich. He does not want to wash himself, — he is so gloomy, He keeps asking for something to drink."- "Having undertaken it, I must stick to it,'' DeMsov said to himself. He ordered that no wine be given him, and again took up his book, involuntarily listening to what was going on in the dining-room. There was no motion there, but now and then was heard a heavy chest cough and expec- toration. Two hours passed. Having dressed himself, previous to leaving the house, DeMsov decided to look in on his house-mate. Albert was sitting motionless at the window, his head drooping on his hands. He looked around. His face was yellow, wrinkled, and not only 215 216 ALBERT sad, but profoundly unhappy. He endeavoured to smile as a greeting, but his face assumed a still more sorrowful expression. It seemed he was ready — to weep. He rose with difficulty and bowed. " If I just could get a small glass of brandy," he said with an entreating look. " I am so weak, — please ! " " Coffee will brace you up better. I advise you to take tliat." Albert's face suddenly lost its childlike expression j he looked coldly, dimly through the window, and feebly dropped back into his chair. " Won't you eat your breakfast now ? " " No, thank you, I have no appetite." " If you wish to play on the violin, you will not disturb me," said Del^sov, putting the violin on the table. Albert looked at the violin with a contemptuous smile. " No, I am too feeble, — I cannot play," he said, and pushed the instrument away from him. After that, he only bowed humbly and kept stubborn silence in response to everything told him by DeMsov, who proposed to go out with him and to take him to the opera in the evening. DeMsov left the house, made sev- eral visits, dined out, and before the performance went home to change his clothes and to find out what the musician was doing. Albert was sitting in the dark ante- chamber, and, leaning with his head on his arms, was looking into the fire of the stove. He was cleanly dressed, washed, and groomed ; but his eyes were dim and dead, and his whole figure expressed feebleness and exhaustion, even more than in the morning. " Have you had your dinner, Mr. Albert ? " Deldsov asked. Albert made an affirmative answer with his head and, casting a frightened glance at Del^sov's face, lowered his eyes. Del^sov felt ill at ease. " I told the director about you this evening," he said, ALBERT 217 himself lowering his eyes. "He will be very glad to accept you if you will allow yourself to be heard." " Thank you, I cannot play," Albert muttered and went to his room, very softly closing the door behind him. A few moments later, the door-knob was just as softly turned, and he came out from the room with the violin. Casting a malicious and passing glance at DeMsov, he put the violin down on a chair and again disappeared. DeMsov shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "What else am I to do ? What is my fault?" he thought. " Well, how is the musician ? " was his first question when he returned home late. " Badly," was Zakhar's short, sonorous answer. " He has been sighing and coughing Ml the time. He does not speak, except that five or six times he has asked for brandy. I gave him one glass, for fear that we should otherwise injure him, Dmitri Iv^novich. Just so the clerk — " " Has he played any on the violin ? " " He has not even touched it. I took it twice to him, but he picked it up and softly brought it out again," Zd- khar answered, with a smile. " So had I not better give him something to drink ? " " No, we shall wait another day aad see what will hap' pen. What is he doing now ? " " He has locked himself up iu the drawing-room." Del^sov went to his cabinet, where he picked up somt French books and a German Gospel. " Put these books to-morrow in his room, and be sure you don't let him out," he said to Zdkhar. On the following morning, Zdkhar informed his master that the musician had not slept all night : he had walked all the time from one room to another, and had gone to the buffet-room, where he had tried to open the cupboard and the door, but everything, by Zakhar's care, was locked 218 ALBERT Zdkhar said that while he pretended to he asleep he heard Albert in the darkness mumbling something and swaying his arms. Albert grew gloomier from day to day. He seemed to be afraid of DeMsov, and in his face there was an expres- sion of morbid fright every time their eyes met. He never touched the books or the viohn, and made no reply to the questions put to him. Upon the third day of the musician's stay, Deldsov returned home late in the evening, tired and unnerved. He had been driving about all day, attending to a matter which had seemed very simple and easy to him, and yet, as often happens, he had not been able to make a single step in advance, in spite of his special effort. Besides, having called at the club, he had lost at whist. He was out of sorts. " God be with him ! " he answered Z^khar, who had explained to him Albert's sad plight. " To-morrow I will find out definitely from him whether he wants to stay here aud follow my advice, or not. If not, — all right ! I have done all I can, I think." " Do a man a favour ! " he thought to himself. " I am putting myself out for him. I keep in my house this dirty creature, so that in the morning I cannot receive strangers, I run around in his behalf, and he looks upon me as some kind of a rascal who for pleasure has locked him up in a cage. And, what is worse, he wiU not take a step in his own behalf. They are all like that" (this " all " referred to people in general, especially those with whom he on that day had had anything to do). " What is the matter with him now ? What is he thinking about and pining for ? Is he pining for the debauch from which I have torn him away ? For the humiliation, in which he was ? For the wretchedness, from which I saved him ? Evidently he has fallen so low that it is hard for him to look upon an honourable life — " ALBERT 219 " No, it was a childish act," Del^sov concluded to him- self. "What business have I to mend others, when I ought to be thankful to God if I were able to get myself straightened out?" He wanted to let him go at once, but, after some reflection, he put it off until the next day. In the night Del^sov was wakened by the noise of a falling table in the antechamber, and by the sound of voices and of heavy steps. He lighted a candle and began to Usten in wonderment: "Wait, I will tell Dmitri Ivanovich," said Zakhar. Albert's voice muttered something excitedly and inco- herently. Del^sov jumped down from his bed and with the candle ran into the antechamber. Zakhar, in night costume, was standing against the door; Albert, in his hat and cape, was pushing him away from the door and calling out to him in a tearful voice : " You cannot keep me here. I have a passport, and I have not taken anything of yours. You may search me. I will go to the chief of police." " Pfease, Dmitri Ivanovich ! " Zakhar turned to his master, still protecting the door with his back. " He got up in the night, found the key in my overcoat, and emptied a whole decanter of sweet brandy. Is that right? And now he wants to go away. You ordered me not to let him go, and so I am keeping him back." When Albert saw Delesov, he made for Zakhar in still greater excitement. " Nobody dares keep me in ! Nobody has the right to i " he shouted, raising his voice higher and higher. " Step aside, Zakhar," said Del&ov. '' I cannot and I will not keep you, but I should advise you to stay until the morning," he turned to Albert. " Nobody can keep me. I will ' go to the chief of police," Albert cried louder and louder, addressing Zakhar alone and paying no attention to Delesov. " Help ! " he suddenly screamed, in a terrible voice. 220 ALBERT " But why are you yelling so ? Nobody is keeping you," said Zakhar, opening the door. Albert stopped crying. " You did not succeed, did you ? You wanted to starve me, — no ! " he muttered to himself, putting on the galoshes. Without taking leave, and continuing to mumble some incomprehensible words, he walked out through the door. Zakhar held the light for him until he reached the gate, and then returned. " Thank the Lord, Dmitri Ivanovich ! Who knows what misfortune might have befallen us. As it is, I shall have to count the silver." DeMsov only shook his head and made no reply. He now vividly recalled the first two evenings which he had passed with the musician ; he recalled the last sad days which Albert, through his fault, had passed here, and, above everything else, he recalled that sweet mixed feel- ing of surprise, love, and compassion, which this strange man had evoked in him from the very start, and he felt sorry for him. "What will become of him now?" he thought. " Without money, without warm clothes, alone in the night — " He was on the point of sending Zakhar after him, but it was too late. " Is it cold outside ? " asked Del^sov. " It is a stiff frost, Dmitri Ivdnovich," replied Zakhar. " I forgot to inform you tha.t we shall have to get more wood to last us until spring." " Why, then, did you say that there would be some left over ? " VII. It was indeed cold without, but Albert did not feel it, — he was so heated by the liquor he had drunk and by the quarrel. Upon reaching the street, he looked around him and gleefully rubbed his hands. The streets were empty, but the long row of lamps still burned with ruddy flames, and the sky was clear and star-bedecked. " What ? " he said, as he turned to the hghted window in Del^sov's quarters, and, putting his hands under the cape in the pockets of his pantaloons and bending for- ward, Albert with heavy and insecure steps walked down the street on the right. He felt an unusual weight in his feet and in his stomach ; his head was dinning ; an invis- ible power tossed him from side to side, but he continued walking ahead, in the direction of Anna Ivanovna's house. Strange, incoherent thoughts passed through his head. Now he recalled his last altercation with Zakhar; now he for some reason thought of the sea and of his first arrival iu Russia by steamer, and now a happy night passed with a friend in a small shop, past which he was walking now ; now suddenly a familiar motive went singing through his imagination, and he recalled the object of his passion and the terrible night in the theatre. In spite of their incoherence, all these recollections presented themselves to his imagination with such clear- ness that he closed his eyes and was in doubt of what was the greater reality, that which he was doing, or that 221 222 ALBERT which he was thinking. He did not remember, nor feel how his feet moved onward, how he staggered and struck the wall, how he looked about him, and how he crossed from street to street. He remembered and felt only that which, alternating and mingling fantastically, presented itself to him. Passing the Small Morskaya Street, Albert stumbled and fell. Coming for a moment to his senses, he saw before him an immense, superb building, and he went on. In the sky were visible neither stars, nor the dawn, nor the moon, nor were there any lamps, and yet all objects were clearly defined. In the windows of the building, which towered in the corner of the street, lights were burning, but these lights quivered like reflections. The building grew out nearer and nearer, clearer and clearer, in front of Albert. But the lights disappeared the mo- ment Albert entered through the wide door. Within it was dark. Solitary steps sonorously rang out under the vaults, and shadows, gliding along, disap- peared at his approach. " Why did I come here ? " thought Albert; but an insuperable force drew him onward into the depth of the immense hall — There was some kind of an elevation, and around it silently stood some small men. " Who is going to speak ? " Albert asked. Nobody answered him, except that one pointed to the elevation. On that elevation already was standing, in a motley morning-gown, a tall, spare man, .with bristly hair. Albert at once recognized Petrov. " How strange that he should be here ! " thought Albert. " No," brothers ! " said Petrov, pointing to some one. " You did not understand the man who was living among you ! He is not a venal artist, not a mechanical per- former, not an insane or deteriorated man. He is a genius, a great musical genius, who has perish^ among you, unnoticed and unappreciated." ALBEBT 223 Albert at once knew of whom his friend was speaking ; but, not wishing to embarrass him, he modestly lowered his head. " He has burned up, like a blade of straw, from that holy fire which we all serve," continued the voice, " but he has accomplished all that which God has imparted to him; therefore he must be called a great man. You could have despised, tormented, humbled him," the voice continued louder and louder, " but he has been and ever will be incomparably higher than all of you. He is happy, he is good. He loves or despises all equally, which is the same ; he serves only that which has been imparted to him from above. He loves but one thing, beauty, — the only incontestable good in the world. Such is the man ! Fall prostrate before him, all of you ! On your knees ! " he cried aloud. But another voice called out from the opposite corner of the hall. " I do not vrish to kneel before him," said the voice, in which Albert at once recognized that of Deldsov. " What does his greatness consist in ? And why should we bend our knees before him ? Has he behaved honourably and correctly ? Has he been of any use to society ? Do we not know that he has borrowed money without returning it, and that he carried away a violin of a fellow artist and pawned it ? " (" Lord, how does he know it all ! " thought Albert, still more lowering his head.) " Do we not know that he has flattered the most insignificant people, and that, too, for the sake of money ? " continued Dsl^sov. " Do we not know that he was driven out of the theatre ? That Anna Iv^novna wanted to send for the pohce to take him away ? " " God, that is all true, but defend me," muttered Albert, " for you alone know why I did it." " Stop, be ashamed," again spoke Petrdv. " What right have you to accuse him? Have you lived bis life? 224 ALBEBT Have you experienced his transports?" ("That is so, that is so," whispered Albert.) " Art is the highest mani- festation of power in man. It is given to a few chosen ones, and it lifts the chosen one to such a height that his head begins to whirl and he with difficulty can keep his senses. In art, as in every struggle, there are heroes who have entirely given themselves over to serving it and who have perished without having reached the goal." Petrdv grew silent, and Albert raised his head and cried out aloud : " It is true, it is true ! " But his voice died away without a sound. " It does not concern y6u," the artist Petr6v sternly addressed him. " Yes, humiliate and despise him," he continued, " and yet of all of you he is the best and happiest." Albert, who had hstened to these words with bliss in his heart, could stand it no longer: he went up to his friend and wanted to kiss him. "Get away, I do not know you," replied Petrdv. " Walk along, or you won't get there — " " I declare you are tipsy ! You won't get there," called out a watchman at the corner of the street. Albert stopped, collected all his strength, and, trying not to stagger, turned into a side street. But a few steps were left to Anna Iv^novna's. From the vestibule of her house light fell on the snow of the courtyard, and sleighs and carriages were standing at the gate. Grasping the balustrade with chiUed hands, he ran up the stairs and rang the bell. The sleepy face of a maid was thrust through the opening of the door and angrily looked at Albert. " You can't ! " she cried. " I am told not to let you in," and the ijpeniug was slammed to. Sounds of music and of feminine voices reached him on the staircase. He sat down on the floor, leaned his ALBERT • 225 head against the wall, and closed his eyes. Immediately swarms of incoherent but related visions beset him with new force, received him in their waves and carried him far away into the free and beautiful realm of dreams. " Yes, he is the best and happiest ! " ran involuntarily through his imagination. The sounds of a polka were heard through the door. These sounds, too, said that he was the best and the happiest. A bell in the nearest church rang out, and this bell said : " Yes, he is the best and the happiest ! " " I will go again into the hall," thought Albert. " Pe- trov has much to tell me." There was now no one in the hall and, instead of the artist Petr6v, Albert himself was standing on the eleva- tion and was himself playing on the violin all that which the voice had said before. But the violin was of a strange property : it was made of glass. It was necessary to embrace it with both hands and slowly to press it to the breast in order that it might utter sounds. The sounds were tender and charming, such as Albert had never before heard. The more firmly he pressed the violin to his breast, the more joyful and blissful he felt. The louder the sounds were, the swifter the shadows disap- peared and the more were the walls of the hall lighted up by a transparent light. It was necessary to play very carefully on the violin in order not to crush it. Albert played very carefully and well on the glass instrument. He was playing things which he felt no one would ever hear again. He was beginning to grow tired when another distant, dull sound distracted his attention. It was the sound of the bell, but this sound uttered the word : " Yes," said the bell, dinning somewhere far and high, " he seems wretched to you and you despise him, but he is the best and happiest of men ! No one will ever again play on this instrument." 226 • ALSSHT These familiar words suddenly appeared so clever, SO new, and so just to Albert that he stopped playing and, trying not to move, raised his hands and eyes to heaven. He felt that he was beautiful and happy. Although there was no one in the hall, Albert straight- ened out his chest and, proudly raising his head, stood upon the elsvation in such a manner that all might see him. Suddenly somebody's hand lightly touched his shoulder ; he turned around and saw a woman in the half-light. She looked sadly at him and gave a negative shake with her head. He immediately understood that that which he was doing was bad, and he was ashamed of himself. " Whither ? " he asked her. She once more cast a long, fixed look at him and sadly inclined her head. It was she, the very one he loved, and her garment was the same; on her full, white neck there was a string of pearls, and her superb arms were bare above the elbow. She took his hands and led him out of the hall. " The exit is from the other side," said Albert ; but she smiled, without making any reply, and led him out of the hall. On the threshold of the hall Albert saw the moon and water. But the water was not below, as is generally the case, nor was the moon above a white circle, as it gener- ally is. The moon and the water were together and everywhere, — above, below, on the sides, and all around them. Albert threw himself with her into the moon and the water, and he understood that now he could embrace her whom he loved more than all in the world. He embraced her and experienced an unutterable happiness. " Is it not all a dream ? " he asked himself, — but no ! it was reahty and a reminiscence. He felt that that unutterable happiness, which he was enjoying at that moment, had passed and would never again return. " "What am I weeping about ? " he asked her. She ALBERT 227 looked silently and sadly at liim. Albert understood what it was she intended to say by it. '' But how can it be, since I am alive ? " he muttered. She made no reply but looked motionless ahead of her. " It is terrible ! How can I explain to her that I am alive/' he thought in terror. " Lord, I am alive, understand me," he whis- pered. " He is the best and the happiest," said a voice. But something pressed Albert harder and harder. Was it the moon and the water, or her embraces, or tears ? He did not know ; but he felt that he should not say all that was necessary, and that soon all would be ended. Two guests, who came out from Anna Ivdnovna's, stumbled against Albert stretched out at the threshold. One of them went back and called out the hostess. " This is inhuman," he said, " you might have allowed a man to freeze to death.'' "Ah, this Albert! Here he is sitting!" replied the hostess. " Annushka, put him somewhere in a room," she addressed the maid. " But I am alive, so why do you want to bury me ? " muttered Albert, while they carried him unconscious into a room. FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PRINCE D. NEKHLYUDOV Lucerne 1857 FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PRINCE D. NEKHLYUDOV Lucerne July 8. Last night I arrived in Lucerne and stopped in the Schweizerhof, the best hotel here. " Lucerne, chief town of the canton, lying on the shore of the lake of Lucerne," says Murray, " is one of the most romantic spots in Switzerland; three chief roads meet here ; and only one hour's distance by steamboat is Mount Rigi, from which is to be had one of the most magnificent views in the world." Whether justly or not, the other Guides say the same, and therefore there are here an endless number of travel- lers of all nations, especially of Englishmen. The superb five-story-high building of the Schweizer- hof was lately built on the quay, right over the shore of the lake, in the very place where anciently used to be a covered, winding wooden bridge, with turrets at the corners and images on the rafters. Now, thanks to the enormous rush caused by the English, by their needs, their tastes, and their money, the old bridge was torn down and in its place was built a flagstone quay, as straight as a cane ; upon the quay were put up straight, square five-story buildings ; in front of the buildings they 231 232 LUCERNE planted two rows of linden-trees, with their supports, and between the lindens, as is proper, were placed green benches. This is a pleasure-ground ; and here walk up and down English women in Swiss straw hats and English gentlemen in solid and comfortable clothes, and take pleasure out of their production. Very likely these quays, and houses, and lindens, and Englishmen are all right in some places, — they certainly are not here, amidst this strangely majestic and, at the same time, inexpressibly harmonious and gentle Nature. When I went up-sfcairs to my room and opened the window facing the lake, the beauty of this water, of these mountains, and of this sky in the first moment literally blinded and shook me. I experienced an internal unrest and the necessity of giving some expression to that superabundance with which my heart brimmed over. I wanted at that moment to embrace somebody, embrace him hard, tickle and pinch him, — in general, do some- thing unusual with him and with myself. It was past six o'clock in the evening. It had been raining all day, and it was clearing up now. The lake, as blue as burning sulphur, with the dots of boats and their vanishing tracks, immovable, smooth, seemingly convex, spread out before the windows between the variegated green shores, passed into the distance, narrowing between two enormous promontories, and, darkling, leaned against and disappeared in the mountains, clouds, and glaciers, piled one above the other. In the foreground are the moist, light green, receding shores with reeds, meadows, gardens, and villas ; farther away are the dark green, overgrown promontories with the ruins of castles ; in the background is the crumpled vista of pale lilac mountains, with their fantastic, rocky, and dimly white snow-covered summits ; and all is bathed in the gentle, transparent azure of the atmosphere, and illumined by the warm rays of the sunset piercing the LUCERNE 233 rent heaven. Neither on the lake, nor on the mountains, nor on the sky was there one single precise line, not one single precise colour, not one moment like another, — everywhere motion, unsymmetricalness, fantastic shapes, endless mixture and variety of shades and lines, and over all calm, softness, unity, and the insistence of the beauti- ful. And here amid the indefinite, mixed, free beauty, in the very front of my window, stupidly and artificially tower the white, cane-shaped quay, the Hndens with their supports, and the green benches, — miserable, trite, human productions, not welded, like the distant villas and ruins, with the general harmony, but, on the contrary, coarsely contradicting it. My glance continually and involuntarily came in conflict with this terrible straight quay, and mentally wanted to brush it aside and destroy it, like a black spot on the nose, right under the eye, but the quay with the walking Englishmen remained, and I involuntarily endeavoured to find a view-point from which I should not see it. I finally found a way of looking so, and untU dinner I enjoyed all by myself that incomplete, but so much the more sweetly tormenting, sensation, which one experiences during a sohtary contemplation of the beauties of Nature. At half-past seven I was called to dinner. In a large, superbly appointed room of the lower story two long tables were set for at least one hundred people. The silent motion of the gathering guests, the rustling of women's dresses, the light steps, the soft remarks to the most polite and elegant waiters, lasted about three min- utes ; then all the seats were taken by men and women, dressed exceedingly well, even richly, and, in general, with extreme neatness. As generally in Switzerland, the greater part of the guests are English, consequently the chief characteristics of the tahle d'hSte are severe, legalized propriety, incom- 234 LtJCEENE municativeness, based not on pride, but on unsociableneSS, and seclusive contentment in a comfortable and agreeable satisfaction of one's needs. On all sides glisten the whitest of laces, the whitest of collars, the whitest of teeth, both natural and false, the whitest of faces and hands. But the countenances, many of which are very beautiful, express only the consciousness of their own well-being and a complete inattention to all that sur- rounds them, if it has no direct relation to their persons, and the whitest of hands, in rings and in mittens, move only to' adjust collars, carve beef, and fill the glasses with wine — no spiritual agitation is reflected in their motions. Families now and then exchange a few words in a soft voice about some dish, or wine, or the beautiful view from Mount Eigi. Lonely travellers of both sexes sit lonely and silent side by side, not even looking at each other. If, occasionally, out of these hundred people, two speak with each other, the subject for conversation is sure to be the weather and the ascent of Mount Eigi. The knives and forks are barely audible as they move on the plates ; little food is taken at a time ; peas and vegetables are invariably eaten with the fork. The waiters, involun- tarily submitting to the universal taciturnity, ask in a whisper what wine is desired. At. such dinners I always feel oppressed, unhappy, and, finally, sad. It seems to me all the time that I am guilty of something, that I am being punished as in my child- hood, when, if I was naughty, I was put on a chair with the ironical remark, "Eest yourself, my dear!" while my youthful blood was beating in my veins, and in the other room could be heard the merry shouts of my brothers. Formerly I tried to rebel against this feeling of oppres- sion which I experienced during such dinners, but in vain ; all these dead countenances have an insuperable affect upon me, and I become as dead as they. I wish LUCERNE 235 nothing, think nothing, and do not even observe. At first I tried to speak with my neighbours ; but I received no other answers than those phrases which apparently had been repeated one hundred thousand times in the same spot and one hundred thousand times by the same person. And yet, all these people are not stupid and unfeeling ; no doubt, in many of these congealed people there is going on just such an inner Hfe as in me, and in many it is much more complex and interesting. Why, then, do they deprive themselves of one of the best pleasures of life, the enjoyment of each other, the enjoyment of their fellow men 1 How different it was in our French pension, where we, twenty people of the most varied nations, professions, and characters, under the influence of French sociabihty, used to come together at the common table as at a game ! Here, at once, from one end of the table to the other, the conversation, seasoned with jokes and puns, though fre- quently in broken language, became universal. There everybody prattled whatever hap;pened to pass through his mind, unconcerned about the result; there we had our philosopher, our debater, our lei esprit, our butt, — everything was in common. There we soon after dinner removed the table, and, no matter whether in time or not, began to dance la polka over the dusty carpet until late in the evening. There we were, it is true, coquettish, not very clever, and respect- able people, but still we were men. The Spanish countess with her romantic adventures, the Italian abbot who declaimed the Divine Comedy after dinner, the American doctor who had access to the Tuileries, the young play- wright with the long hair, the lady pianist who, accord- ing to her own words, had composed the best polka in the world, the unfortunate and pretty widow with thre* rings on every finger, — we all treated each other in a h^man and friendly, though superficial, manner, a-j^'i 236 LUCERNE carried away, some of us light, and others genuine, sin- cere memories. But at the English tables d'hdte I frequently think, as I look at these laces, ribbons, rings, pomaded hair, and silk dresses, how many live women would be happy and would make others happy in these ornaments. It is a strange thought, how many friends and lovers, the hap- piest of friends and lovers, may be sitting side by side without knowing it. And, God knows why, they will never know it, and will never give each other that happi- ness which it is so easy for them to give and which they desire so much. I felt sad, as always after such dinners, and, without finishing my dessert, I went out, in the unhappiest of moods, to stroll up and down the city. The narrow, dirty streets without illumination, the closing shops, the meeting with drunken men, and with women going for water, or flitting, with hats on, along the walls of the side streets and looking around, not only did not dispel my melancholy mood, but' even intensified it. It was quite dark in the streets when I, without looking around me, without any thoughts in my head, walked toward the house, hoping in sleep to rid myself of my gloomy dis- position. I felt terribly cold at heart, lonely and oppressed, as sometimes happens without any visible cause when arriving in a new place. I was walking down the quay toward the Schweizerhof, looking at nothing but my feet, when I was suddenly startled by the sounds of some strange but exceedingly agreeable and sweet music. These sounds immediately had a vivifying effect upon me, as though a bright, merry light had penetrated my soul. I felt happy and joyful. My dormant attention again was directed to the objects surrounding me. The beauty of the night and of the lake, to which I had been indifferent before, suddenly impressed me soothingly, like a novelty. LTTCERKTE 237 I involuntarily, at a flash, noticed the murky sky, with the gray tufts against the dark azure, lighted up by the rising moon, and the dark green smooth lake, with the little lights reflected in it, and in the distance the mist- covered mountains, and the croaking of the frogs at Freschenburg, and the fresh piping of the quails in the dewy grass on the other shore. And directly in front of me, in the spot from which issued the sounds, and upon which my attention was mainly directed, I saw in the half-darkness a group of men crowding in a semicircle in the middle of the street, and in front of the group, some distance away, a tiny man in a black dress. Back of the group and of the man, against the dark, gray and blue, rent heaven, there were delineated several black, slender poplars of a garden, and there towered majestically on both sides of an ancient cathedral two severe spires. I came nearer and the sounds became more distinct. I could clearly make out the distant chords of a guitar, sweetly tremulous in the night air, and several voices, which, intercepting each other, did not sing the theme, but now and then, singing out the most prominent pas- sages, indicated it. The theme was something in the nature of a sweet, graceful mazurka. The voices seemed now near, now remote ; now could be heard a tenor, now a bass, and now a guttural falsetto, with the warbling Tyrolese yodels. It was not a song, but a light, masterful sketch of a song. I could not make out what it was ; but it was beautiful. These passionate, feeble chords of the guitar, that sweet, soft tune, and that lonely figure of the black little man, amid the fantastic surroundings of the dark lake, the translucent moon, and the two si- lently towering immense spires and black poplars, — all that was strange, but inexpressibly beautiful, or seemed to me to be so. All tlie mingled and involuntary impressions of life suddenly received meaning and charm for me, as though 238 LTJCERHrE a fresh, fragrant flower had bloomed out in my soul. Instead of fatigue, distraction, indifference for everything in the world, which I had experienced but a minute ago, I suddenly felt a need of love, a fulness of hope, and a causeless joy of life. " What is there to wish, what to desire 1 " I uttered, .'nvoluntarily : " Here it is, — you are on all sides surrounded by beauty and poetry. Inhale it in broad, full draughts with all the strength you have ! Enjoy yourself ! What else do you need ? All is yours, all the bliss!" I went nearer. The httle man turned out to be a wandering Tyrolean. He was standing before the win- dows of the hotel, with one foot forward and his head thrown up, and, strumming the guitar, was singiag his graceful song in a variety of voices. I at once felt tender- ness for this man and gratitude for the change which he had caused in me. The singer, so far as I could make out, was dressed in an old black coat ; his hair was black and short, and his head was covered with the commonest kind of an old burgher's cap. There was nothing aristo- cratic in his attire, but his dashing, childishly merry pose and motions, combined with his tiny stature, produced a pathetic, and, at the same time, an amusing effect. In the entrance, in the wiiidows and balconies of the magnificently illuminated hotel, stood wide-skirted ladies, gleaming in their adornments, gentlemen in the whitest of collars, and the porter and lackey in gold-embroidered liveries. In the street, in the semicircle of the crowd and farther away, in the boulevard under the lindens, had stopped and gathered elegantly dressed waiters, cooks in the whitest of caps and blouses, maidens embracing each other, and strollers. All seemed to experience the same sensation which I was experiencing. All stood in silence around the singer and listened attentively to him. Everything was quiet ; only in the intervals of the song from somewhere in the distance 'vvas borne over the watey LUCERNE 239 the even sound of a hammer, and from Freschenburg came the voices of the frogs in loose trills, interrupted by the moist, monotonous piping of the quails. The little man, in the dark, in the middle of the street, trilled, hke a nightiugale, couplet after couplet and song after song. Although I had stepped up close to him, his singing continued to cause me great pleasure. His small voice was extremely pleasing; but the tenderness, the good taste, and the feeling of moderation, with which he' handled this voice, were unusual and betrayed immense natural talent in him. The refrain for each couplet he sang differently, and it was obvious that these graceful variations came to him freely and instantly. In the crowd, and above in the Schweizerhof, and below in the boulevard, was frequently heard a whisper of approval and reigned a respectful silence. The balco- nies and windows were ever more filled with dressed-up ladies and gentlemen, posing picturesquely in the hght of the illumination of the hotel. Strollers stopped, and, in the shadow of the quay, men and women stood every- where in groups near the Hndens. Near me, smoking cigars, stood, somewhat removed from the rest of the crowd, an aristocratic waiter and cook. The cook strongly felt the charm of the music, and at every high falsetto note winked in ecstatic perplexity to the waiter and nudged him with his elbow, with an expression which said : " Well, how is that ? " The waiter, by whose broad smile I could judge of the pleasure which the singing was causing him, rephed to the cook's nudging with a shrug of the shoulders, which showed that it was hard to surprise him, and that he had heard much better singing than that. In the interval of a song, while the singer was clearing his throat, I asked the waiter who he was, and whether he frequently came there. " He comes about twice a summer," replied the waiter. ■' He is from Aargau, — a beggar." 240 LUCERNE " Are there many such ? " I asked. " Yes, yes," replied the lackey, without exactly under- standing what it was I was asking him, but later, making out my question, he added : " Oh, no ! He is the only one here that I know of. There are no others." Just then the httle man finished his first song, nimbly turned over his guitar, and said something to himself in his German patois, which I could not understand, but which provoked guffaws in the crowd around him. " What did he say ? " I asked. "He says that his throat is dry, and that he would like to drink some wine," the waiter who was standing near by translated for me. " Is he fond of drinking ? " "They are all like that," replied the waiter, smiling, and waving his hand toward him. The singer took off his cap, and, swinging his guitar, walked over to the house. He threw back his head and turned to the gentlemen who were standing at the win- dows and on the balconies : " Messieurs et mesdames," he said, in a half-Italian and half-German accent, and with such intonations as sleight- of-hand performers employ when addressing an audience: " Si vous croyez que je gagne quelque chose, vous vous trom- pez ; je ne suis qu'un pauvre tiaple." He stopped and was silent for a moment ; but no one gave him anything. He again swung his guitar and said : " A present, messieurs et mesdames, je vous chanterai I'air du Righi." Above, the public was silent, but continued to stand in expectation of the next song; below, in the crowd, there was laughter, no doubt because he expressed him- self so strangely, and because they gave him nothing. I gave him a few centimes ; he nimbly threw them from one hand into another, stuck them into his vest pocket, and, putting on his cap, once more began to sing a graceful. LUCERNE 241 sweet Tyrolese song, which he called Fair du Bighi. This song, which he had left for the end, was even better than the rest, and on all sides and in the swollen crowd were heard sounds of approval. He finished his song. Again he swung his guitar ; he took off his cap, held it in front of him, made two steps toward the windows, and again repeated his incompre- hensible phrase : " Messieurs et mesdames, si vous croyez que je gagne quelque chose," which he evidently regarded as very fine and clever ; but in his voice and movements I now noticed a certain indecision and childlike timidity, which were quite striking in connection with his short stature. The elegant public stood just as picturesquely on the balconies and in the windows, bathed in the light and shining in their costly attires ; some spoke to each other in properly subdued voices, apparently about the singer, who was standing before them with extended hand, while others looked attentively and with curiosity down upon the black little figure ; on one balcony could be heard the sonorous, merry laughter of a young girl. In the crowd below, the conversation and laughter grew louder and louder. The singer for the third time repeated his phrase, in a still feebler voice; he did not even finish it, but again extended his hand with the cap, and immediately dropped it again. For the second time not one of these brilliantly attired people, who had come out to hear him, threw him down a penny. The crowd laughed out pitilessly. The little singer, it seemed to me, grew smaller still. He took the guitar into his other hand, raised his cap on his head, and said : " Messieurs et mesdames, je vous remercie et je vous souhaite une bonne nuit," and put on his cap. The crowd roared with merry laughter. By degrees the fine ladies and gentlemen disappeared from the bal- 242 LUCERNE conies, calmly conversing with each other. The strolls were resumed on the boulevard. The street, which was silent during the singing, was again lively ; a few people looked at the singer from a distance, without coming nearer, and laughed. I heard the little man mumble something; he turned round, and, as though becoming smaller still, with rapid steps walked toward the town. The merry strollers, who had been looking at him, con- tinued to watch him from a distance and laughed. I was completely at a loss to understand what it meant, and, standing in one spot, senselessly peered into the darkness, watching the receding tiny man, who rapidly strode, with large steps, toward the town, and the laugh- ing strollers, who followed him with their eyes. I was pained and grieved, and, above everything else, ashamed for the little man, for the crowd, for myself, as if it were I who had asked for money and had received none, and as if they were laughing at me. I, too, without looking round, with a pinched heart, striding rapidly, went home, on the veranda of the Schweizerhof. I gave no account to myself of what I was experiencing; but something heavy, something unsolved, filled my heart and pressed it down. In the superb, illuminated entrance I met the porter, who politely stepped aside, and an English family. The firmly built, handsome, tall man, with black English side- whiskers, wearing a black hat and holding a plaid on his arm and an expensive cane in his hand, was walking lazily and self-confidently, Hnking arms with a lady in a gray silk dress and a cap with shining ribbons and ex- quisite laces. By their side walked a pretty, fresh-looking young lady, in a graceful Swiss hat with a feather ti la mousquetaire, from underneath which soft, long, light blond locks fell over her white face. In front leaped about a ten-year-old ruddy girl, with plump, white knees, which could be seen underneath the finest of laces. LUCERNE 243 " A superb night," said the lady, ia a sweet, happy voice, just as I was passing. " Ohe ! " lazily growled the Englishman, who, appar- ently, was so comfortable in life that he did not even feel hke talking. Life in this world seemed to be so calm, comfortable, clean, and easy for all of them, in their motions and countenances there was expressed such indif- ference to the life of every strange:', and such conviction that the porter would step aside before them and bow to them, and that upon returning, they would find a clean, comfortable bed and rooms, and that it all must be so, and that they had a right to it all, — that I suddenly invol- untarily opposed to them the itinerant singer, who, tired, perhaps hungry, in shame was now running away from the laughing crowd, — and I understood why such a heavy stone was weighing upon my heart, and I felt an inex- pressible rage against these people. I twice passed before that Englishman, with inexpressible joy not stepping aside either time and pushing him with my elbow, and, running down the steps, rushed into the darkness, in the direction of the town, where the little man had disappeared. Having caught up with three men who were walking together, I asked them where the singer was ; they laughed and pointed him out in front of them. He was walking alone, with rapid steps ; no one came near him, and he, so I thought, was still mumbhng something angrily. I came abreast with him and proposed to him to go somewhere and drink a bottle of wine with him. He kept walking just as fast and looked displeased at me ; but when he made out what I wanted, he stopped. " "Well, I won't refuse it, if you are so kind," he said. " Near by there is a smaU caf^ where we may go in, — it is such a simple one," he added, pointing to a dramshop which was still open. His word " simple " involuntarily made me wish to go not to the simple caf^, but to the Schweizerhof, there 244 LUCERNE where all were who had heard him. Although h6 sev- eral times, ia timid agitation, refused to go to the Schwei- zerhof, saying that it was too elegant, I insisted upon it, and he, pretending that he was no longer embarrassed and swinging his guitar, walked back with me along the quay. The moment I had moved up to the singer a few idle strollers went up to us, listened to what I was saying, and now, having taken counsel with each other, walked after us up to the entrance, apparently expecting another performance from the Tyrolean. I asked the waiter, whom I met in the vestibule, for a bottle of wine. The waiter, smiling, looked at us and, without making any reply, rushed past us. The head waiter, to whom I addressed the same request, listened seriously to me and, surveying from head to foot the small, timid figure of the singer, sternly told the porter to take us to the hall on the left. This hall was the wine-room for common people. In a corner of this room a hunchbacked woman was washing dishes, and all the furniture consisted of bare wooden tables and chairs. The waiter who came to serve us, looking at us with a meek, scornful smile, and putting his hands in his pockets, was talking to the hunchbacked dishwasher about some- thing. He evidently tried to let us know that, although according to his social standing and dignity he regarded himself as incomparably higher than the singer, it not only did not offend him to wait on us, but even gave him genuine amusement. " Do you wish simple wine ? " he said, vnth a knowing look, winkiQg at me and throwing his napkin from one arm to the other. " Champagne, and of the very best," I said, trying to assume a most haughty and majestic look. But neither the champagne nor my haughty and majestic look had any effect upon the waiter : he smiled, stood awhile look- ing at us, leisurely cast a glance at his gold watch, and LUCERNE 245 with soft steps, as though out for a stroll, walked out of the room. He soon returned with the wine and with two more waiters. The two sat down near the dish- washer and, with cheerful attention and a meek smile on their faces, eyed us as parents eye their dear children when they are well behaved at play. The hunchbacked dishwasher seemed to be the only one who looked at us not scornfully, but sympathetically. Although it was very hard and awkward for me, under the fire of these waiters' eyes, to chat with the singer and to treat him, I tried to do my work as independently as possible. In the light I surveyed him better. He was a tiny, well-proportioned, sinewy man, almost a midget, M'ith bristly black hair, large, black, teary eyes, deprived of their lashes, and an exceedingly pleasing, small, sweetly curved little mouth. He had small side-whiskers and short hair, and wore the simplest and poorest kind of clothes. He was dirty, ragged, sunburnt, and had, in general, the aspect of a labourer. He more resembled a poor peddler than an artist. Only in his ever moist, gleaming eyes and puckering mouth was there something original and touching. He might have been taken for anywhere from twenty-five to forty years ; in reality, he was thirty-eight years old. This is what he with good-natured readiness and appar- ent sincerity told of his hfe. He was from Aargau. He had lost his parents in childhood, and had no other rela- tives. He never had any possessions. He had been apprenticed to a joiner ; but twenty-two years ago he had been attacked by caries in his hand, which deprived him of the possibility of working. He had had a love for singing since childhood, and he began to sing. Foreigners now and then gave him money. He made a profession of it, bought himself a guitar, and had been wandering for eighteen years through Switzerland and Italy, singing ia front of hotels. 246 LUCERNE His whole baggage consisted of the" guitar and a purse, in which there were now only one franc and a half, just enough to pay for his supper and night's lodging. It was now the eighteenth time that he had made his annual summer round of all the best, most frequented parts of Switzerland, Zurich, Lucerne, luterlaken, Chamouni, and so forth ; over the St. Bernard he passes into Italy, and again returns over the St. Gothard or through Savoy. It is now getting hard for him to walk because he feels that the pain in his feet, which he calls the Gliedersiocht, is increasing with every year, when he catches a cold, and because his eyes and voice are getting weaker. In spite of this, he is now on his way to Interlaken, Aix-les-Bains, and, over the small St. Bernard, to Italy, of which he is particularly fond ; he seems, in general, to be very well satisfied with his life. When I asked him why he re- turned home, and whether he had any relatives there, or a house and land, his little mouth, puckering up, gathered into a merry smile, and he answered me : " Oui, le sucre est ton, il est doux pour les enfants ! " winking to the waiters. I did not understand sinything, but the group of waiters laughed. "There is nothing there, or I would not be going around like this," he explained to me. " I come home because something draws me back to my home." He again, with a sly and self-contented smUe, repeated the phrase, " Oui, le sucre est Ion," and laughed good- naturedly. The waiters were satisfied and laughed, but the hunchbacked dishwasher looked seriously with her kindly eyes at the little man and lifted his cap which he . had allowed to fall down from the bench during his con- versation. I had noticed that itinerant singers, acrobats, and even sleight-of-hand performers, like to call them- selves artists, and so I several times hinted to my in- terlocutor that he was an artist; he did not at all LUCERNE 247 acknowledge these qualities in himself, but looked upon his business simply as a means of gaining a livelihood. When I asked him whether he did not himself compose the songs which he sang, he wondered at such a strange question, and replied that he was not equal to it, and that they were old Tyrolese songs. " But the song of Eigi, I suppose, is not old," I said. " Yes, it was composed about fifteen years ago. There was a German in Basics, a very clever man, and it was he who composed it. An excellent song ! You see, he wrote it for the travellers." He began, translating into French, to give me the words of the song of Eigi, which he liked so much: " ' If you wish to walk up the Rigi, You need no shoes as far as Weggis (Because you go there by steamboat), And from Weggis take a big stick, And link arms with a maiden. And go and drink a glass of wine. Only do not drink too much. Because he who wants to drink Must first earn it.' " Oh, it is an excellent song ! " he concluded. The waiters obviously found this song very nice, for they came closer to us. " And who composed the music ? " I asked. " Nobody. You know, to sing for foreigners you must have something new." When ice was brought to us and I filled my com- panion's glass with champagne, he apparently felt ill at ease, and moved restlessly on his bench, looking around at the waiters. We clinked glasses to the health ot artists ; he drank half a glass and found it necessary to fall to musing and thoughtfully to frown. " I have not drunk such wine for a long time, je ne 248 LUCERNE vous dis que ga. In Italy the d'Asti wine is good, but this is better still. Ah, Italy ! It is glorious to be there ! " he added. " Yes, there they appreciate music and artists," I said, wishing to take him back to the failure before the Schwei- zerhof. " No," he replied, " there I cannot afford anybody any pleasure with my music. The Italians themselves are musicians such as there are no other in the world ; but I stick to my Tyrolese songs, — that is something new for them." " Well; are the gentlemen more liberal there ? " I con- tinued, wishing to make him share my rage at the inmates of the Schweizerhof. " It would not happen there, as it did here, that, in an immense hotel where rich people live, one hundred should listen to an artist and not give him anything, would it ? " My question had an entirely different effect upon him from what I had expected. He did not even think of murmuring against them ; on the contrary, in my remark he saw a reflection upon his talent, which did not call for any reward, and tried to justify himself before me. " You can't always receive much," he replied. " Some- times my voice gives out, — or I am tired ; to-day I walked nine hours and sang almost all day. That is hard. The aristocrats are great gentlemen, and sometimes they do not wish to hear Tyrolese songs." " Still, it is not right not to give anything," I repeated. He could not understand my remark. " It is not that," he said, " but the main thing is on est tris serve pour la police, that's where the trouble is. Here, according to the repubhcan laws, you are not permitted to sing, but in Italy you may walk about as much as you please, and no one will say a word to you. Here, if they want to let you, they let you, and if they don't want to, they can put you even in jai).." LUCERKE 249 " Is it possible ? " " Yes. If you were once told not to, and you keep it up, they can put you in jail. I was three months in jail," he said, smiling, as though this were one of his pleasant- est recollections. " Ah, that is terrible ! " I said. " For what ? " " This is so according to their new republican laws," he continued, with animation. "They do not wish to consider that a poor man must live somehow. If I were not a cripple I would work. Do I hurt any one by my singing ? What is this ? Eich people may live as they please, but un pauvre tiaple like myself may not even live. What laws of the republic are these ? If so, we do not want a republic, — is it not so, dear sir ? We do not want a repubhc, — but we want — we want simply — we want " — he hesitated awhile — " we want natural laws." I filled up his glass. " You are not drinking," I said to him. He took the glass in his hand and bowed to me. " I know what you want," he said, blinking and threat- ening me with a finger. " You want to get me drunk so as to see what I shall do ; but no, you won't succeed." " Why should I get you drunk ? " I said. " I only wanted to afford you pleasure." He evidently was sorry for having offended me by his bad interpretation of my intention ; he became embar- rassed, got up, and pressed my elbow. " No, no," he said, looking at me with an imploring ex- pression of his moist eyes, " I am only jesting." Thereupon he pronounced a terribly mixed up, sly phrase, by which he meant to say that I was all the same a good feUow. "Je ne vous dis que fa ! " he concluded. Thus we continued to drink and talk, while the waiters continued without embarrassment to watch us, and, it 250 LUCERNE seemed, to make fun of us. Notwithstanding my interest in the conversation, I could not help noticing them, and, I confess, I grew angrier and angrier. One of them got up, walked over to the little man, and, looking at the crown of his head, began to smile. I had a charge of rage ready against the inmates of the Schweizerhof, which I had not yet had a chance of letting loose, and now, I must confess, this waiter audience roiled me. The porter entered the room without taking off his cap, and, leaning on the table, sat down near me. This latter circumstance, touching my vanity and egotism, set me off completely. I gave vent to that oppressive rage which had been gather- ing in me all evening. Why does he bow to me humbly in the entrance when I am alone, and why does he now, when I am sitting with an itinerant singer, rudely locate himself near me ? I was infuriated with that boiling rage of indignation, which I love and even fan in myself whenever it besets me, because it acts soothingly upon me, and gives me, at least for a short time, a certain extraordinary pliability, energy, and power of all physical and moral faculties. I jumped up from my seat. " What are you laughing at ? " I shouted at the waiter, feeling that my face was growing pale, and my lips were involuntarily jerking. " I am not laughing, I am just so," replied the waiter, receding from me. " No, you are laughing at this gentleman. What right have you to be here and to sit here, when there are guests in the room ? Don't dare stay here ! " I cried. The porter got up with a growl and moved toward the door. " What right have you to laugh at this gentleman and to sit near him when he is a guest and you are a waiter ? Why did you not laugh at me to-day at dinner, and seat yourself near me? Is it because he is poorly clad and LUCERNE 251 sings in the street? is it? while I wear good clothes? He is poor, but he is a thousand times better than you, I am convinced of that, because he has not offended any one, while you are insulting him." " But I am not doing anything, please," said my enemy, the waiter. " I do not keep him from sitting here." The waiter did not understand me, and my German speech was lost on him. The rude porter tried to take the waiter's part, but I attacked him with such violence that he pretended that he, too, did not understand me, and waved his hand. The hunchbacked dishwasher, either because she noticed my heated condition and was afraid of scandal, or because she shared my opinion, took my part, and, trying to stand between me and the porter, begged him to be quiet, saying that I was right, and asked me to. calm myself. '' Ber Herr hat Becht; Su haben Becht," she kept repeating. The singer presented a most wretched, frightened ap- pearance, and, evidently not comprehending the cause of my excitement or what it was I wanted, begged me to go away as soon as possible from there. But a malignant garrulity burned stronger and stronger within me. I recalled everything : the crowd which had laughed at him and the audience which had not given him anything, and I did not want to quiet down for anything in the world. I think that if the waiters and the porter had not been so yielding, I should have enjoyed a fight with them, or I should have whacked the defenceless English young lady with a stick over her head. If at that moment I had been at Sevastopol, it would have given me pleasure to rush headlong to cut and slash in the English trenches. "Why did you take this gentleman and me to this and not to the other hall ? Eh ? " I pressed the porter, seiztug his arm in order to keep him from escaping. " What right did you have to decide by looks that this 252 LUCERNE gentleman must be in this and not in the other hall? Are not all who pay equal in hotels? Not only in a republic, but anywhere in the world ? Damn your re- public ! You call this equality ! You would not have dared to take the Enghshmen to this room, those very Englishmen who had listened to this gentleman for noth- ing, that is, who each one of them stole from him a few centimes, which they ought to have given him. How did you dare to assign to us this hall ? " " The other hall is closed," replied the porter. "No," I shouted, "it is not true, the hall is not closed ! " " Then you know better." " I know, I know that you are lying." The porter turned his shoulder to me. " Ah, what is the use of talking ? " he mumbled. "No, not 'what is the use of talking,'" I shouted, " but take me this minute to the other hall ! " In spite of the request of the hunchbacked woman and the singer's entreaties to go home, I called for the head waiter and went to the hall with my companion. When the head waiter heard my raving voice and saw my agitated face, he did not try to dispute with me, but said to me with contemptuous politeness that I could go wherever I pleased. I could not give the porter the lie, because he had concealed himself before I entered the hall. The hall was really open and illuminated, and at one of the tables an Englishman and a lady were sitting at supper. Although we were shown to a separate table, I sat down with the dirty singer near the Englishman, and ordered the unfinished bottle brought in. The Englishman and the lady looked, at first in sur- prise, and then in anger, at the little man, who was sitting near me more dead than alive ; they said something to each other, and she pushed away her plate, rustled with LUCEENE 255 her silk dress, and both disappeared. I could see the Eng- lishman beyond the glass door saying something angrily to a waiter, all the time pointing in our direction with his hand. The waiter moved up to the door and looked through it. I was expecting, with a pang of joy, that they would come to take us out, and that, at last, I should have a chance of pouring forth my indignation upon them. But, luckily, they left us alone, though then it displeased me. The singer, who before had refused the wine, now hastened to empty the bottle in order to get away as soon as possible. Still, I thought, he feelingly thanked me for the treat. His tearful eyes became even more tearful and shining, and he uttered to me the strangest and most intricate phrase of gratitude. And yet the phrase, in which he said that if all honoured an artist the way I had done, he would be happy, and that he wished me all happiness, was very agreeable to me. We walked together out into the vestibule. Here stood the waiters and my enemy, the porter, who, I thought, was complaining of me to them. They seemed all of them to look upon me as an insane man. I al- lowed the httle man to come abreast with all that public, and here I took off my cap with all the respectfulness which I was able to express in my person, and pressed his hand with the ossified and dried-up finger. The waiters acted as though tht>y did not pay. tlie least attention to me, and only one ol them laughed a sardonic laugh. When the singer, bowing himself out, disappeared in the darkness, I wer t up-stairs, wishing to forget in sleep all these impressions and the foohsh, childlike anger which had so suddenly beset me. But, feeling myself too much agitated for sleep, I again went into the street, in order to walk around until I should become calmed down, and, I must confess, with the dim hope of finding an opportunity of quarrelling with the porter, the waiter, or the English- 254 LUCERNE man, and of proving to them all their cruelty and, above everything else, their injustice. However, I met no one but the porter, who, upon seeing me, turned his back to me, and I began all sole alone to walk up and down the quay. Here it is, the strange fate of poetry, I reflected, after quieting down a little. All love and seek it, wish and seek it alone in life, and nobody acknowledges its power, nobody esteems this highest good of the world, nor esteems and thanks those who give it to people. Ask whomever you wish, ask all the inmates of the Schweizerhof what the highest good in the world is, and all of them, or ninety-nine in every hundred, assuming a sardonic ex- pression, will tell you that the highest good of the world is money. " It may be this idea does not please you and does not comport with your exalted ideas," he will tell you, " but what is to be done, since human life is bO constituted that money alone forms the happiness of man ? I could not help letting my reason see the world as it is," he will add, " that is, see the truth." Wretched is your mind, wretched the happiness which you wish, and you yourself are a miserable being, not knowing what you need ^ — Why have you all left your country, relatives, occupations, and money affairs, and congregated in the small Swiss town of Lucerne ? Why did you all pour forth this evening upon the balconies and in respectful silence hsten to the song of a little mendicant ? And if he had chosen to sing longer, you would still have been silent and would have listened. What ? For money, even for millions, could you be driven out of your country and collected in this small corner, in Lucerne ? For money could you all have been gathered on the, balconies and be compelled for half an hour to stand in silence and motionless ? No ! Ther^is one thing which causes you to act and which eternally will move you more powerfully than all LUCERNE 255 the other movers of life, and that is the need of poetry which you do not acknowledge, but which you feel, and will eternally feel, as long as there is anything human left in you. The word " poetry " is ridiculous to you, — you use it as a scornful reproach ; you admit the love for a poetical something in children and sUly maidens, but still you laugh at them ; for yourselves you need some- thing positive. However, it is the children who look soundly at life ; they love and know what a man must love and what gives happiness, while hfe has so enmeshed and debauched you that you laugh at that which alone you love, and seek only that which you hate and which causes your unhappiness. You are so enmeshed that you do not un- derstand the obligation which you have to the poor Tyro- lean who has afforded you a pure enjoyment, and at the same time you feel obliged to hamble yourselves before a lord for nothing, without gain or pleasure, and for some reason to sacrifice for him your peace and comfort. What nonsense ! What insoluble insipidity ! But it is not that which has most affected me this eve- ning. This ignorance of that which gives happiness, this unconsciousness of poetical enjoyments I almost under- stand, or have become accustomed to, having frequently met with it .in life ; nor was the unconscious cruelty of the crowd anything new to me. Whatever the advocates of the popular spirit may say, the crowd may be a union of good people, but they touch each other only by their base, animal sides, and express only the weakness and cruelty of human nature. But how could you, children of a free, humane nation, you Christians, you, simply men, answer with coldness and ridicule to a pure enjoyment afforded you by an unfortunate mendicant ? But no, there are refuges for beggars in your country. There are no beg- gars, there must not be, and there must not be the feeling of compassion upon which beggardom is based. 256 LUCERNE But he laboured, gave you pleasure ; he implored yoU to give him something of your superabundance for his labour which you made use of. But you watched him as a rarity with a cold smilcj down from your high, shining palaces, and among hundreds of you happy and rich people there was not found one man or woman to throw anything down to him ! Put to shame, he walked away from you, — and the senseless crowd, laughing, pursued and insulted Hot you, but him, because you are cold, cruel, and dishonest; because you stole enjoyment from him> which he had afforded you, they offended Mm, " On the 7th of July, 1857, an itinerant singer for half an hour sang songs and played the guitar in Lucerne in front of the Schweizerhof, where the richest people stop. About one hundred persons listened to him. The singer three times asked all to give him something. Not one person gave him anything, and many laughed at him.'' This is not fiction, but a positive fact which those who wish may find out from the permanent inmates of the Schweizerhof and by looking up in the newspapers who the foreigners were who on the 7th of July stopped at the Schweizerhof. This is an occurrence which the historians of our time ought to note down with fiery, indelible letters. This incident is more significant, more serious, and has a deeper meaning than the facts that are noted down in newspapers and histories. That the English have killed another thousand Chinamen because the Chinese buy nothing for money, while their country swallows all the coin; that the French have killed another thousand Kabyles because grain grows well in Africa and because constant war is useful for the formation of armies ; that the Turkish ambassador in Naples cannot be a Jew ; and that Emperor Napoleon strolls down in Plombi^res and in print assures the people that he is ruling only by the will of the whole nation, — all these are only words LUCERNE 257 which conceal or reveal long-known facts. But the incident which took place at Lucerne on the 7th of July seems to me to be entirely new and strange, and refers not to the eternal, bad sides of human nature, but to a certain epoch of social evolution. This is not a fact for the history of human actions, but for the history of progress and for civilization. Why is this inhuman fact, which is impossible in any German, Trench, or Italian village, possible here, where civilization, freedom, and equality have been carried to the highest point, where the most civilized travellers from the most civilized nations congregate ? Why have these developed, humane people, who are in general capable of every honourable and humane work, no heart- felt human feeling for a personal good act ? Why do these people, who in their parUament, their meetings, and their societies are greatly concerned about the con- dition of the unmarried Chinese in India, about the dissemination of Christianity and culture in Africa, about the foundation of societies for the betternient of the whole human race, not find in their souls the first, primi- tive feeling of man to man ? Is it possible they have not that feeling, and that its place is occupied by vanity, ambition, and selfishness, which guide them in their par- liament, their meetings, and their societies ? Is it possible that the dissemination of a sensible, self-loving associa- tion of men, called civilization, destroys and contradicts the demands of an instinctive and loving association ? And is this that equality for which so much innocent blood has been spilled and so many crimes have been committed ? Can nations, like children, be happy in the mere sound of the word equahty ? Equality before the law ? Does the whole life of people take place in the sphere of the law ? Only one thousandth part of it is subject to law; the othet part takes place outside of it, in the sphere of social customs 258 LTTCERNE and conceptions. In society the waitet is better dressed than the singer, and he with impunity insults him. I am better dressed than the waiter, and I with impunity insult the waiter. The porter regards himself as higher, and the singer as lower than the waiter; when I joined the singer, he regarded himself as our equal, and became rude. I grew insolent to the porter, and the porter acknowledged himself to be lower than I. The waiter was insolent with the singer, and the singer considered himself lower than he. Is that a free, what people call a positively free, country, where there is even one citizen who is put in jail because he, doing nobody any harm, interfering with nobody, does the one thing he can do in order not to starve ? An unfortunate, miserable being is man with his need of positive solutions, cast into this eternally moving, end- less ocean of good and evil, of facts, of reflections and contradictions ! Men have been struggling and labour- ing for ages to segregate the good on one side, and the evil on the other. Ages pass, and no matter what the unprejudiced mind may have added to the scales of good and evil, the balance does not waver, and on each side there is just as much good as evil. If man but learned not to judge and not to think sharply and positively, and not to give answers to ques- tions given to him only that they might always remain questions ! If he only understood that every idea is both false and just ! False — on account of its one-sidedness, on account of the impossibility of man's embracing the whole truth ; and just — as an expression of one side of human tendencies. They have made subdivisions for themselves in this eternally moving, endless, endlessly mixed chaos of good and evil ; they have drawn imagi- nary hues on this sea, and now are waiting for this sea to cleave apart, as though there were not millions of other subdivisions from an entirely different point of view. LUCERNE 259 in another plane. It is true, — these new subdivisions are worked out by the ages, but millions of these ages have passed and still will pass. Civilization is good, barbarism evil; freedom is good, enslavement evil. It is this imaginary knowledge which destroys the instinctive, most blissful primitive demands of good in human nature. And who will define to me what freedom is, what despotism, what civilization, what barbarism ? And where are the limits of the one and of the other ? In whose soul is this measure of good and evil so imperturbable that he can measure with it the fleeting, mixed facts ? Whose mind is so large as to embrace and weigh all the facts even of the immov- able past? And who has seen a condition such that good and evil did not exist side by side in it ? And how do I know but that I see more of the one than of the other because I do not stand in the proper place ? And who is able so completely to tear his mind away from life, even for a moment, independently to cast a bird's-eye view upon it ? There is one, but one impeccable leader, the Universal Spirit, who penetrates us all as one and each separately, who imparts to each the tendency toward that which is right; that same Spirit, who orders the tree to grow toward the sun, orders the flower to cast seeds in the fall, and orders us unconsciously to press together. This one, impeccable, blissful voice is drowned by the boisterous, hasty development of civilization. Who is the greater man and the greater barbarian, — the lord, who upon seeing the singer's soiled garment, angrily rushed away from the table, who for his labours did not give him one millionth of his possessions, and who now, well- fed and sitting in a lighted, comfortable room, calmly judges of the affairs of China, finding all the murders committed there justified, — or the little singer, who, risking imprisonment, with a franc in his pocket, has for 260 HTCEEKE twenty years harmlessly wandered through monntains and valleys, bringing Consolation to people with his sing- ing, who has been insulted, who was almost kicked out to-day, and who, tired, hungry, humiliated, went away to sleep somewhere on rotting straw ? Just then I heard in the town, amid the dead silence of the night, far, far away, the guitar of the little man and his voice. No, I involuntarily said to myself, you have no right to pity him and to be indignant at the lord's well-being. Who has weighed the internal happiness which Ues in the soul of each of these men ? He is sitting somewhere on a dirty threshold, looking into the gleaming moonlit heaven, and joyfully singing amid the soft, fragrant night ; in his heart there is no reproach, no malice, no regret. And who knows what is going on now in the souls of all these people, behind these rich, high walls ? Who knows whether there is in all of them as much careless, meek joy of life and agreement with the world as lives in the soul of this little man ? Endless is the mercy and all-wisdom of Him who has permitted and has commanded all these contradictions to exist. Only to you, insignificant worm, who are boldly, unlawfully trying to penetrate His laws, His intentions, — only to you do they appear ad ! " That same evening the patient was a corpse, and the body in the coffin stood in the parlour of the large house. In the large room with the closed doors a sexton sat all alone, reading the psalms of David through his nose and in an even voice. The bright flame of the wax tapers in tall sUver candlesticks fell upon the pale brow of the deceased woman, upon her heavy wax-like hands, and upon the petrified folds of the shroud, rising terribly at the knees and toes. The sexton read evenly, without understanding his words, and the words sounded strangely and died away in the quiet room. Occasionally the sounds of children's voices and their treads reached him from a distant room. " Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled," so ran the psalm. " Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust. Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they are created and renew the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever." The face of the deceased woman was stern and majestic. There was no motion, neither in the clean, cold forehead, nor in the firmly compressed lips. She was all attention ! But did she at all understand these great words now ? IV. A MONTH later, a stone chapel rose over the grave of the deceased woman. Over the driver's grave there viras still no stone, and only the light green grass sprouted on the mound which served as the only token of the past existence of the man. " It will be a sin, Ser^ga," once said the cook at the station, "if you don't buy F^dor a stone. You kept saying that it was winter, but why do you not keep your word now? Wasn't I a witness to it? He once came to you to ask for it ; if you do not buy it, he will come again and will choke you." " But I do not deny it," rephed Ser^ga. " I will buy a stone, as I said I would, and I will give a rouble and a half for it. I have not forgotten it, but I must fetch it from town. The first time I am there, I will buy it." " You ought to put up a cross at least, that's what," interposed an old driver, "for it is bad to leave it as it is. You are wearing his boots." " Where shall I get the cross ? I can't dress one out of a billet of wood." " What nonsense you talk ! You can't dress one from a billet ! Take an axe and go early in the morning into the grove, and then you will be able to dress one. Cut down an ash, or something like that, and there you have a cross. What sense is there in filling the forester with brandy ? You can't be ready to treat them for every trifle. The other day I broke an axletree, so I trimmed 278 THEEE DEATHS 279 tile a fine new one, and nobody said a word to me about it." Early in the morning, just at daybreak, Ser%a took an axe and went into the grove. On everything lay the cold, dull shroud of the still setthng dew, not illuminated by the sun. The east was visibly growing brighter, reflecting its feeble light on the vault of heaven veiled by thin clouds. Not one blade of grass underfoot nor one leaf in the upper branches of the trees were stirring. Only the occasional sounds of wings in the thick foliage of the trees or a rustling sound on the ground broke the silence of the woods. Suddenly a strange sound, unfamiUar to Nature, was borne through the forest and died away in the clearing. But the sound was heard again and was evenly repeated below, upon the trunk of one of the immovable trees. One of the tops shook in an unusual way ; its juicy leaves whispered something, and a whitethroat, which was sitting on one of its branches, twice flitted about, utter- ing a whisthng sound, and, jerking up its tail, seated itself on another tree. The axe sounded duller and duller below; the sap- filled chips flew upon the dew-covered grass, and a slight crackling v/as heard above the strokes. The tree trembled in all its body, bent down and swiftly straightened itself, swaying frightened on its root. For a moment every- thing was silent; but the tree bent down once more, there was heard a crackling in its trunk, and, breaking boughs and lowering its branches, it crashed with its top against the damp earth. The sounds of the axe and of the steps died down. The whitethroat whistled and flitted higher up. The twig which it brushed with its wings swayed to and fro a little while and came to a rest, like the others, with all its leaves. The trees still more joyously displayed their motionless branches in the newly cleared place. 280 THREE DEATHS The first rays of the sun, piercing the translucent cloud, gleanaed in the heaven and flashed through earth and sky. The mist began to quiver in waves in the ravines; the dew, sparkling, played on the verdure; translucent, whitened cloudlets scudded over the deepen- ing azure of the vault. Birds stirred -in the thicket and, as though lost, twittered about some happiness ; the lush leaves joyfully and calmly whispered to each other in the tops, and the branches of the living trees slowly, majesti- cally rustled over the dead, prostrate tree. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS A Novel 1859 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS A Novel PART THE FIRST I. We were wearing mourning for our mother, who had died in the autumn, and were living all alone, with Katya and S6nya, in the country. Katya was an old friend of the house, the governess who had brought us all up and whom I remembered and loved as far back as I could remember myself. Sonya was my younger sister. We passed a gloomy and sad winter in our old house at Pokrovskoe. The weather was cold and windy, so that snow-drifts were blown higher than the windows ; the panes were nearly all the time frozen over and dim, and we went nowhere almost the whole winter. We had but few visitors, and such as came did not add merriment and joy to our house. All had sad faces; all spoke softly, as though afraid to waken somebody; they did not laugh, but sighed and frequently wept, as they looked at me, and especially at little S(5nya in her black little dress. Death seemed still to be felt in the house ; the sorrow and terror of death was still in the atmosphere. Mamma's room 283 284 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS was closed, and I shivered and something drew me to look into that cold and empty room every time I passed by it on my way to bed. I was then seventeen years old ; it was during that very year of my mother's death that she had intended to settle in the city in order to bring me out. My mother's loss was a great sorrow for me, but I must confess that back of this sorrow there was also the con- sciousness that I was young and pretty, as all were telling me, and that I was, in the meanwhile, kUling the second winter in soUtude in the country. Before the end of winter this feeling of pining and solitude and of simple tedium increased to such a degree that I did not leave my room, did not open the piano, and did not take a book into my hands. When K^tya tried to persuade me to do something or other, I replied : " I do not feel like it, I can't," while a voice within me said : " Why should I ? Why do something when my best time is passing fruitlessly ? Why ? " And to this " why " there was no other answer than tears. I was told that I was getting thinner and less pretty during that time, but that did not even interest me. Why ? For whom ? It seemed to me that my whole life would have to pass in this lonely wilderness and help- less pining, from which I myself, alone, had no strength and even no desire to get away. Toward the end of winter Katya began to be afraid for ^e and made up her mind to take me abroad at all costs. But to do this money was needed, whereas we hardly knew what there was left after mother, and from day to day waited for the arrival of the guardian, who was to look into our affairs. In March the guardian came. " Thank God ! " K^tya once said to me, while I was walking from one comer to another like a shadow, with- out work, without thoughts, without desires. " Sergydy Mikhaylych has arrived. He has sent somebody ,to DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 285 inquire about us, and he wanted to be here for dinner. Beptir yourself, dear Masha," she added, " or else what will he think of you ? . He used to love you all so." Sergy^y Mikhaylych was our near neighbour and a friend of our deceased father, though he was much younger than he. Not only did his arrival change our plans and give us a chance of leaving the country, but I had been accustomed from childhood to love and respect him, and Katya, advising me to bestir myself, had rightly guessed that it would pain me more to appear in an irnfavourable light before Sergy^y Mikhaylych than before any other of mv acquaintances. Not only did I, like everybody else in the house, beginning with Katya and Sonya, his godchild, and ending with the last coach- man, love him by habit, but he had also a special meaning for me by a few words which mamma had used in refer- ence to me. She had said th^t she would wish such a husband for me. At that time it had appeared strange and even disagreeable to me; my hero was somebody quite different from him. My hero was thin, haggard, pale, and sad, while Sergydy Mikhaylych was no longer in his first youth, tall, plump, and, as I thought, always merry. Yet, although these words of mamma's fell deep in my imagination as long back as six years ago, when I was but eleven, and he spoke " thou " to me, and played with me, and called me " violet," I sometimes asked my- self with a pang of terror what I should do if he suddenly wanted to marry me. Sergy^y Mikhaylych arrived before dinner, for which Katya added cream pastry and spinach sauce, I saw him through the window driving up to the house in a small sleigh, but the moment he drove around the corner I hastened into the drawing-room and intended to pretend that I had not expected him. But when I heard the thud of his feet in the antechamber, his loud voice, and Katya's steps, I could not hold myself, and went out ta 286 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS meet him. He was holding Katya's hand, and speaking loud and smiling. When he saw me he stopped and for some time looked at me, without greeting me. I felt ill at ease, and I knew that I was blushing. " Oh, is it really you ? " he said, in his determined and simple manner, waving his hands and coming up to me. " How can one change so ? How you have grown ! A real violet ! You are now a whole rose-bush." He took my hand into his large hand and pressed it firmly and sincerely, without giving me pain. I thought he was going to kiss my hand, and so I bent down to him, but he again pressed it and looked me straight in the eye with his firm and cheerful glance. I had not seen him for six years. He had changed much ; he had aged, looked blacker, and his face was all overgrown with side-whiskers, which did not at all become liim; but his manner was as simple as before, and he had the same opeu, honest, large-featured face, intelligent, sparkling eyes, and gracious, almost childhke, smile. Five minutes later he ceased being a guest, and became a familiar friend to all of us, even to -the people, who, to judge from their readiness to serve him, were very much dehghted with his arrival. He acted quite differently from the neighbours who came after mother's demise and who considered it neces- sary to keep silent and weep, while staying at our house ; he, on the contrary, was talkative, merry, and did not say a word about mamma, so that at first this indifference appeared to me strange and even indecent in a man who was so near to us. But later I understood that it was not iodifference, but sincerity, and I was thankful to him for it. In the evening Katya sat down in the old place in the . drawing-room, as in mamma's lifetime, to pour out tea; Sdnya and I sat down by her side; old Grigdri brought him papa's old pipe, which he had found, and he, as of old, began to pace up and down in the room. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 287 "What terrible changes have taken place in this house, when you come to think of it ! " he said, stopping. " Yes," said Katya, ,with a sigh, and, covering the samovar with the lid, looked at him, ready to burst out into tears. " I suppose you remember your papa," he turned to me. " Not very much," I replied. " How good it would have been for you now if he were with you ! " he said, looking softly and thoughtfully at my head above my eyes. " I was very fond of your father ! " he added, softer stiU, and I thought that his eyes became brighter. " And then God took her ! " said K^tya. She immedi- ately put a napkin over the teapot, took out her handker- chief, and began to weep. " Yes, terrible changes have taken place in this house," he repeated, turning away. " Sdnya, let me see your toys," he added, after awhile, and went into the parlour. I looked at Kdtya, my eyes filled with tears, as he went out. " He is such a fine friend ! " she said. Indeed, I felt somehow warm and good from the sym- pathy of this strange and good man. In the drawing-room could be heard Sdnya's scream, and his playing with S(5nya. I sent his tea in to him ; we could hear him sitting down at the piano and striking the keys with Sdnya's hands. " Mdrya Aleksandrovna ! " was heard his voice. " Come here, and play us something ! " It was a pleasure to have him address me in such a simple and familiarly commanding tone ; I got up and walked over to him. " Play this," he said, opening to a page of a book of Beethoven's sonatas, on which was the adagio of Quasi una fantasia. " We shall see how you play," he added, going away with his glass to the corner of the parlour. For some reason 1 felt that I could not refuse him 288 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS and make excuses about my poor playing! I submis- sively sat down at the piano and began to play as well as I could, although I was afraid of his opinion, knowing that he understood and loved music. The adagio was in keeping with that sentiment of reminiscence, called forth by the conversation at tea, and I think I played it fairly well. He would not let me play the scherzo. " No, you do noj play this well," he said, coming up to me, " so leave it alone ; but the iirst was not bad. You seem to understand music." This moderate praise pleased me so much that I even blushed. It was so novel and agreeable for me to have him, the 'friend and equal of my father, speak with me seriously when left alone, and not as with a child, as he used to. Katya went up-stairs to put Sdnya to bed, and we were left alone in the parlour. He told me about my father, how he had met him, and how they hved together when I was still sitting at my books and toys ; and my father for the first time, in his stories, presented himself to me as a simple and dear man, such as I had not known him before. He also asked me what I liked, what I read, what I intended to do, and gave me his advice. He was now to me not a joker and merrymaker, teasing me and making toys for me, but a serious, simple, and loving man, for whom I invol- untarily felt respect and sympathy. I felt light and comfortable, and, at the same time, I was conscious of an involuntary tension, while speaking with him. I was afraid of every word of mine ; I was so anxious person- ally to gain his love which I had so far acquired by dint of being my father's daughter. Having put S6nya to bed, Katya joined us. She com- plained to him of my apathy, of which I had not told him anything. " She has not told me the main thing," he said, smiling and reproachfully shaking his head at me. DOMESTIC HAPPIKESS 289 " What was there to tell ? " I said. " It is very tedious, and it will pass." (I really felt now that not only would my tedium pass, but that it had passed already, and that there had been none at all.) " It is not good not to be able to endure solitude," he said. " Are you really a young lady ? " " Of course I am," I replied, laughing. " No, she is not a nice young lady who is alive only so long as people admire her, and who lets herself go and to whom nothing is dear the moment she is left alone. Everything is for show for her, and nothing for herself." " A fine opinion you have of me," I said, just to say something. " No ! " he said, after a moment's silence. " There is good reason why you should resemble your father. There is in you something," and his kindly, attentive glance again flattered me and embarrassed me pleasurably. Only now I noticed that his face, which was at first impression merry, had back of it a peculiar glance, — at first clear, and then ever more attentive and slightly sad. " You ought not and should not feel dull," he said. " You have music which you understand, books, studies ; you have a whole Hfe ahead of you, for which you can prepare yourself now, in order not to regret it later. In a year it will be too late." He spoke to me hke a father or uncle, and I felt that he constantly held himself back in order to be on a level with me. It was both aggravating to me to see him regard me as below him, and agreeable to see him try to be something different just for my sake alone. The rest of the evening he spoke with Katya about business. " Good-bye, dear friends," he said, getting up and walking over to me and taking my hand. " When shall we see each other again ? " asked Kdtya. " In the spring," he replied, still holding my hand. 2% t)OMEsflC HAfPlNESS " Now I will go to Danilovka (our other village) ; there I will see how matters stand and will do what I can ; then I will travel to Moscow about my own business, and in the summer we shall meet again." " Why are you going away for so long ? " I said, very sorrowfully. Indeed, 1 had hoped to see him every day, and I suddenly felt so miserable and so terribly afraid lest my enmii should return. Evidently this was all expressed in my glance and tone of voice. " Busy yourself as much as possible, and don't become a hypochondriac," he said, as I thought, in too cold and simple a voice. " In the spring I will examine you," he added, letting my hand go, and without looking at me. In the antechamber, where we were standing to see him off, he hurriedly put on his fur coat and again surveyed me with his glance. " He is trying in vain ! " I thought. " Does he really think it gives me such pleasure for him to look at me ? He is a good man, a very good man — but that is all." Still, that night Katya and I did not fall asleep for a long time, and we spoke not of him, but of where we should pass the coming summer, and where and how we should live in the winter. The terrible question " why ? " no longer presented itself to me. It seemed very simple and clear to me that one must live in order to be happy, and the future offered much happiness to me. It seemed as though our old, gloomy Pokrdvskoe house were suddenly filled with life and light. n. In the meantime spring came. My former pining was gone and was exchanged for a vernal nieditative pining of incomprehensible hopes and desires. Although I lived differently from what I did in the beginning of winter, and busied myself with Sdnya and music and reading, I frequently went into the garden and long, long strolled all alone down the avenues, or sat down on a bench, thinking God knows of what, and wishing and hoping God knows for what. At times I passed whole nights, especially moonlit nights, until morning at the window of my room ; at times I, in nothing but my bodice, softly stole away from Katya to walk into the garden and run over the dew down to the pond, and once I even went into the field and all alone walked around the garden. Now it is hard for me to recall and comprehend the dreams which at that time filled my imagination. When I do recall them I can hardly believe that those really were my dreams. They were then strange and remote from life. At the end of May, Sergy^y Mikh^ylych returned from his journey, as he had promised. He arrived in the evening, when we did not expect him. We were sitting on the terrace and were getting ready to drink tea. The garden was clad in verdure, and the nightingales had taken up their abode in the clumps of bushes as early as St. Peter's Fast. The curly lilac bushes here and there seemed to be strewn on top with m 292 DOMKSTIC HAPPINESS something white and lilac. These flowers were just get- ting ready to open out. The foliage in the birch avenue was all translucent in the setting sun. On the terrace there was a fresh shade. Heavy evening dew was soon to fall on the grass. In the courtyard beyond the garden could be heard the last sounds of day, the noise of the cattle driven to shelter. Fool Nikon was driving a barrel along the path before the terrace, and a cold stream of water from the sprinkler blackened the dug-up earth near the trunks of trees, the dahlias, and the supports. On our terrace, on a white table-cloth, ^hone and boiled a brightly burnished samovar, and stood cream, cracknels, and pastry. Kdtya was with her plump hands carefully wiping off the cups. I could not wait for the tea, having grown hungry after my bath, and was eating bread with thick, fresh cream. I wore a gingham blouse with open sleeves, and my head was wrapped with a kerchief over my wet hair. Katya was the first to see him through the window. "Ah, Sergy^y Mikhaylych ! " she exclaimed, "we had just been speaking of you." I got up and wanted to go away in order to change my clothes, but he met me just as I was at the door. " No ceremonies in the country, please ! " he said, look- ing at my head wrapped in the kerchief, and smiling. " You are not ashamed before Grigdri, and I am really like Grigdri to you." But it was just then that it appeared to me that he was not looking at me at all as Grigdri did, ard I was embarrassed. " I will be back at once," I said, going away from him. " I see nothing wrong in this ! " he called out after me. " You look just like a young peasant woman." " How strangely he looked at me," I thought, hastily changing my clothes up-stairs. " I am glad he has come : it will be jollier now." After taking a look at ni^yself in the mirror I merrily ran down-stairs, and, without conceal- DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 293 ing my haste, walked out on the terrace out of hreath. He was sitting at the table and was telling K^tya about our affairs. He looked at me and smiled, and continued his conversation. Our affairs were, according to him, in excellent condition. All we had to do was to stay through the summer in the country, and then we could go to St. Petersburg for Sonya's education, or abroad. "Yes, if you could go with us abroad," said Katya, " for we shall be as alone there as in the woods." " Oh, how I should like to travel around the world with you ! " he said, half in jest and half in earnest. " All right, come, let us go around the world ! " He smiled and shook his head. " And your mother ? And business ? " he said. " Well, that is another matter. Tell me how you have passed your time. Have you again been a hypochondriac ? " When I told him that in his absence I was busy and did not feel lonely, and Katya confirmed my words, he praised me and caressed me with his eyes like a child, as though he had a right to do it. It seemed to me a matter of necessity to tell him in detail and with absolute sin- cerity the good I had done, and to make my confession to him of all that which might have displeased him. The evening was so charming that after tea we remained on the terrace, and the conversation was so interesting to me that I did not notice how all human voices slowly died down around us. On all sides the flowers emitted a greater fragrance; abundant dew watered the grass; a nightin- gale sang out his trills in a lilac bush near by, and again grew silent when he heard our voices ; the starry heaven looked as though it had been lowered over us. I noticed that it was getting dark only because a bat suddenly flew in noiselessly under the canvas of the ter- race and whirred about my white kerchief. I pressed against the wall and was on the point of crying out, but the bat just as noiselessly and swiftly dashed out from 294 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS underneath the awning and disappeared in the semi-dark- ness of the garden. " How I love your Pokrovskoe estate ! " he said, inter- rupting the conversation. " I should like to sit all my life on this terrace." " All right, sit here," said Katya. " Yes, sit here, but life does not sit." " Why do you not get married ? " asked Katya. " You would make an excellent husband." "Because I like to sit?" And he laughed out loud. "No, Katerina K^rlovna, neither you nor I will ever marry. They have all long ago quit looking upon me as a man who can be married off. And I myself gave it up long before that. Truly, since then I have been feeling so well." I thought that he was saying this with unnatural zeal. " I declare ! You have passed thirty-six years of your life this way," said K^tya. " I should say I have," he continued. " All I care for now is to be sitting in one spot, whereas for marrying something else is demanded. Ask her," he added, indi- cating me with his head. "These girls have to be married off, and we will have our joy looking at them." In his tone was expressed sadness and tension, which did not escape me. He was silent for a moment ; neither I nor K^tya said anything. "Suppose, now," he continued, turning around on his chair, " I should all of a sudden by some unfortunate mis- chance marry a seventeen-year-old girl, say Mash — Marya Aleksandrovna. This is a beautiful example, I am glad it is such — this is the very best example." I laughed and could not for the life of me make out why he was glad that something was such — " Well, teU me in truth, with your hand on your heart,'' he said, jokingly addressing me, " would it not be a mis- fortune for you to unite your life with an old man, who DOMESTrC HAPPINESS 295 has lived his life, who only wants to sit, while God knows what is brewing within you and what you want ? I felt ill at ease and was silent, not knowing what to answer. " I am not proposing to you," he said, laughing ; " but do tell me, in all sincerity, you certainly are not dreaming of such a husband when you walk alone through the garden walks in the evening ? " " It is not a misfortune — " I began. " Well, but not the thing," he finished the sentence, " Yes, but I may be mista — " Again he interrupted me. " Well, you see, she is quite right, and I am thankful to her for her sincerity, and am glad to have talked about it with her. More than that, it would be the greatest misfortune for me, too," he added. " How strange you are ! Nothing has changed," said Kdtya and went out of the terrace to order the table set for supper. Both of us grew silent after Katya had left us, and around us everything was quiet. Only a nightingale, no longer in the broken, indecisive trills of the evening, but in night-fashion, calmly and without haste, drowned the whole garden with his sounds, while another, for the first time this evening, answered him from the ravine in the distance. The nearer nightingale grew silent, as though listening for a moment to him, and then burst forth more distinctly and tensely into a roll of sonorous trills. These voices resounded with majestic calm in their, to us, unfamiliar nocturnal world. The gardener went to the hothouse to sleep, and the steps of his thick boots, retreating, rang out upon the path. Somebody twice whistled piercingly at the foot of a hill, and all was quiet again. One could barely hear the swaying of the leaves ; the canvas of the terrace flapped, and, hover- ing in the air, the odour of something fragrant was wafted 296 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS and spread upon the terrace. I felt awkward keeping silent after what had been said, but I did not know what to say. I looked at Mm. His sparkling eyes glanced at me in the semi-darkness. " It is fine to live in the world ! " he muttered. I for some reason drew a sigh. "What?" " It is fine to live in the world 1 " I repeated. Again we were silent, and again I felt ill at ease. I could not get rid of the idea that I had grieved him by agreeing with him that he was old, and I wanted to con- sole him, but I did not know how to do it." " Good-bye," he said, rising, " my mother is waiting supper for me. I have hardly seen her to-day." " I wanted to play a new sonata for you," I said. " Another time," he said, coldly, as I thought. " Good-bye ! " « It now seemed to me even more than before that I had offended him, and I was sorry for him. Katya and I took him as far as the veranda, and we stood in the yard, looking down the road on which he disappeared. When the tramp of his horses died down I again walked around the house to the terrace and again began to look at the garden, and in the dewy mist, in which the sounds of the night hovered, I for a long time saw and heard all that which I wished to see and hear. He arrived a second, and a third time, and the awk- wardness produced by the strange conversation which had taken place between us entirely disappeared and was never again renewed. In the course of the whole summer he came to see us two or three times a week ; I became so accustomed to him that when he stayed away for any length of time I felt "ill at ease all alone, and I was angry with him and found that he acted badly in leaving me. He treated me like a dear young companion, asked all kinds of questions, invited a most intimate frankness, DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 297 advised, encouraged, and sometimes scolded and stopped me. Yet, notwithstanding all his efforts to be continually on a level with me, I felt that in addition to what I knew of him there was still a whole foreign world to which he deemed it necessary not to admit me, and this more powerfully maintained my respect for him and attracted me to him. I knew from K^tya and from neighbours that, in addition to his care for his old mother, with whom he was living, in addition to his estate and our guardianship, he had some kind of business with the affairs of the nobihty, for which he suffered much annoy- ance ; but how he looked upon all that, what his convic- tions, plans, and hopes were, I never was able to find out from him. The moment I turned the conversation to his affairs, he frowned in his peculiar manner, as though to say, " Please stop, — that does not concern you," and im- mediately changed the subject. At first that provoked me, but later I became so used to speaking only of matters which concerned me, that I found it quite natural. Another thing which at first displeased me and later, on the contrary, gave me pleasure, was his complete in- difference and seeming contempt for my looks. He never hinted, either by a word or a glance, that I was good- looking ; on the contrary, he frowned and laughed when- ever they called me pretty in his presence. He even liked to find fault with my appearance and teased me about it. My fashionable dresses and coiffure, with which Kdtya liked to adorn me on holidays, only called forth his ridicule, which grieved good Kdtya and at first baffled me. Katya, who had made up her mind that he liked me, was quite unable to understand how a man could help wishing to see the woman he liked in the best light possible. But I soon discovered what it was he wanted. He wanted to believe that I had no coquetry. When I came to understand that, there was actually not a shade 298 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS of coquetry left in me as regards my attire, my head- dress, and my movements; but instead of that there appeared a coquetry of simplicity, showing the white basting thread, at a time when I did not yet know how to be really simple. I knew that he loved me, but I did not yet ask myself whether as a child or as a woman. I valued this love, and, feeling that he considered me to be the best girl in the world, I could not help wishing that he should abide in this deception, and I involuntarily deceived him ; Ipvit, deceiving him, I myself grew to be better. I felt that it was better and worthier for me to express to him the best sides of my soul, than of my body. I thought that he had at once properly valued my hair, hands, face, man- ners, whatever they were, good or bad, and that he knew them so well that I could add nothing to my exterior, but the desire to deceive. My soul he did not know, because he loved it, because it all the time grew and developed, and here I could deceive him, and so I did. How free I felt in his presence when I came to see that! My groundless confusion and embarrassment of movements entirely disappeared in me. I felt that whether he saw me in front, from a side, sitting, or stand- ing, with my hair up or down, — he knew all of me, and I thought that he was satisfied with me such as I was. I think that if he, contrary to his habit, had suddenly said to me, as others had, that I had a pretty face, I should not have been pleased in the least. On the other hand, how bright and cheerful I felt when, after something I might have said, he looked fixedly at me and exclaimed in a touched voice, to which he tried to give a jesting turn : " Yes, yes, there is something in you. You are a fine girl, I must tell you." And for what did I receive such praise, which filled my heart with pride and merriment ? For saying that I DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 299 sympathized with Grigdri's love for his grandchild, or for being moved to tears by a poem or novel which I had read, or for preferring Beethoven to Schulhofif. I wonder by what extraordinary sense I guessed what was good and what I ought to love, although at that time I had abso- lutely no knowledge of what was good and what ought to be loved. He did not like the greater part of my former habits and tastes, and it suf&ced for him to indicate by a motion of his brow, or by a glance, that he did not like that which I was going to say, or for him to make his pecul- iar, pitying, slightly contemptuous gesture, in order that I should immediately imagine that I no longer loved that which I had loved heretofore. At times he would be on the point of giving me some advice, when I would think that I already knew what he was going to say. He would ask me something, looking me in the eye, and his glance would extract from me the very thought which he wished. All my thoughts, all my feelings, were at that time not my own, but his thoughts and feelings, which had suddenly been made mine, and had passed into my life and had illumined it. Quite imperceptibly to myself I began to look with different eyes at everything : at Katya, at our servants, at Sdnya, at myself, and at my occupations. The books which before I had been reading, in order to kill time, suddenly became one of my best pleasures of life, simply because he and I had talked about the books, had read them together, and he had brought them to me. Before, my occupations with S<5nya, the lessons I gave her, were a hard obligation for me, which I endeavoured to carry out from a sense of duty. He watched a lesson, and it became a joy for me to follow S6nya's progress. Before, it seemed impossible for me to learn by rote a whole musical composition, but now, knowing that he lyoijld hear me, and probably praise me, I would play one 300 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS passage forty times in succession, so that poor K^tya stuffed her ears with cotton, while I did not get tired at all. Even the same old sonatas now phrased themselves differently, and came out very different and much better. Even Katya, whom I knew as- 1 knew myself, and whom I loved, suddenly changed in my eyes. Only now I understood that she was not at all obliged to be a mother, friend, and slave to us, such as she was. I understood all the self-sacrifice and loyalty of this loving being ; I understood all I owed her, and I loved her more than ever. He also taught me to look quite differently from the way I had before upon our people, the peasants, the ma- norial servants, the girls. It may seem laughable to say so, but up to my seventeenth year I had lived among these people a greater stranger to them than to people I had never seen ; it had never occurred to me that these people loved, hoped, and pitied, like myself. Our garden, our groves, our fields, which I had known so long, sud- denly became new and beautiful to me. He was right in saying that there is but one undoubted happiness in life, and that was to live for another. Then that seemed strange to me, and I did not understand it ; but this con- viction had begun to penetrate my heart before it had reached my head. He revealed to me a whole life of joys in the present, without changing anything in my life, without adding anything but himself to every impression. Everything which since my childhood had been speechless about me now received life. It was enough for him to come in order that all should become eloquent and seek entrance into my soul, filling it with happiness. Frequently during this summer did I go up-stairs to my room and lie down on my bed, and instead of my former vernal pining, desires, and hopes of the future, the trepi- dation of the happiness in the present took possession oi' DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 301 me. I could not fall asleep, got up, seated myself on K^tya's bed, and told her that I was absolutely happy, which, as I now well remember, it was not at all neces- sary to tell her: she could see it herself. But she told me that she, too, did not need anything, and was very happy, and kissed me. I believed her, because it seemed to me so necessary and just that all should be happy. But K^tya had time to think of sleep, and she frequently pretended to be angry, and drove me away from her bed, in order to go to sleep ; while I for a long time tried to analyze what it was that made me so happy. At times I got up and prayed; I prayed with my own words, in order to thank God for the happiness which He had given me. It was quiet in the room : Katya breathed evenly in her sleep ; the watch ticked near her ; and I turned around and whispered words, or crossed myself and kissed the cross on my neck. The door was closed ; the shutters were in the window ; a fly or a gnat, swaying, buzzed in one place. I wished I would never have to leave the i'oom ; I did not want the morning to come ; I did not want this soulful atmosphere which surrounded me ever to be dispelled. It seemed to me that my dreams, thoughts, and prayers were living beings, living with me here in the darkness, flitting about my bed, standing over me. Every thought was his thought, and every feeling was his feeling. I did not know then that it was love ; I thought that it could always be so, that this sentiment could be had for the asking. m. One day during the harvest, Katya and Sdnya and I went after dinner to the garden, to our favourite bench in the shade of lindens above the ravine, beyond which the view opened on the forest and the field. Sergy^y Mikhdylych had not been with us for three days, and we were expecting him on that day, the more so since our clerk said that he had promised to come out to the field. At about two o'clock we saw him riding out on horseback to the rye-field. Kdtya sent for peaches and cherries, of which he was very fond, looked at me with a smile, lay down on the bench, and dozed off. I broke off a flat, crooked branch of a linden-tree, with lush leaves and juicy bark, which wet my hand, and, fanning Kdtya with it, continued to read, all the time tearing myself away from the book, in order to look at the field road over which he had to reach us. Sdnya was building an arbour for her dolls at the root of an old linden-tree. The day was hot and vrindless, and evaporations rose from the ground ; the clouds gathered and grew black, — a storm had been threatening since morning. I was agitated, as always before a storm. After noon the clouds began to scatter along the edges ; the sun swam out upon the clear sky ; only in one corner were there some peals of thunder, and through a heavy cloud which stood over the horizon and mingled with the dust on the fields, now and then pale zigzags of lightning flashed, reaching down to the ground. It was evident that the storm would scatter for the day, at least in our region. On the road, which could be seen in spots back of the 302 DOMESTIC tIAPMKESS 303 garden, uninterruptedly passed now large creaking wagons with sheaves, in slow procession, and now empty wagons swiftly coming toward them with a clatter, 'while legs quivered and shirts fluttered. The dense dust was neither carried off, nor settled, but stood beyond the wicker fence between the translucent foliage of the garden trees. Farther away on the threshing floor, the same voices were heard, the same creaking of the wheels, and the same yellow sheaves, which slowly passed by the fence, flew into the air, and under my eyes grew up oval houses, with their sharp, clearly defined roofs, and the figures of the peasants swarming upon them. In front, on the dusty field, also moved carts, and also could be seen mellow sheaves, and from the distance were also borne the sounds of the carts, of the voices, and of the songs. The harvested field became opener and opener on one side, with balks overgrown with wormwood. On the right, down below, on the disorderly, harvested field, could be seen the bright dresses of the sheaf-binding women, bending down and swinging their arms, and the dis- orderly field was cleared off, and beautiful sheaves were stacked in many places. It looked as though suddenly summer had under my eyes changed to autumn. Dust and oppressive heat were everywhere, except in our favourite spot in the garden. The labouring people spoke, dinned, and moved about on all sides, in this dust and the swel- tering heat of the burning sun. K^tya snored so sweetly under the white cambric hand- kerchief, on our cool bench; the black, shining cherries looked so luscious on the plate ; our garments were so fresh and clean ; the v/ater in the pitcher sparkled so merrily in the sun, and I was so happy ! "What is to be done?" thought I. "Is it my fault that I am so happy ? But how shall I share my happiness 1 How and to whom shall I give all of myself and all my happiness ? " 304 BOMESTIC HAPPINESS The sun had disappeared behind the tops ot the birch avenue ; the dust was settling in the field ; the distance could be seen more distinctly and brightly under the lateral illumination ; the clouds had entirely scattered ; in the yard of the threshing floor three new roofs ,of ricks could be seen, and the peasants had gone down from them ;, the carts, with loud shouts, hurried by, apparently for the last time; the women, with rakes over their shoulders and sheaf-twine in their belts, went home with loud singing, and Sergy^y Mikhaylych was still not with us, although I had seen him long ago riding up the hill. Suddenly his figure appeared on the avenue, in the opposite direction from where I was expecting him (he had ridden around the ravine). He was walking toward me with rapid steps, his happy face beaming, and his cap held in his hand. Seeing that Katya was asleep, he compressed his lips, closed his eyes, and walked up on tiptoe ; I noticed at once that he ' was in that special mood of groundless merriment of which I was so fond in him, and which we denominated " wild transport." He was just like a schoolboy who had got away from his studies : his whole being, from his counte- nance to his feet, breathed contentment, happiness, and childlike vivacity. " Good evening, young violet ! How are you ? Well ? " he said in a whisper, walking over to me and pressing my hand. "I am feeling fine," he replied to my question. "I am thirteen years old to-day, and I want to play horses, and climb trees." " Are you in wild transport ? " I said, looking at his laughing eyes, and feeling that this " wild transport " was being communicated to me. " Yes," he answered, winking with one eye and repress- ing a smile. " Only why should you strike the nose of Katerina KMovna ? " I had not noticed, as I was looking at him and con- tinuing to fan with the branch, that I had knocked off DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 305 the handkerchief from K^tya, and now was brushing her face with the leaves. I burst out laughing. " And she will say that she did not sleep," I said, in a whisper, as if not to waken Katya, but in reality because it simply gave me pleasure to speak in a whisper to him. He moved his lips as if in imitation of my whisper, as though I had spoken so softly that it was impossible to hear what I had said. Upon seeing the plate with the cherries, he grabbed it, as though by stealth, went up to S6nya under the linden, and sat down on her dolls. Sdnya was at first angry, but he soon made up with her, and arranged a game with her, in which they had to contest in eating cherries. " Do you want me to send for some more ? " I said, " or let us go there ourselves ! " He took the plate, put some dolls upon it, and all three of us went up to the shed. Sonya ran, laughing, behind us, pulling his overcoat, to have him give her back her dolls. He gave them to her, and solemnly turned to me. " Of course you are a violet," he said to me, still in a low voice, although there was no fear now of waking any- body. "The moment I came up to you after all this dust, heat; and work, I scented a violet, not a fragrant violet, you know, but that first, dark violet that smells of melting snow and vernal grass." " Well, does everything about the estate go well ? " I asked him, in order to conceal the joyful embarrassment which his words had produced in me." " Excellently ! These people are everywhere excel- lent. The more you know them the better you love them." " Yes," I said, " before you came up I looked from the garden at the work, and I suddenly felt conscience- stricken because they were working, while I was so com- fortable that — " 306 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS " Don't coquet with it, my friend," he interrupted me, suddenly looking seriously, but graciously, into my eyes. " This is a sacred matter. God preserve us from making a display of it ! " " I am saying this to you only." " Yes, I know. Well, how are the cherries ? " The shed was closed, and there were no gardeners around (he had sent them all to work). Sonya ran away for the key, but he did not wait for her return, and climbed up at the corner, raised the netting, and jumped down on the other side. " Do you want some ? " I heard his voice from the other side. " Let me have the plate ! " " No, I want to pick some myself ! I will go for the key," I said, " Sdnya will not find it — " But, at the same time, I wanted to see what he was doing, how he looked, how he moved, when supposing that he was not watched. I simply did not want at that time to let him for a minute out of my sight. I ran on tiptoe through the nettles around the shed, to the other side, which was lower, and, standing up on an empty barrel, so that the wall was lower than my breast, bent over into the shed. I surveyed the inside of the shed, with its old, bent trees and their broad, serrated leaves, from which hung down the heavy, luscious black cherries. I put my head under the netting, and back of a crooked bough of an old cherry-tree espied Sergy^y Mikhaylych. He, no doubt, thought that I had gone and that no one saw him. Taking off his hat and closing his eyes, he sat on the ruins of an old cherry-tree, and carefully rolled into a ball a piece of cherry gum. He suddenly shrugged his shoulders, opened his eyes, and, muttering something, smiled. That word and smile were so unlike him that I felt conscience-stricken for watching him secretly. I thought that the word was " Masha ! " " Impossible ! " I thought. " Dear Mdsha ! " he repeated, more softly and DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 307 gently. Now I heard these two words quite distinctly. My heart beat so strongly and I was suddenly seized by such an agitating joy, as though it were a forbidden joy, that I grasped the wall with my hands in order not to fall and give myself away. He heard my motion, looked around in fright, and, sud- denly lowering his eyes, blushed crimson, like a child. He wanted to say something to me, but could not, and his face flushed again and again. Yet he smiled, looking at me. I, too, smiled. His whole face was agleam with joy. He was no longer the old uncle, caressing and in- structing me ; he now was my equal, who loved and feared me, and whom I loved and feared. We said noth- ing, and only looked at each other. Suddenly he frowned j his smile and the sparkle of his eyes disappeared, and he again turned coldly and in a fatherly way toward me, as though we were doing something bad, and he had come to his senses and advised me to come to my senses. " You had better climb down, or you will hurt yourself," he said. " And fix your hair ! Just see what you look like ! " " Why does he pretend ? Why does he want to give me pain ? " I thought, indignantly. At that moment I was seized by an insuperable desire to embarrass him once more and to exert my strength on him. " No, I want to pick them myself," I said, and, taking hold of the nearest branch, jumped with my feet on the wall. Before he had any time to support me, I jumped to the ground inside the shed. " What foolish things you are doing ! " he exclaimed, blushing again and, under the appearance of anger,- trying to conceal his emban'assment. " You might have hurt yourself ! And how will you get out of here ? " He was still more confused than before, but now this confusion of his no longer gave me pleasure, but fright- ened me. It was communicated to me; I blushed and, 308 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS avoiding him, and not knowing what to say, began to pick the cherries, though I had nothing to put them in. I reproached myself, I regretted, I was afraid, and I thought that I had ruined myself for ever in his eyes with my action. We were both silent, and both felt oppressed. Sdnya came running up with the key, and she took us out of this oppressive situation. For a long time afterward we did not speak to each other, and both addressed Sdnya. When we returned to Katya, who assured us that she had not slept, but had heard every- thing, I calmed down, and he tried again to strike his patronizing, paternal tone, but he no longer was success- ful in it, and did not deceive me. I now vividly recalled the conversation which had taken place between us a few days before. Katya had remarked how much easier it was for a man to love and express his love, than for a woman. " A man can say that he loves, but a woman cannot," she said. " But to me it seems that even a man must not and cannot say that he loves," he said. "Why?" I asked. " Because that will always be a lie. What kind of a discovery is it that a man loves ? As if, when he says it, something clicks, — bang, — he loves. As if, the moment he pronounces the word, something unusual must happen, some phenomenon, — and they will fire off all the cannon. It seems to me," he continued, " that people who solemnly pronounce the words, ' I love you,' either deceive themselves, or, what is worse, deceive others." "But how is a woman to find out that she is loved, if she is not told so ? " Kdtya asked. " That I do not know," he replied. " Every man has his own words. If there is any sentiment, it will find DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 309 its expression. When I read novels I always imagine what a puzzled face Lieutenant Stryflski, or Alfred, must have when he says, ' I love you, Eleonora ! ' and thinks that suddenly something unusual will take place ; nothing happens either to her or to him : the eyes and nose are the same, and everything is the same." I even then, in this jest of his, felt something serious, which referred to me, but Kdtya would not allow him to treat lightly the heroes of novels. " Your eternal paradoxes," she said. " Tell nie, in truth, have you never told a woman that you loved her ? " " I have never told one so, and have never thrown myself on one knee," he replied, smiUng, "and I never will." " He need not tell me that he loves me," I now thought, vividly recalling that conversation. " He loves me, I know it. All his attempts to appear indifferent will not change my belief." He spoke very little with me all that evening, but in every word of his to Katya and to Sdnya, and in every motion and glance of his I saw love, and I did not doubt it. But I was provoked and felt pity for him because he considered it necessary to conceal his senti- ment and to pretend being cold, when all was so evident, and when it was so easy and simple to be so impossibly happy. But I was tormented as if by a crime for having leaped down to him into the shed. It seemed to me that he would cease respecting me for it, and that he was angry with me. After tea I went up to the piano, and he followed me. " Play something ! I have not heard you for quite awhile," he said, catching up with me in the drawing- room. " I meant to, Sergy^y Mikh^ylych ! " I said, suddenly looking him straight in the eye. "Are you not angry with me?" 310 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS " For what ? " he asked. " For not obeying you after dinner," I said, blushing. He understood me, shook his head, and smiled. His glance said that I ought to be scolded, but that he did not feel himself equal to the task. "There has been nothing, and we are friends again," I said, sitting down at the piano. " Indeed we are ! " he said. In the large, high-studded room there were but two candles on the piano ; the rest of space was merged in semi-darkness. A bright summer night peeped through the windows. Everything was quiet ; only Katya's inter- mittent steps creaked in the dark drawing-room, and his horse, hitched beneath the window, snorted and beat its hoofs against the burdocks. He was sitting back of me, so that I could not see him ; but everywhere, in the twilight of the room, in the sounds, in myself, I felt his presence. Every glance, every motion of his, which I did not see, reechoed in my heart. I was playing a sonata-fantasia by Mozart, which he had brought me, and which I had studied up in his presence and for -his sake. I was not thinking at all of what I was playing, but I think I played well, and I then thought that he Uked it. I felt the joy which he was experiencing, and, without looking at him, I felt the glance which he directed at me from behind. I looked around at him quite involuntarily, while con- tinuing unconsciously to move my fingers. His head stood out against the glimmering background of the night. He was sitting with his head leaning on his arms and looking fixedly at me with his sparkling eyes. I smiled, seeing that glance, and stopped playing. He smiled, too, and reproachfully shook his head at my music, indicating that he wanted me to go on. When I was through, the moon had grown brighter and had risen high, and, in addition to the feeble light of the candles, another, DOMESTIC HAPPINESS Sll silvery light, which fell upon the floor, was coming in through the windows. Katya said that it was atrocious to stop in the best place, and that I had played badly ; but he said that, on the contrary, I had never played so well as on that day, and began to walk from room to room, across the parlour to the drawing-room, and back again to the parlour, look- ing all the time at me and smiling. I, too, smiled ; I even wanted to laugh for no cause whatever, so glad was I of something that had happened but awhile before. The moment he disappeared through the door, I embraced Katya, with whom I was standing near the piano, and began to kiss her in my favourite spot, the plump neck under her chin ; every time he returned I pretended to look serious, and with difficulty restrained a laugh. " What shall we do with her to-day ? " Katya said to him. He did not answer and only made fun of me. He knew what was going on within me. " See what a night ! " he said from the drawing-room, stopping in front of the door of the balcony opening into the garden — We went up to him. It really was such a night as I never have seen since. The full moon stood hack of us, over the house, so that it could not be seen, and half of the shadow of the roof, of the posts, and the canvas of the terrace, lay slantingly en raccourci on the sandy path and the greensward circle.. Everything else was bright and bathed in the silver of the dew and of the moonlight. The broad flower-path, along one side of which lay slant- ingly the shadows of the dahlias and supports, was all lighted up and cold, sparkling with its unevenly crushed pebbles, and was lost in the mist and in the distance. Back of the trees could be seen the bright roof of the hothouse, and a growing mist rose from the ravine. The lilac bushes, now somewhat stripped of their splendour, 312 DOMESTIC HAPPINKSS were illuuunated down to the branches. All the dew- drenched flowers could be distinguished one from the other. In the avenues the Hght and the shadow mingled in such a way that the avenues appeared not as trees and paths, but as transparent, swaying, and quivering houses. On the right, in the shadow of the house, everything was black, formless, and terrible. So much the more brightly rose from this darkness the fantastically spreading top of the poplar, which, for some reason, had stopped strangely not far from the house, way above in the bright light, instead of flying far away, into the receding bluish sky. " Come, let us take a walk ! " said I. Katya consented, but said that I ought to put on my galoshes. " It is not necessary, K^tya," I said. " Sergy^y Mi- khaylych will give me his arm." As though this could keep me from getting my feet wet ! But at that time that was quite comprehensible to all three of us, and did not seem in the least strange. He had never before offered me his arm, but now I took it myself, and he did not find it strange. All that world, that garden, that air, were not as I knew them. As I looked down the avenue, in which we were walk- ing, it seemed to me that it was impossible to go any farther, that there was the end of the world of possibilities, that all that must for ever be fettered in its beauty. But we moved on, and the magic wall of beauty receded, and let us in, and there, too, it seemed, were our familiar garden, trees, paths, and dry leaves. And, indeed, we walked over the paths, stepped on the circles of light and shadow, and dry leaves rustled under foot, and a fresh branchlet brushed my face. And, indeed, it was he who, evenly and softly striding at my side, cautiously held my arm, and, indeed, it was the same Katya who was walking in a rovy with us, with creaking step. And, no doubt, it DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 313 was the moon in the sky that shone down upon us through the motionless branches — But with every step the magic wall again closed up behind us and in front of us, and I ceased believing that it wfts possible to go farther ; I ceased believing in all that was. " Oh, a frog ! " said Katya. " Who says that, and why ? " I thought. Then I re- called that it was Kdtya and that she was afraid of frogs, and I looked down at my feet. The tiny frog jumped and stood as though petrified before me, its small shadow appearing on the bright clay of the path. " Are you not afraid ? " he asked. I looked around at him. There was one linden wanting in the spot which we were passing, and I could clearly see his face. It was so beautiful and happy — He said, " Are you not afraid ? " but I heard him say, "I love you, dear girl! — 1 love you!- — -I love you!" repeated his glance, his hand ; and the light, the shadow, the air, everything repeated the same. We made a circle around the whole garden. Katya was walking, with her mincing steps, at our side, and breath- ing heavily from fatigue. She said that it was time to turn back, and I was sorry for her, poor woman. " Why does she not feel the same that we are feeling ? " I thought. " Why are not all young and happy as this night and he and I ? " We returned home, but he did not leave for a long time, although the cocks had crowed, and all in the house were asleep, and his horse ever more frequently struck its hoofs against the burdocks and snorted beneath the window. Katya did not remind us of the time, and we, talking of the most trifling things, sat up, vidthout know- ing it, till three o'clock in the morning. The third cocks were crowing and dawn began to break when he left. He bade us good-bye as usual, without saying anything in 314 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS particular ; but I knew that from that day on he was mine, and that I should not lose him. The moment I was conscious of loving him, I told Katya everything. She was glad and touched by what I told her ; but the poor woman was able to fall asleep that night, while I walked for a long, long time up and down the terrace, went down into the garden, and, recall- ing every word and every motion, strolled through all the avenues in which we had walked together. I did not sleep all that night, and for the first time in my life saw the rising sun and the break of day. I have never since seen such a night and such a morning. '' Why does he not tell me outright that he loves me ? " I thought. "Why does he invent such difficulties and call himself an old man, when everything is so simple and beautiful ? Why does he lose the golden time, which, maybe, will never return ? Let him say, ' I love you ! ' let him say it in so many words ! Let him take my hand, bend his head over it, and say, ' I love you ! ' Let him blush and lower his eyes before me, and then I will tell him everything. No, I will not tell him, I will embrace him, press closely to him, and weep. But how if I am mistaken, and he does not love me ? " it suddenly flashed through my mind. I was frightened at my sentiment, fearing that it might lead him and me God knows where, and I thought of my embarrassment in the shed, as I jumped down to him, and a heavy, heavy feeling oppressed my heart. Tears gushed from my eyes, and I began to pray. A strange thought and hope came to me, and it calmed me. I decided to fast from that day on, to take the sacrament upon my birthday, and on that very day to become his fiancee. Wherefore ? Why ? How was it to happen 1 I did not know at all, but I believed and knew from that minute on that it would be so. It was quite light, and people were beginning to get up, when I returned to my room. IV. It was the fast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and so no one in the house was surprised at my determination to fast. All that week he did not come once to see us, and I was not only not surprised, agitated, or angry with him, hut, on the contrary, was glad that, he did not come, and expected him only on my birthday. During that week I rose early in the morning, and, while they hitched up for me, walked all alone in the garden, passing over in my mind all my sins of the previous day and considering what I had to do in order to be satisfied with my day and not to sin even once. Then it seemed to me so easy to be entirely sinless. It seemed to me that all one had to do was to try a httle. The horses drove up ; I and K^tya, or a maid, seated ourselves in the vehicle, and we drove to the church, which was three versts off. Every time I entered the church I bore in mind that people prayed for all " enter- ing in the fear of God," and it was with this sentiment that I endeavoured to ascend the two grass-grown steps of the church entrance. At that time there used to be no more than ten fast- ing peasant women and manorial servants. I tried to respond to their bows with considerate humility, and myself went to the candle box, which act I regarded as heroic, to get the candles from an old soldierly elder, and to put them up. Through the royal gate could be seen 815 316 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS the covering of the altar, which mamina had embroidered ; over the icouostasis stood two angels with stars, which, when I was young, had appeared so large to me, and a dove with a yellow halo, which at that time used to interest me very much. Back of the choir could be seen an indented basin, in which I had so often baptized the children of our manorial servants, and in which I myself had been baptized. The old priest came out in the vestment made from the shroud of my father's coffin, and held the divine service in the same voice in which, as far back as I remembered, had been held the divine service in our house, — Sdnya's baptism, the mass after father, and the funeral service of my mother. The same tremulous voice of the sexton was heard in the choir, and the same old woman, whom I remembered having always seen in the church at every service, stood bending at the wall, looking with tearful eyes at the image in the choir, pressing her folded fingers to her faded kerchief, and mumbling something with her toothless mouth. All this was not merely a matter of curiosity to me and not merely near to me on account of the recollections which it evoked, — all this was great and holy in my eyes, and seemed to me full of deep meaning. I listened to every word of the prayer read, tried to respond to it with my feeling, and if I did not understand it, I men- tally asked God to enlighten me, or substituted a prayer of my own in place of the one I did not hear distinctly. When prayers of repentance were read, I recalled my past, and that childish, innocent past seemed to me so black in comparison with the bright condition of my soul, that I wept and was terrified at myself ; at the same time I felt that all that would be forgiven me, and that if there had been even more sins, repentance would have been so much sweeter for me. When the priest, at the end of the service, said, DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 317 " God's blessing be with you ! " it seemed to me that I experienced a physical sensation of bliss momentarily communicated to me, as though a certain light and warmth entered my heart. The service was over; the father came out to ask me whether I did not need him, and when he was to come to our house to serve the evening mass ; I thanked him, being touched by what I thought he wished to do for me, and told him that I should walk or drive down myself. " You wish to take the trouble yourself ? " he would say to me. I did not know what to reply, for fear of sinning in respect to pride. After the mass I always dismissed the carriage, if I was without Katya, and returned home on foot, bowing low and in humility to all the passers-by and trying to find an opportunity for giving advice and sacrificing myself for some one, helping to lift up a wagon, rocking a baby, going out of the way, and stepping into the mud. One evening I heard the clerk, who was reporting to Katya, say that the peasant Sem^n had come to ask for some boards for his daughter's coffin and a rouble for the mass, and that he had given him both. " Are they so poor ? " I asked. " They are, madam ! They have no salt," rephed the clerk. Something gave me a pang in my heart, and I was at the same time glad to hear it. I deceived K^tya by tell- ing her that I wanted to take a walk, but ran up-staii-s, took my money (there was very little of it, but it was all I had), and, crossing myself, went myseK down the ter- race and through the garden to the village, to Semen's hut. It was at the edge of the village, and I, unseen by any one, went up to the window, put the money on the sill, and tapped at the window-pane. Somebody came out of the hut, making the door creak, and called out to 318 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS me. I, trembling and chilled with fright, hke a criminal, ran home. Katya asked me where I had been and what the matter was with me, but I did not understand what she was saying to me, and did not answer her. Everything suddenly seemed to me so insignificant and petty. I locked myseK up in my room, and for a long time walked in it up and down, all alone, unable to do or think any- thing, unable to give myself an account of my feeling. I thought of the joy of the whole family, of the words they would use in reference to the one that had placed the money there, and I was sorry I had not handed them the money in person. I also thought of what Sergy^y Mi- khaylych would say if he found out my act, and I rejoiced because nobody would ever know it. There was such joy in me, and all, myself included, appeared so bad to me, and I looked so meekly at myself and at others, that the thought of death came to me as a dream of happiness. I smiled, and prayed, and wept, and at that moment I loved everybody in the world and myself so passionately and so ardently ! In the intervals of the services I read the Gospel, and this book became ever more intelligible to me, and the story of that divine life grew ever more touching and simple, and the depths of feeling and thought, which I found in its teaching, grew ever more awful and impene- trable. But, then, how clear and simple everything seemed to me, when I, rising from that book, again scruti- nized and analyzed the life which surrounded me ! It seemed to me that it was so hard to live badly, and so simple to love all and be loved. All were so good and gentle with me, and even Sdnya, whom I continued to instruct, was quite different : she tried to understand and please me, and to give me no cause for grief. As I was, so all were with me. While passing in review all my enemies, whose, for^. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 319 giveness I should have to ask before going to confession, I recalled only one young lady, a neighbour of mine, of whom I had made fun in the presence of guests the year before, and who had stopped caUing on us. I wrote her a letter, acknowledging my guilt and asking her pardon. She answered me by a letter, in which she herself asked forgiveness, and forgave me. I wept with joy, reading these simple hues, in which I then saw just such a deep and touching sentiment. My nurse burst out into tears when I asked her for- giveness. " Why are they all so good to me ? Through what have I deserved such love?" I asked myself. I involuntarily thought of Sergy^y Mikhaylych and could not get him out of my mind. I could not do otherwise, and even did not consider it a sin. I now thought of hiln quite differently from that night, when I for the first time discovered that I loved him ; I thought of him as of myself, involuntarily connecting him with every thought of my future. The crushing influence which I experienced in his preb- ence now entirely disappeared from my imagination. I now felt myself as his equal, and I understood him from the height of the spiritual mood in which I was. That which before had seemed strange to me, now became intelligible. I now understood why he said that happi- ness consisted only in living for another, and I fully con- curred vdth him. It seemed to me that together we should be so endlessly and calmly happy. I now dreamed, not of travels abroad, not of splendour, but of an entirely different, quiet, domestic life in the country, with eternal self-sacrifice, with eternal love for each other, and with the eternal consciousness of a gentle and helpful Providence in everything. I went to communion, as I had expected, on my birth- day. In my breast there was such a full happiness, when I on that day returned from church, that I was afraid of 320 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS life, of every impression, of everything which might have impaired that happiness, But the moment we stepped from our vehicle on the porch we heard on the bridge the rumble of the familiar cabriolet, and I saw Sergydy Mi- khaylych. He congratulated me, and we went together to the drawing-room. Never since I had known him had I been so calm and collected with him as upon that morn- ing. I felt that within me there was a whole new world, which he did not understand, and which was above him. I did not experience the least embarrassment in his pres- ence. He, no doubt, knew what the cause of it was, and was especially gentle and piously respectful to me. I went up to the piano, but he locked it and put the key in his pocket. " Do not disturb your disposition," he said. " There is now in your soul a better music than any other in the world." I was thankful to him for it, but at the same time it annoyed me a little to see him understand so easily and correctly that in my soul which was to remain a secret from everybody. At dinner he said that he had come to congratulate me and, at the same time, to bid us farewell, as he was going away to Moscow. As he said this he looked at Katya ; later he cast a passing glance at me, and I saw that he was afraid to notice agitation in my face. But I was surprised, and not agitated, and did not even ask him how long he was going to stay. I knew that he would tell it himself, and I knew that he would not leave at all. How did I know it?. I am now quite unable to account for it ; but on that memorable day it seemed to me that I knew everything which was and which would be. I was as if in a happy dream, when everything that takes place seems to have happened be- fore, and I had known it all the whUe, and it would all be again, and I knew that it would all be. He wanted to leave soon after dinner, but K^tya, who POMESTIC HAPPINESS 323 was tired from the mass, had gone to take a nap, and he had to wait until she should wake up, in order to bid her good-bye. The sun was shining into the parlour, and we went out on the terrace. The moment we sat down I began to say that which was to decide the fate of my lovB; and began to say it no earlier and no later than at the moment when we sat down and when nothing had yet been said, when there had not yet been struck a pecuHar tone or character of conversation which might have interfsred with that which I intended to say. I myself do not understand whence came to me that calm- n-^ss, determination, and precision of expression. I felt as though something independent of my will were speaking within me. He sat opposite me, leaning on the balustrade and, di-awing a lilac branch toward him, picked the leaves from it. When I began to speak he let the branch go and leaned his head on his arm. This might have been the expression of an entirely calm or of a very agitated man. "Why are you leaving?" I asked, significantly, with pauses, and looking straight at him. He did not answer at once. " Business ! " he muttered, lowering his head. I saw how hard it was for him to tell an untruth in my, presence and in response to my sincere question. , " listen," I said, " you know what day this is for me. It is in many things a very important day. If I ask you I am not doiqg so in order to show my sympathy for you (you know that I am used to you and that I love you) ; I ask it of you because I must know it. Why are you leaving ? " " It is very hard for me to teH you the truth about my leaving," he said. " This week I have thought a great .deal about you and about myself, and I have decided that I must leave. You know why, and, if you love me, you will not ask me." He rubbed his brow with his hand 322 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS and closed his eyes. " It is hard for me — but you can understand it." My heart began to beat violently. " I cannot understand," I said, " I cannot, but teU me, for God's sake, for the sake of this day tell me — I can listen calmly to you," I said. He changed his position, glanced at me, and again drew the branch toward him. "Well," he said, after a moment's silence, in a voice which tried to appear firm, "though it is stupid and impossible to tell it in words, although it is hard for me, I shall try to explain it to you," he added, frowning, as though from physical pain. "Well?" said I. '' Let us suppose that there was a certain Mr. A ," he said, " an old gentleman, past his youth, and a certain ' Miss B , a young, happy girl, who had seen neither people, nor life. Having stood in certain familiar rela- tions with her, he came to love her as a daughter and had the courage to love her otherwise." He stopped,- but I did not interrupt him. '' But he forgot that B was so young, that life was still a plaything for her," he suddenly continued, in a rapid and determined voice, without looking at me, " and that it was easy enough to love her otherwise, and that that would please her. But he made a mistake, and he suddenly felt that another feeling, as heavy as repentance, was finding its way into his soul, and he was frighteued. He was frightened at the thought that their former amicable relations would be disturbed, and he decided to leave before these relations should be disturbed." Saying this, he again, as if carelessly, began to rub his eyes with his hand, and he closed them. " Why was he afraid to love her otherwise ? " I said, hardly above a whisper, keeping back my agitation, and my voice was even, but to him it evidently appeared DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 323 frivolous. He answered me almost in an offended tone : " You are young," he said, " and I am not young. .You want to play, and I need something else. Play, but not with me, or else I will believe you, and then it will not be well for me, while you will be sorry. So A said," he added — " Well, that is all nonsense : you know why I am leaving. Let us not talk again of it, if you please ! " " Yes, yes ! Let us talk ! " I said, and tears quivered in my voice. " Did he love her or not ? " He made no reply. " If he did not love her, why did he play with her, as with a child ? " I muttered. " Yes, yes, A was to be blamed," he replied, swiftly interrupting me, " but aU was ended, and they parted — as friends." " But that is terrible ! And is there no other end to it ? " I stammered, and was frightened at what I said. " Yes, there is," he said, uncovering his agitated face and looking straight at me. "There are two different ends. But, for God's sake, do not interrupt me and hsten calmly to what I have to say. Some say," he began, get- ting up and smiling a heavy, sickly smile, " some say that A went insane, senselessly fell in love with B and told her so — But she only laughed. For her this was a joke, but for him it was a whole Hfe." I shuddered and wanted to interrupt him, to tell him not to speak for me ; but he kept me back, putting his hand on mine. " Hold on," he said, in a trembling voice. " Others say that she took pity on him ; she, poor girl, who had seen no people, imagined that she really could love him and consented to be his wife. He, insane man, believed that all his life would begin anew; but she herself saw that she had depeived him and that he had deceived her — 324 DOMESTIC HAPPIKESS Let us not speak of it again ! " he concluded, apparently unable to proceed, and silently walking up and down in front of me. He said, " Let us not speak ! " but I saw that he was with all the power of his soul waiting for an answer from me. I wanted to speak, but could not: something was compressing my heart. I looked at him: he was pale, and his lower lip was quivering. I felt pity for him. I made an effort, and, suddenly, breaking the power of silence which held me fettered, spoke to him in a soft, inward voice, which, I was afraid, would break at any moment. " And the third end ? " I said. I stopped, but he was silent. " And the third end is that he had not loved her, but had pained her, oh, so much, and that he thought that he was right in doing so and went away, priding himself on something. To you, and not to me, it may be a joke, but I have loved you from the first day," I repeated, and at the word " loved," my soft inward voice involuntarily passed into a desperate shriek, which fright- ened me. He stood pale in front of me, liis lip quivered ever more violently, and two tears stood on his cheeks. " That is bad ! " I almost shouted, feehng that bad, un- vept tears were choking me. " Why are you doing it ? " I said, rising, in order to go away from him. But he did not let me go. His head lay on my knees ; his lips kissed my trembling hands, and his tears wet them. " My God, if I had known," he muttered. " Why ? Why ? " I kept repeating, but in my soul there was happiness, for ever departing happiness, which was never to return. Five minutes later Sdnya ran up-stairs to Katya and cried at the top of her voice that Masha wanted to marry Sergy^y Mikhdylych. V. There was no reason for delaying our wedding, and neither I nor he wanted it delayed. It is true, Katya warrted to go to Moscow to buy things, and order the trousseau, and his mother demanded that, before marrying, he should get him a new carriage and furniture, and should have the house newly papered; but both of us insisted that all that could be done later, if it was at all necessary, but that we should be married two weeks after my birthday, quietly, without a trousseau, without guests, without best men, suppers, champagne, and all the other conventional requisites of a wedding. He told me that his mother was dissatisfied because the wedding was to be without music, without a mountain of trunks, and without a renovation of the whole house, unUke her wedding, which had cost thirty thousand, and that she, in all earnestness, and secretly from him, was rummaging through the trunks in the storeroom, and consulting with housekeeper Maryiishka about all kinds of rugs, curtains, and trays, which were absolutely neces- sary for our happiness. On my side, Katya was doing the same with nurse Kuzminishna, and it would not do to speak jestingly to her about the matter. She was firmly convinced that we, speaking of our future, were only making love and talk- ing nonsense, as is proper for people in such a condition, but that our material future happiness would depend on a correct cut and making of chemises and hemming of table- cloths and napkins. Between Pokrdvskoe and Nik61skoe secret messages 325 326 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS were carried all the time about what was being prepared iu each place, and, although outwardly there seemed to be the teuderest of relations between Katya and his mother, there began already to be felt a certain hostile, but very refined, diplomacy. Tatyana Sem^novna, his mother, with whom I now became more closely acquainted, was an exacting, stern housekeeper, and a lady of the old style. He loved her not only as a dutiful son, but as a man of feeling, regarding her as the best, the cleverest, the kindest; and most loving of women in the world. Tatyana Sem^novna had always been kind to us, and especially to me, and she was glad that her son was get- ting married; but when I called on her as a- fiancee, it seemed to me that she wanted to make me feel that, as a match for her son, I could be better, and that it would not hurt me always to keep this in mind. I understood her very well and agreed with her. During these last two weeks we saw each other every day. He arrived to dinner and remained until midnight. In spite of his assertion, — and I knew he was telling the truth, — that he could not hve without me, he never passed a whole day with me and tried to attend to his business. Our external relations up to our wedding remained the same as before ; we addressed each other as " you ;" he did not even kiss my hand, and not only did not seek, but even avoided, occasions of being left alone with me, as though he were afraid to abandon himself to the too great and noxious tenderness which was in him. I do not know whether it was he or I who had changed, only I now felt myself to be his equal, no longer dis- covered in him that pretence of simplicity which had displeased me before, and frequentlj', with joy, saw before me, instead of a man inspiring respect and dread, a gentle boy abandoning himself to his happiness. " So this is all there was in him ! " I frequently thouglit. " He is just such a person as I am, and nothing more." It DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 327 now seemed to me that he was all of him before me, and that I knew him well. And all that which I found out about him was so simple, and harmonized so well with me. Even his plans of how we were to live were pre- cisely my plans, except that they were more clearly and better defined in his words. The weather during that time was bad, and we passed most of the time indoors. Our most intimate conver- sations took place in the corner between the piano and the window. From the black window-panes were re- flected the short rays of the candle-light ; now and then rain-drops beat against or flowed down the shining panes. Eain pattered on the roof ; the water plashed in the puddle under the gutter ; the air near the window felt damp. So much the brighter, warmer, and more cheer- ful was our corner. " Do you know, I long ago wanted to tell you some- thing," he once said, as we once sat late in that comer. '' I thought about it all the time you were playing." " Don't tell me anything, I know it all," I said. " Yes, that is so, we won't speak of it." " No, do tell me what it is ! " I asked. " It is this : Do you remember the story I told you about A and B— ? " . " Of course I remember that stupid story. I am glad it ended as it did — " " Yes, it would not have taken much for all my happi- ness to vanish through my own fault. You saved me. But the main thing is that I was not telling the truth then, and I now want to say what I left unsaid." " Please don't ! " " Don't be afraid," he said, smiling. " I only want to justify myself. When I began tc speak I wanted to reason." " What is the good of reasoning ? " I said. " One must not do th&t ! " 328 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS " Yes, I reasoned badly. After all my disencliaiit- nients and blunders in life, as I arrived in the country, I said determinately that love was ended for me, that all there was left for me was the duty of living out my days. For a long time I had not asked myself what my feeling to you was, or to what it might lead me. I both hoped and did not hope ; now I thought that you were flirting, now I believed you, and did not know myself what I should do. But after that evening, — you remem- ber when we strolled through the garden, — I became frightened : my present happiness appeared too great and impossible to me. What would happen if I allowed my- self to hope in vain ? Of course, I was thinking only of myself, because I am a horrible egotist." He grew silent, looking at me. " It was by no means all nonsense which I was then saying. I had good reason for being afraid. I take so much from you and can give you so little. You are still a child ; you are a bud that will unfold itself ; you love for the first time, and I — " " Tell me in all truth," I said, but suddenly I dreaded his answer ; "no, don't," I added. " Whether I have loved before ? Yes ? " he said, at once guessing my thought. " I can tell you that. No, I have not. Never was there anything resembling that feeling — " Suddenly a heavy recollection seemed to flash through his imagination. "No, and here I need your heart in order to have tbe right to love you," he said, sadly. " So did I not have cause for ?^efiecting before telling you that I loved you ? What do I offer you ? Love, it is true." " Is not that a great deal ? " I said, looking into his eyes. " It is little, my dear, Httle for you," he continued. " You have beauty and youth ! Often now I do not sleep at night from happiness, and I think all the time of how we are going to live together. I bad lived long, and it DOMESTIC HAPPIKESS 329 aeemed to me that I had found what was necessary for happiness. A quiet, soUtary life in our wilderness, with a chance of dcJing good to people, to whom it is so easy to do any good to which they are not yet accustomed ; then work, work, which seems to be profitable ; then rest, Nature, a book, music, love of my neighbour, — that was my happiness, beyond which I did not dream. And here I have, above it all, such a friend as yoii, and there may be a family, and everything which a man may wish." " Yes," I said. " For me, who have lived past my youth, yes, but not for you," he continued. " You have not yet lived ; you may wish to find happiness in something else, and, maybe, will find your happiness there. It seems to you that this is happiness because you love me." " No, I always wished for and loved this quiet domestic life," I said. " You express precisely what I have been thinking." He smiled. " It only seems so to you, my friend. But this is not enough for you. You have beauty and youth," he repeated, thoughtfully. I grew angry at his not believing me, and, as it were, reproaching me for my beauty and youth. " For what, then, do you love me ? " I said, angrily, " for my youth or for my own sake ? " " I do not know, but I love you," he replied, looking at me with his attentive, magnetic glance. I did not answer, and involuntarily looked into his eyes. Suddenly something strange happened to me; at first I ceased seeing my surroundings: only his eyes seemed to sparkle in front of mine ; then it seemed to me that these eyes were in me, — everything became mixed, and I saw nothing, and had to close my eyes in order to tear myself away from the feeling of enjoyment and terror which this glance produced in me. 330 bOMEsTlC SAtflNESS On the eve of the day appointed for our wedding the weather cleared off. After the rains, which had begun in the summer, there was the first cold and htight faU day. Everything was damp, cold, and bright, and in the garden could be noticed for the first time the spaciousness, varie- gation, and bareness of autumn. The sky looked clear, cold, and pale. I went to bed, happy in the thought that there would be good weather on the day of our wedding. On that day I awoke with the sun, and the thought that now was the day seemed to frighten and surprise me. I went into the garden. The sun had just risen, and shone checkered through the sear, yellowing leaves of the lin- dens. The road was strewn with rustling leaves. The wrinkled, bright bunches of the rowan-trees shone red on the branches among the frost-killed, scanty, curled-up leaves; the dahlias were wrinkled and black. The frost for the first time lay like silver on the pale green of the grass and on the broken burdocks near the house. On the clear, cold sky there was not, and could not be, a single cloud. " Is it possible it is to-day ? " I asked myself, not being able to believe my happiness. " Is it possible to-morrow I shall awaken, not here, but in the strange Nikdlskoe house with the columns ? Shall I not be waiting and meeting him, and in the evenings and nights speaking with Katya about him ? Shall I not be sitting with him at the piano in the Pokrovskoe house ? " I recalled that he had said the day before that he was coming for the last time, and Katya made me try on my wedding-gown, and said, " For to-morrow ; " and I believed for a moment, and again doubted. " Is it possible that from to-day I shall be living there with my mother-in-law, without Nad^zha, without old man Grigdri, without Katya ? Shall I not kiss my nurse before going to bed, and shall I not see her, according to DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 331 her old habit, make the sign of the cross over me, and say, ' Good night, miss.' Shall I not be teaching Sdnya and playing with her, and in the morning tapping the wall to her room and hearing her melodious laughter ? Is it possible that I shall from this day on become a stranger to myself, and that a new life of the realization of my hopes and desires will be opened up before me ? •Will it be for ever, that new hfe ? " I waited for him with impatience ; I felt so oppressed alone with my thoughts. He came early, and only in his presence did I fuUy beHeve that that day I was to be- come his wife, and that thought was no longer terrible to me. Before dinner we went to our church to celebrate mass for my father. " If he were alive now ! " I thought, as we were return- ing home, and I silently leaned on the arm of the man who had been the best friend of him of whom I was thinking. During the prayer, as I touched the cold stone of the chapel floor with my head, I so vividly thought of my father and so firmly believed that his spirit under- stood me and approved my choice, that it seemed to me that even now his spirit was hovering above us and that I felt his blessing upon me. My recollections, and hopes, and happiness, and' sorrow mingled within me in one solemn and agreeable sensation, with which harmonized that immovable fresh air, that calm, that bareness of the fields, and the pale sky, from which fell upon everything the bright but powerless beams which endeavoured to burn my cheek. It seemed to me that he with whom I was going understood and shared my feeling. He walked softly and in silence, and upon his face, at which I glanced now and then, there was expressed that partly sad, partly joyful solemnity which was in Nature and in ray heart. Suddenly he turned around to me, and I saw that he 332 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS wanted to say something. « Suppose he should speak of something different from what I am thinking about ? " it occurred to me. But he spoke of my father, without mentioning him. " He once said jokingly to me : ' Marry my Masha ! ' " he said. " How happy he would be now," I said, pressing closer the arm that was supporting me. " Yes, you were then a child," he continued, looking me in the eye. " I used then to kiss these eyes, and I loved them because they were like his, and I never thought that they ever would be dear to me for their own sake. I knew you then as Masha." " Speak ' thou ' to me," I said. " I just wanted to say ' thou ' to you," he said, " for now only you seem to be all mine," and a calm, happy, magnetic glance dwelt on me. We were walking over an untrodden path, leading through a trampled stubble field. All we heard was our steps and our voices. On one side, beyond the ravine, as far as to the distant leafless grove, there ran a brownish stubble field, through which a peasant with his plough was laying out an ever-growing black strip. A herd of horses scattered at the foot of the hill looked as though they were near. On the other side and ahead of us, as far as the house, which could be seen back of it, lay the black, soft field of spring grain, here and there green in strips. The feebly warming sun gleamed over everything. On everything lay long, fleecy gossamers; they flew in the air around us and lodged on the frost-dried stubbles, and settled on our eyes, hair, and dresses. When we spoke, our voices sounded and hovered motionless in the air above us, as though we alone were there amid this world and all alone under this azure vault, upon which, flaring up and quivering, played the feebly warming sun. DOMESTIC nAppiisrESS 333 I, too, wanted to say " thou " to him, but I was embar- rassed. " Why dost thou walk so fast ? " I said, hurriedly and almost in a whisper, with an involuntary blush. He walked slower, and glanced even more caressingly, more merrily and happily at me. When we returned home his mother was already there, and so were the guests, without whom it was impossible to get along, and I was not left alone with him until the time when we seated ourselves in the carriage after leav- ing the church, on our way to Nikdlskoe. The church was almost empty. I saw, with one eye only, his mother standing upright on a little rug near the choir, Katya in a cap with lilac ribbons and with tears upon her cheeks, and two or three manorial servants, who were looking curiously at me. I did not look at him, but felt his presence at my side. I listened to the words of the prayers and repeated them, but there was no response to them in my soul. I could not pray, and looked dully at the images, the candles, the embroidered cross on the back of the priest's vestment, the iconostasis, the church window, and did not understand a thing. I felt that something unusual was taking place in me. When the priest with the cross turned around toward us and congratulated us, saying that he had baptized me and that God had granted him the favour of marrying me, and Katya and his mother kissed us, and we could hear Grigdri's voice calling the carriage, I was surprised and frightened, because everything was ended, and nothing unusual, corresponding to the mystery administered to us, had taken place in my soul. We. kissed each other, and that kiss seemed so strange and foreign to our feeling. " And so that is all," I thought. We went out of the church. The rumble of the wheels sounded hollow under the vault; a breath of fresh air 334 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS fanned my face ; lie put on his hat, and, taking me under my arms, helped me into the carriage. Through the win- dow I saw the moon with its frost-ring. He sat down at my side and closed the carriage door. Something pinched my heart, as though I were offended by the confidence with which he did it. Katya cried out for me to cover my head ; the wheels rattled over the stones, then over the soft road, and we drove away. I pressed myself into a corner and looked through the window at the distant bright fields and at the road, which ran along in the chill splendour of the moon. I did not look at him, but felt his presence at my side. " Is this all I receive from the minute from which I had expected so much ? " I thought, and it appeared humiliat- ing and offensive to me to be sitting so close to him. I turned around with the intention of saying something to him. But words did not come to me, as though my former feeling of tenderness had disappeared and given way to a sensation of affront and terror. " I did not believe till this moment that it would be," he softly replied to my glance. " Yes, but I feel for some reason terribly," I said. " Do I cause this feeling, my dear ? " he said, taking my hand and lowering his head upon it. My hand lay lifeless in his, and my heart was pinched with cold. " Yes," I whispered. But suddenly my heart began to beat more violently ; my hand trembled and pressed his ; I began to feel warm ; my eyes in the semi-darkness searched out his, and I suddenly felt that I was not afraid of him, that that terror was love, — a new and much more tender and much stronger love than before. I felt that I was all his, and that I was happy in his power over me. ?ART THE SECOND Days, weeks, two months of a solitary country life passed unnoticed, as I then thought ; and yet there was enough of feelings, agitations, and happiness in those two months to last for a lifetime. His dreams and mine about how we should arrange our country life were realized quite differently from what we had expected. But our life was not worse than our dreams. There was not that stern labour, that attention to duties, that self-sacrifice and life for another, which I had imagined when I was a fiancee ; there was, on the con- trary, nothing but a selfish sentiment of love for each other, a desire to be loved, a groundless, constant merri- ment and oblivion of everything ia the world. It is true, he sometimes went into his cabinet, or to town on some business, and looked after the farm; but I saw that it cost him great labour to tear himself away from me. He himself confessed later that everything in the world, where I was not, appeared to him so nonsensical that he could not understand how he could busy himself with it. It was the same with me. I read, occupied myself with music, with mamma, and with a school ; but aU that I did only because it was connected with him and gained his approbation ; the moment the thought of him did not enter into any affair, my hands hung down, and it seemed so queer to me that there could be anything in the world except him. It may be that this was a bad, selfish feeling ; 335 336 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS but it gave me happiness and raised me high above the rest of the world. Nobody else existed for me in the world, and I considered him the most beautiful and im- peccable of men in the world ; for this reason I could not live for anything else but him, and I wished to be in his eyes such as he thought me to be. And, indeed, he re- garded me as the first, the most beautiful woman in the world, endowed with aU possible virtues ; and I endeav- oured really to be that woman in the eyes of the first and best man in the whole world. Once he entered my room just as I was praying. I looked around at him and continued to pray. He sat down at the table in order not to disturb me and opened a book. But it seemed to me that he was looking at me, and I looked back at him. He smiled ; I laughed, and could not pray. " Have you prayed already ? " I asked. " Yes. Go ahead, and I will leave you." " I hope you pray." He wanted to go away, without replying ; but I stopped him. " My darling, do me the favour and say the prayers with me." He stood up near me and, awkwardly dropping his hands, with a serious face, hesitating, said the prayers. Now and then he turned around and looked for approval and succour in my face. When he was through, I laughed and embraced him. '■' You are doing it all ! I feel as though I were just ten years old," he said, blushing and kissing my hands. Our house was one of those old country dwellings in which, respecting and loving each other, several genera- tions of the same family had lived. There was on every- thing the seal of good, honourable family reminiscences, which seemed to have become mine also the moment I entered the house. The arrangement and order of the house was due to DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 857 Tatyana Sem^novna's care and was the same as before. It cannot be said that all was elegant and beautiful; but there was a plenty of everything, beginning with the serv- ants and ending with the furniture and the food ; every- thing was neat, durable, precise, and impressed one with respect. In the drawing-room the furniture was placed symmetrically ; portraits hung upon the wall, and the floor was covered with home-made rugs and carpet-strips. In the divan-room there was an old grand, chiffoniferes of two different styles, divans, and brass-covered and inlaid tables. In my cabinet, which had been furnished under Tatydna Sem^novna's care, there stood the very best of furniture of all ages and shapes, and, among other things, an old pier-glass into which I at first could not look without feeling abashed, but which later became dear to me as an old friend. Tatyana Sem^novna was not heard, but everything in the house went like clockwork, although there were many superfluous people. All these people, who wore soft, heel- less boots (Tatyana Sem^novna regarded the creaking of soles and thud of heels as the most disagreeable thing in the world), seemed to be proud of their calling, trembled before their old mistress, looked upon my husband and me with patronizing kindness, and seemed to be doing their work with special pleasure. Eegularly every Satur- day the floors were washed and the rugs were beaten ; on the first of every month mass was held at the house with water consecration; every name-day of Tatydna Sem^- novna and of her son (and of mine for the first time that autumn) there were celebrations, to which all the neigh- bourhood was invited. All that had been done in the same order as far back as Tatyana Sem^novna could remember. My husband did not interfere with the housekeeping, and attended only to the field labour and the peasants, and he worked bard. He got up even in winter very early, so that when I awoke he was gone. He generally 338 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS returned to tea, which we drank alone, and at this time he was, after the troubles and tribulations of the field work, nearly always in that especially happy frame of mind which we had called " wild transport." I often de- manded that he should tell me what he had been doing in the morning, and he told me such nonsense that we nearly died with laughter ; at times I demanded a serious account, and he kept back a smile and gave it to me. I looked at his eyes and at his moving lips, and could not understand anything; I was simply glad to see him and to hear his voice. "Eepeat what I told you," he would say; but I was quite unable to repeat it. It seemed so funny to me to have him talk not of himself or of me, but of something different. As though it made any difference to me what was going on there. Only much later did I begin to understand a little and to be interested in his cares. Tatyana Semdnovna did not go out before dinner ; she drank her tea alone and sent messengers to us to bid us good morning. In our especial, insanely happy world the voice from that other, proper, orderly corner of hers sounded so strange that I frequently could not hold back, and only laughed in response to the chambermaid who, folding her hands, announced ki measured words that "Taty^a Sem^novna has commanded me to find out how you rested after yesterday's outing, and she has ordered me to inform you that her side pained her all night, and that a stupid dog kept barking all night in the village, keeping her awake. She also commanded me to ask you how you liked the bread this morning, and begged me to remark that Taras did not bake this morning, but that it was Nikolasha's first trial, and that the baking was not bad, especially the cracknel rings, but he has browned the toast too much." Up to dinner, we were not much together. I played or read alone ; he wrote aud then went away ; at dinijer, at DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 339 four o'clock, we met in the drawing-room ; mamma sailed out from her room, and there appeared some gentlewomea and pilgrims, of whom two or three always lived in the house. Following an old custom, he regularly every day offered his arm to his mother ; but she demanded that he should give me the other, and so we regularly every day squeezed through the doors. Mamma presided at dinner, and the conversation was carried on with reserved propriety and a certain solemnity. The simple words which my husband and I exchanged agreeably broke the solemnity of these prandial meetings. Between mother and son there were frequently discussions and an exchange of banter. I was very fond of these dis- cussions and of that banter, because in them was best expressed the tender and firm love which united them. After dinner, mamma seated herself in the drawing-room in a large armchair and crushed some snuff, or cut the pages of newly received books, while we read aloud or went to the divan-room, to the piano. We read a great deal during that time, but music was our favourite and best enjoyment, every time striking new chords in our hearts and, as it were, revealing one to the other anew. When I played his favourite pieces, he sat down on a distant divan, where I could hardly see him, and, from a certain reserve of feeling, tried to conceal the impression which the music produced on him ; often, when he did not expect it, I got up from the piano, walked over to him, and tried to discover in his countenance the traces of agitation, the unnatural sparkle and moisture in his eyes, which he tried in vain to conceal from me. Mamma often wanted to take a look at us in the divan-room, but, apparently, she was afraid she would embarrass us, and so she sometimes walked through the divan-room with a quasi-serious and indifferent face, as though not noticing us ; but I knew that she had no cause for going to her room and coming so soon back again. I served the evening tea in the large drawing-room, and 340 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS again all the home-folk congregated at the table. This solemn meeting at the august samovar, and the distribu- tion of glasses and cups, for a long time embaiTassed me. It seemed to me that I was not yet worthy of that honour, that I was too young and frivolous to turn the faucet of such a huge samovar, to place a glass on Nikita's tray-and say, " For Peter Ivanovich, for Mdrya Minichna," to ask, " Is it sweet enough ? " and to leave pieces of sugar for the nurse and worthy servants. " Superb, superb," my husband would say. " Just Hke a grown person," and that embarrassed me only more. After tea, mamma laid a solitaire, or listened to Marya Minichna's divination; then she kissed and crossed us both, and we went to our chamber. More frequently, however, we sat up, the two of us, until past midnight, and that was the best and most agreeable time for us. He told me of his past; we made plans, sometimes philoso- phized, and tried to speak in as low a voice as possible, so that we should not be heard up-stairs, and that Tatyana Sem^novna might not be informed of our staying up, for she demanded that we should go to bed early. At times, when we were hungry, we softly went to the buffet-room, by Nikita's favour got out a cold lunch, and ate it by the light of one candle in my room. We lived together like strangers iu this large old house, in which over everything stood the stem spirit of antiquity and of Tatyana Sem^novna. Not only she, but the people, the old maids, the furniture, the pictures, inspired me with respect, with a certain dread and a consciousness that he and I were not quite in place here, and that we had to live quite carefully and attentively here. As I recall it now, I see that much — that restraining, invariable order and that mass of idle and curious people in our house — was uncomfortable and a nuisance ; but at that time that very restraint only enhanced our love. Not only I, but even he did not show that there was any- DOMESTIC HAPPIITESS 341 thing which displeased us. On the contrary, he seemed to hide himself from anything that was bad. Mamma's lackey, Dmitri Sidorov, a great lover of the pipe, used to go regularly every day, when we were in the divan-room, to my husband's cabinet to take some tobacco out of his box ; it was a sight to see Sergy^y Mikhaylych walk over to me on tiptoes with an expression of merry dread and, threatening with the finger and winking to me, point to Dmitri Sidorov, who did not in the least suspect that he had been watched. When Dmitri Sidorov went away without noticing us, rejoicing that all had gone off favourably, as on all other occasions, my husband said that I was a joy, and kissed me. At times this calm, this readiness to forgive all, and this seeming indifference to everything did not please me ; I did not notice that the same was the case with me, and regarded it as a weakness. " He is just like a child that does not dare show his will," I thought. " Ah, my dear," he once said to me when I told him that his weakness surprised me, " can a man be dissatis- fied with anything when he is as happy as I am ? It is easier to yield than to bend others, of that I became con- vinced long ago, and there is no position such that one cannot be happy in it. And we are so happy. I cannot be angry ; for me there is now no such a thing as bad ; for me there is only that which is pitiful and amusing. Above everything else, le mieux est I'ennemi du Men. Would you believe it ? When I hear a bell, or receive a letter, or simply wake up, I feel terribly. It is terrible to have to live and see things change : there can be noth- ing better than the present." I believed him, but did not understand him. I was so happy : it seemed to me that everything had to be just so and not otherwise, and that it was so with everybody, but tliat there was somewhere another, not a greater, but another, happiness. 342 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS Thus two months passed ; the winter came with its colds and snow-storms, and I, in spite of his being with me, began to feel lonely; I began to feel that life was repeating itself, and that there was neither in me nor in him anything new, and that, on the contrary, we were returning to something old. He began to busy himself with his own affairs more than before, and I again began to think that there was in his soul a certain special world, to which he did not wish to admit me. His habitual calm irritated me. I loved him not less than before, and I was not less happy in his love than before ; but my love stopped and no longer grew, and, outside of love, another restless feeling began to steal into my soul. It was not enough for me to love after I had experienced the happiness of loving him. I wanted motion, and not the calm current of life. I wanted agitation, dangers, and self-sacrifices for my sen- timent. There was a surplus of strength in me which did not find a place in our calm life. I was beset by out- bursts of pining which I, as something bad, tried to conceal from him, and by outbursts of unbounded tender- ness and merriment, which frightened him. He had noticed my condition even before I had noticed it, and he proposed to me to settle in the city ; but I begged him not to go there and not to change our mode of life, not to disturb our happiness. Indeed, I was happy, but I was tormented by the thought that this happiness cost me no labour, no sacri- fice, s^hile the power of labour and sacrifice vexed me. I loved him, and I saw that I was everything to him ; but I wanted everybody to see our love ; I wanted to be disturbed in my love, and yet persevere in my love for him. My mind and even my feelings were occupied, but there was another feeling of youth and the necessity of motion which did not find any satisfaction in our quiet DOMESTIC HAfPlifESS 343 life. Why did he tell me that we could go to the city the moment I wanted it ? If he had not told me so, I might have come to understand that the feehng which vexed me was dangerous nonsense and my own fault, and that the sacrifice for which I was looking was before me, namely, in the suppression of that feeling. The thought that I could save myself from the tedium only by settling in the city involuntarily came to me ; and yet I felt ashamed and sorry to tear him away from everything which he loved. In the meanwhile time passed. The snow drifted ever more against the walls of the house, and we were all alone, and we were still the same to each other; but somewhere there, in the splendour and noise, masses of people were agitated, suffered, and rejoiced, not thinking of us and our secluded existence. The worst for me was that I felt that with every day the habits of life fettered our life in one definite form ; that our feeling was getting less free, and that it submitted itself to the even, impas- sionate current of time. In the morning we were merry, at dinner respectful, in the evening tender. " Good ! " I said to myself. " It is good to do good and live honourably, as he says ; but we shall have time for that ; but there is something for which I have the strength just now." I did not need that, I needed struggle ; I wanted feeling to guide my life, and not life to guide my feeling. I wanted to walk up to a precipice with him and say, " Another step, and I shall hurl myself down there; another motion, and I am for ever lost," and; I wanted him, standing pale on the brink of the precipice, to take me up in his strong arms, to hold me over it, so as to make my heart beat in fright, and to carry me away whither he pleased. This condition affected even my health, and my nerves became unstrung. One morning I felt worse than usual. He returned out of sorts from the of&ce, which was rare 344 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS with him. I immediately noticed that, and asked him what the matter was; but he did not wish to tell me, saying that it was not worth while. I learned later that the chief of the rural police had called up our peas- ants, and, out of malice to my husband, whom he did not like, had asked unlawful things of them and threatened them. My husband had not yet sufficiently digested it to be able to turn it all to ridicule, and so he was irrigated and did not want to speak to me. But I thought that he did not wish to tell me about it because he regarded me as a child who could not understand that which in- terested him. I turned away from him, grew silent, and invited to tea Marya Minichna, who was visiting us. After tea, which I got through with in a hurry, I took Marya Minichna to the divan-room, and began to speak in a loud voice with her about some nonsense, which was not in the least interesting to me. He walked up and down the room, now and then casting a glance at us. These glances for some reason had the peculiar efl'ect upon me of making me speak more and more, and even of making me laugh. Everything which I said and which Marya Minichna said seemed ridiculous to me. Without saying a word to me, he went away to his cabinet and locked the door after him. The moment I no longer heard him, all my merriment suddenly disappeared, so that Marya Minichna was surprised, and began to ask me what the matter was with me. I sat down on the divan, without answering her, and felt like weeping. " What is he brooding over ? " I thought. " No doubt some nonsense which seems of importance to him ; if he only told it to me, I would prove him that it was all bosh. No, he wants to think that I shall not understand him ; he wants to humble me with his majestic calm, and be right in re- gard to me. And so 1 am right, too, when I feel lonely DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 345 and dull, wlien I want to live and move," I thought, " and not to stand in one place and feel time passing over me. I want to go forward, and with every day, with every hour, I want something new, while he wants to stop, and to stop me with him. How easy that would be for him ! He does not need to take me to town for that ; all that is necessary is that he should be such as I am, without contorting or repressing himself, and that he should live simply. He himself advises me to be simple, but he is not simple. That's it ! " I felt that tears rose in my heart, and that I was irritated against him. I was frightened at this irritation, and went to him. He was sitting in his cabinet and writing. When he heard my steps he for a moment looked around him with equanimity and calm, and con- tinued to write. I did not Hke that glance ; instead of walking over to him I stopped at the table at which he was writing, and, opening a book, began to look at it. He once more raised his eyes and looked at me. " Mdsha, you are not in a good humour, are you ? " he said. I answered him with a cold glance, which said : " Don't ask ! Please, none of your sweetness ! " He shook his head, and smiled timidly and gently, but for the first time he received no smile in reply to his. " What has been the matter with you to-day ? " I asked, " Why did you not tell me ? " " It does not amount to much : just some little annoy- ance ! " he replied. " Now I may tell it to you. Two peasants went to town — " But I did not give him a chance of finishing. " Why did you not tell me when I asked you about it at tea ? " "I might have told you something stupid, because I was so angry then." "But I wanted to know it then," 346 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS " Why ? " '■ Why do you think that I am never able to help you in anything ? " " I think ? " he said, throwing down the pen, " I .think that I cannot live without you. You not only help me in everything, in everything, but you are doing every- thing. What an idea ! " he laughed. " I live by you alone. It seems to me that everything is good only because you are here, because I need you — " " Yes, I know that ; I am a dear child who must be assuaged," I said, in such a tone that he looked at me in surprise, as though he had noticed that for the first time. " I do not want quietude. There is enough of it in you, more than enough," I added.. " So, you see, the matter is like this," he began hur- riedly, interrupting me, apparently afraid to let me say all. " How would you judge about it ? " " I do not want to now," I replied. I really was anx- ious to hear what he had to say, but it gave me pleasure to disturb his quietude. " I do not want to play life, I want to live," I said, " just as you are living." Upon his face, where everything was generally so quickly and so vividly reflected, there was expressed pain and intensified attention. " I want to live on an equality with you, with you — " I could not finish my words, for there was such sorrow, such deep sorrow, expressed on his face. He was ailc-nt for awhile. " Where is the inequality between us ? " he said. " Is it because I, and not you, bother with the chief of the rural police and with drunken peasants ? — " " Not in this alone," I said. '' For God's sake, my dear, understand me ! " he con- tinued. " I know that we are always pained by troubles : I have lived long enough to know it. I love you, and consequently I cannot help wishing to save you troubles, DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 347 In this my life, my love for you, consists : therefore do not keep me from living my life ! " " You are always right ! " I said, without looking at him. I was provoked because everything in his soul was again clear and calm, while I was annoyed and experi- enced a feeling akin to repentance. " Masha, what is the matter with you ? " he said. " The question is not whether you are right or I, but something entirely different. What have you against me ? Do not answer me at once, but think it over, and tell me all you think. You are dissatisfied with me, and you are, no doubt, right, but let me understand where my fault lies ! " How could I have revealed my soul to him ? I was now even more agitated because he had understood me at once, because I was again as a cMld before him, and because I could not do a thing without his understanding and foreseeing it. " I have nothing against you," I said. " I am simply lonely, and I do not want to be lonely. But you say that it ought to be so, and you are again right ! " I said this and glanced at him. My aim was reached : his quiet had disappeared ; in his face there was an expression of fright and pain. " Masha," he spoke, in a soft, agitated voice, " what we are doing now is no joke. Now our fate is being decided. I beg you not to answer me, but to listen to what I have to say. Why do you want to toument me ? " But I interrupted him : " I know that you wiU be right. You had better not speak, because you are right," I said, coldly, as though not I, but an evil spirit within me, were speaking. " If you only knew what you are doing ! " he said, in a trembling voice. I burst into tears, and I felt relief. He sat at my side and kept silent. I was both sorry for him and conscience- ,348 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS stricken for what I had done. I did not look at him. It seemed to me that he was that moment looking at me with a severe, or with a perplexed, glance. I turned around : Ms soft, gentle glance, as though asking forgive- ness of me, was directed upon me. I took his hand, and said: " Forgive me ! I do not know myself what I have been saying." " Yes ; but I know what you have been saying, and you have been telling me the truth." "What is it?" I said. " That we must go to St. Petersburg," he said. " We have nothing to do here now." " As you wish," I said. He embraced and kissed me. " Forgive me ! " he said. " I am guilty in respect to you." On that evening I played for him for a long time, while he walked up and down in the room and kept whispering something, mostly verses, and, at times, some most terrible nonsense, by wlaich I could tell the mood he was in. " What are you whispering this evening ? " I asked. He stopped, thought for a moment, and, smiling, repeated two verses from Lfomontov : " ' And he, insensate, asks for storms, As though in storms were rest for him! ' " " Yes, he is more than a man ; he knows everything i " I thought. " How can I help loving him ! " I got up, took his hand, and began to walk with him, trying to keep step with him. " Yes ? " he asked, smiling, and looking at me. " Yes," I said, in a whisper ; and we were both seized by a fit of merriment: our eyes laughed, and we made DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 349 ever longer strides, and ever more walked on tiptoe. In the same gait we, to Grigdri's great displeasure and to the surprise of mamma, who was laying out a solitaire in the drawing-room, walked through all the rooms to the diniag-room ; here we stopped, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. Two weeks later, before the holidays, we were in St Petersburg. n Our journey to St. Petersburg, a week in Moscow, his relatives and mine, getting things settled in our new quar- ters, the road, the new cities, the new faces, all that passed like a dream. All that was so varied, so new and jolly, all that was so warmly and so brightly illuminated by his presence and his love, that my quiet country life appeared to me like something long past and insignificant. To my great surprise, instead of displaying social pride and coldness, such as I had expected to find in people, all (not only my relatives, but even strangers) met me with such heartfelt kindness and hospitality that it seemed to me as though they had been doing nothing but thinking of me, as though they had just been waiting for me in. order themselves to be happy. Just as unexpected for me was the discovery that my husband had many acquaint- ances, of whom he had never spoken to me, in what to me seemed to be the very best of social circles ; and often it affected me strangely and disagreeably to hear hini pass severe judgment on some of those people, who appeared to me to be so good. I could not understand why he treated them so dryly, and why he tried to avoid many acquaintances which I thought to be flattering. I thought that the more people one knew the better, and that all of them were good people. "We shall have to be careful in the city," he said, before our departure from the country. "Here we are small Croesuses, but there we shall be in very moderate circumstances, and so we must not stay in the city longer than until Easter, nor make social calls, or else we shall 350 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 351 become entangled ; and for your own sake I should not like to — " " What is the use of society ? " I replied. " We shall only get a glance at the theatres, at our relatives, shall hs- ten to operas and good music, and before Easter we shall be back in the country." But the moment we arrived in St. Petersburg all our plans were forgotten. I suddenly found myself in such a new and happy world, so many joys took possession of me, and -such novel interests came up, that I immediately, even though unconsciously, refuted all my past and all the plans of that past. " All that was only in joke, — it has not begun yet ; but this is real life ! What else would it be ? " 1 thought. Disquietude and the beginning of loneliness, which had troubled me in the country, suddenly disappeared entirely, as though by magic. My love for my husband became calmer, and I was never assailed here by the thought that he might love me less. Indeed, I could not doubt his love : he grasped at once every thought of mine, shared every feeling, fulfilled every wish. His quiet disappeared, or, at least, no longer irritated me. Besides, I felt that in addition to his former love he here enjoyed the sight of me. Frequently, after a visit, or a new acquaintance, or an evening at our house, where I, inwardly trembling for fear of making mistakes, did my duties as a hostess, he would say : " You are a fine girl ! First-rate ! Keep up your courage ! Just right ! " and I was happy. Soon after our arrival he wrote to his mother, and when he called me in to add a few words to her, he would not let me see what he had written ; whereat I naturally in- sisted and read it. " You will not recognize Masha," he wrote, "and I myself do not recognize her. I wonder where she gets that sweet, graceful self-confidence, affa- bility, and even worldly mind and charm. And all this is simple, dear, and good-natured. Everybody is delighted 352 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS with her, and I myself don't get tired watching her, and, if such a thing were possible, would love her even more." " Oh, so that is what I am ? " I thought. And I felt 80 merry and happy, and I thought that I loved him more than ever. My success with all our acquaintances was quite unexpected to me. I was told on all sides that I had especially pleased grandfather, or that aunty was in ecstasy over me ; or one man would tell me that there were no women like me in St. Petersburg; or a woman would assure me that I had only to wish it, and I should be the most recherchee woman in society. Es- pecially my husband's cousin. Princess D , a middle- aged society lady, who suddenly took a great liking to me, more than anybody else, told me all kinds of flatter- ing things which turned my head. When the cousin for the first time invited me to go to a ball with her, and asked my husband to let me go, he turned to me and, with a barely perceptible, sly smile, asked me whether I wanted to go. I nodded in sign of assent, and I felt that I was blushing. " You act like a criminal that confesses what it is he wants," he said, smiling good-naturedly. " But you told me that we must not go into society, and that you did not like it anyway," I answered, smihug, and looking at him with an entreating glance. " If you are very anxious to go, we will go," he said. " Eeally, we had better not." " Do you want to ? Very much so ? " he again asked me. I made no reply. " Society is not the greatest calamity," be continued, "but unsatisfied social desires are both bad and abomi- nable. We must go there by all means, and we will," he concluded, with determination. " To tell you the truth," I said, " there was nothing in the world I wanted so much as this balL" DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 353 We went, and the pleasure which I experienced sur- passed all my expectations. At the ball it appeared to me that I was, even more than before, the centre around which everything revolved, that it was only for me that this large hall was illuminated and the music played, and that this mass of people was congregated to admire me. All, beginning with the hair-dresser and chamber- maid, and ending with the dancers and old gentlemen who paraded in the hall, seemed to be telling me and making me feel that they loved me. The universal opinion, which had formed itself at this ball and of which my cousin informed me, was to the effect that I in no way resembled other women, that there was in me something especial, country-hke, simple, and charming. That suc- cess flattered me so much that I frankly told my husband that I should like to attend two or three more balls that year, "in order to be satiated by them," I added, com promising with truth. My husband gave his ready consent, and at first went with me with apparent pleasure, delighted at my success, and, seemingly, forgetting or refuting that which he had said before. Later on, the life, which we were living began to annoy him and hang heavy ou him. But my mind was else- where : even though I at times noticed his concentrated and serious glance I did not understand its meaning. I was so beclouded by that love, suddenly provoked, as I thought, in all the strangers, and by that atmosphere of elegance, pleasure, and novelty, which I now breathed for the first time ; so suddenly had his crushing moral influence disappeared ; it was so pleasant for me not only to be his equal, but even his superior, in this society, and for this very reason to love him more than before and more independently, that I was unable to understand what his objections were to this society life. . I experienced a novel feeling of pride and contentment 354 DOMESTIC HAfPlNESS when, upon entering at a ball, all eyes were directed toward me, and he, as though abashed to acknowledge the possession of me before the crowd, hastened to leave me alone and to lose himself in the black mass of even- ing dresses. " Wait ! " I frequently thought, searching out with my eyes his unnoticeable, and sometimes lonely, figure in the corner of the halL " Wait ! " I thought. " We will get home, and you will understand and see for whom it was I was trying to be beautiful and brilHant, and what it is I this evening love most in all that sur- rounds me ! " I was honestly convinced that my success gave me pleasure only because I thus had a chance of sacrificing it for him. There was one thing in society which, I thought, might become dangerous to me, and that was the possibility of an infatuation for one of the men whom I met, and my husband's jealousy ; but he had such faith in me, and seemed to be so calm and composed, and all these young men seemed to me so insignificant in comparison with him, that in my opinion the only^4anger of society did not have any terrors for me. Still, the attentions I received from so many people in society afforded me pleasure, flattered my vanity, made me think that there was some merit in my love for my husband, and caused me to treat him with greater self-confidence and almost with greater carelessness. "I saw you talk a little too excitedly with N ," I once, upon returning from a ball, said to him, threaten- ing him with my finger, and giving the name of one of the well-known ladies of St. Petersburg, with whom he had actually talked on that evening. I said this in order to stir him up, for he was so taciturn and dull. " Ah, why do you say that ? Don't say that, Masha ! " he spoke through his teeth and frowning, as though from physical pain. " It does not at all fit you or me ! Leave that to others ! These false relations may spoil our real DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 355 ones, and I still hope that our real relations will return." I felt ashamed and kept silent. " Will they return, M^sha ? What do you think ? " he asked. " They have never been spoiled and never will be," I said, feeling then that I was telling the truth. " God grant it be so," he said. " It is about time we should return to the country." He told me that only once; on other occasions I thought that he was as well off as I, and I felt happy and joyful. " Even though at times it may be rather dull for him," I consoled myself, " I have felt ennui for his sake in the country. Even though our relations may have changed a little, everything will come back again as soon as we are left during the summer all alone with Tatydna Sem^novna in our Nikolskoe house." Thus the winter passed imperceptibly for me, and we, contrary to our plans, stayed through Easter at St. Peters- burg. During Quasimodo week we were getting ready to leave : everything was packed, and my husband, who had already purchased the- presents, and all kinds of things and flowers for our country home, was in a very happy frame of mind. His cousin suddenly arrived and begged me to stay until Saturday so as to have a chance of going with her to a reception at the house of Countess E . She said that Countess R was very anxious to have me come, that Prince M , who was then at St. Peters- burg, had wished ever since the last ball to meet me, and that he would come to the reception for this reason alone, and that he had said that I was the prettiest woman in Russia. The whole city was to be there, and, in short, it would be simply horrible if I did not go. My husband was at the other end of the drawing-room, conversing with somebody. " Well, are you going to come, Mary ? " said his cousin. 356 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS "We intend leaving for the country day after to-mor- row," I replied hesitatiagly, looking at my husband. Our eyes met, and he quickly turned away. " I will persuade him to stay," said his cousin, " and we will go there Saturday to turn people's heads. You will, won't you ? " "That would break up our plans, and we are all packed," I replied, beginning to succumb. " She had better go this evening to pay her respects to the prince," my husband said at the other end of the drawing-room, in a repressed and irritated voice, such as I had never before heard in him. " Ah, he is jealous ! I see this for the first time," the cousin laughed. "I am not persuading her for the sake of the prince, Sergy^y Mikhaylych, but for the sake of all of us. Countess E was so anxious to see her ! " " That depends on her," my husband said, coldly, going out. I saw that he was agitated more than usual : that tormented me, and I gave the cousin no promise. The moment she left I went to my husband. He was walking up and down, lost in thought, and did not see or hear me, as I walked in on tiptoe. " He is already thinking of the dear Nikdlskoe house," i thought, looking at him, " and of the morning coffee in the bright drawing-room, and of his fields, peasants, and evenings in the divan-room, and of the mysterious suppers at night. No ! " I decided, " all the balls in the world and the flattery of all the princes in the world will I give for his joyful embarrassment and calm love." I wanted, to tell him that I would' not go to. the recep- tion, when he suddenly turned around and, seeing me, frowned and lost the gentle and thoughtful expression of his face. Again his glance betrayed perspicacity, ivisdom, and a patronizing calm. He did. not want ^me.tQ/ see him DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 357 as a simple man ; he had always to stand on a pedestal, as a demigod, before me. " What is it, my dear ? " he asked, turning to me ia a careless and calm manner. I made no reply. I was annoyed because he concealed himself from me and did not wish to remain such as I loved him. " Do you want to go to the reception on Saturday ? ' he asked me. " I wanted to," I replied, " but you do not like it ; be- sides, everything is packed," I added. , He had never before glanced so coldly at me, or spoken so coldly with me. "I will not leave before Tuesday, and will have the things unpacked," he said, " and so you can go, if you want to. Do me the favour and go ! I wiU not leave before." As always, when he was agitated, he began to pace through the room with an unsteady step, without looking at me. " I positively cannot understand you," I said, standing in one spot and watching him ^ith my eyes, " you say that you are always so calm." (He had never said it.) " Why do you speak so strangely to me ? I am ready for your sake to sacrifice that pleasure, and you ask me so ironically, as you have never spoken to me before, that I should go." " Well ! You sacrifice '' (he put special emphasis on the word), " and so do I. What more do you want ? It is a contest of magnanimity. What other domestic happiness do you wish ? " This was the first time I heard such bitter and scornful words from him. His ridicule did not make me feel ashamed, but offended me, and his exasperation did not frighten me, but was communicated to me. Was it he, who had always been afraid of triteness in our relations, who had always been sincere and simple, that was saying 358 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS this now ? And for what reason ? Because, indeed, I wanted to sacrifice to him a pleasure, in which I saw nothing wrong, and because but a minute ago I had understood and loved him so well. Our rSles had changed : he avoided straight, simplei words, and I sought them. " You have changed very much," I said, with a sigh. " What wrong have I done to you ? It is not the recep- tion, but something else that you are harbouring in your heart against me. Why that insincerity ? Were you not yourself formerly afraid of it ? Speak out, what have you against me ? " — " What will he say ? " I thought, recall- ing with a feeling of self-satisfaction that he could not upbraid me for anything I might have done all winter. I walked to the middle of the room, so that he was compelled to pass close to me, and kept looking at him. " He win come by and embrace me, and everything will be over," I thought, and I was even sorry that I should not have a chance of proving to him that he was in the wrong. " You still do not understand me ? " he said. " No." " Well, then I will tell you. I am disgusted, for the first time disgusted, with what I feel and cannot help feeling." He stopped, apparently frightened at the n.ide sound of his voice. " What is it ? " I asked, with tears of indignation in my eyes. "I am disgusted because the prince has found you pretty, and because you for that reason run to meet him, forgetting your husband, and yourself, and your woman's dignity, and because you do not wish to comprehend what your husband must feel for you, if the sense of dignity is lacking in you. You come, on the contrary, to tell your husband that you are sacrificing, that is as much as to say: 'It is a great happiness for me to show myself to his Highness, but I shall sacrifice it.'" DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 359 The farther he spoke, the more the sounds of his own voice excited him, and that voice sounded venomous, cruel, and rude. I had never seen him, or expected to see him, such. The blood rushed to my heart; I was afraid, but, at the same time, the feeling of unmerited shame and offended self-love agitated me, and I wanted to avenge it. " I have been expecting this for quite awhile," I said. « Talk, talk ! " " I do not know what it is you have been expecting," he continued, " but I could expect the very worst, seeing you every day in the mire, idleness, luxury of that stupid society, and I have lived — I have lived to feel to-day as pained and ashamed as never before, — pained because your friend with her dirty hands rummaged in my soul and began to speak of jealousy, of my jealousy, of whom ? of a man whom neither you nor I know. And you seem to be determined not to understand me, and you want to sacrifice for me what ? — I am ashamed for your sake, for your degradation ! — Sacrifice ! — " he re- peated. " Oh, so there is man's power ! " I thought. ■'' It is to offend and humiliate a woman who is not guilty of any- thing. So those are a man's rights ! But I will never submit to them." " No, I am not sacrificing anything for you," I muttered, feeling my nostrils expand in an unnatural way, and the blood leaving my face. " I will go to the reception on Saturday, I will, by all means." " God give you as much pleasure as possible, only between us everything is ended ! " he exclaimed, in a fit of unrestrained rage. " You will no longer torment me. T was a fool to — " he began once more, but his lips (Quivered, and it apparently cost him an effort to keep back that which he had intended to say. J was afraid of him that moment, and I hated him. I 360 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS wanted to tell him much and to avenge all my insults ; but, if I had opened my mouth, I should have wept, and thus should have lowered myself before him. I went silently out of the room; but the moment I no longer heard his steps I was horrified at what we had been doing. I felt terribly at the thought that this union, which constituted all my happiness, would really be severed for ever, and I wanted to go back. " But is he sufficiently calm now to understand me when I shall silently extend my hand to him and look into his eyes ? " I thought. " Will he understand my magnanimity ? Suppose he should call my grief hypocrisy ? or should accept my repentance with the consciousness of right and with proud composure, and forgive me ? Why, why has he, whom T love so much, offended me so cruelly ? " I went not to him, but to my room, where I sat alone for a long time and wept, in terror recalling every word of the conversation which had taken place between us, puttiug other words for these, adding new, good words, and again recalling, with terror and a feeling of insult, that which had happened. When I in the evening came out to tea, and met my husband in the presence of S , who was at our house, I understood that from that day on a whole abyss lay between us. S asked me when we should leave. I had no time to answer him. " On Tuesday," replied my husband. " We shall attend the reception at Countess E 's. You are going there, aren't you ? " he turned to me. I was frightened at the sound of that simple voice, and timidly glanced at my husband. His eyes were looking straight at me; their glance was evil and scornful; his voice was even and cold. •' Yes," I replied. In the evening, when we were left alone, he came up to me and gave me his hand. " Forget what I have told you ! " be said to me. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 361 I took his hand. There was a quivering smile upon my countenance, and the tears were ready to flow; but he took his hand away and, as though afraid of a senti- mental scene, sat down on a chair at quite a distance from me. " Does he really persist in considering himself right ? " I thought, and the explanation and request not to go to the reception, which I was about to make, stopped on my tongue. " I must write to mother that we have put off our departure," he said, " or else she will worry." " When do you expect to leave ? " I asked. " On Tuesday, after the reception," he replied. " I hope you are not doing it for my sake," I said, look- ing into his eyes ; but his eyes only looked, without tell- ing me anything, as though they were veiled from me by something. His face suddenly appeared old and un- pleasant to me. We went to the reception, and there seemed to have been estabHshed good, friendly relations between us, but these relations were different from what they had been before. I was sitting between some ladies at the reception, when the prince walked over to me, so that I had to get up in order to speak with him. As I arose I involuntarily sought my husband with my eyes, and I saw that he had been looking at me from the other end of the hall, and that he turned his face away. I suddenly felt so ashamed and pained that I had a twinge of embarrassment, and my face and neck flushed under the glance of the prince. But I was compelled to stand and listen to what he was telling me, looking down upon me. Our conversation did not last long; he had no place near me to sit down, and he evidently felt that I was not at my ease with him. Our conversation was about the last ball, about where I passed the summer, and so forth. 362 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS As he went away from me he expressed his wish to he- come acquainted with my husband, and later I saw them together and talking at the other end of the hall. The prince evidently said something about me, because he in the middle of his conversation turned, with a smile, in our direction. My husband suddenly flew up, made a low bow, and walked away from the prinjce. I myself blushed : I was ashamed thinking what an idea the prince must have received of me, and especially of my husband. It seemed to me that everybody had noticed my awkward bashful- ness while I was speaking with the prince, and that they had noticed my husband's strange act ; God knows how they might interpret it ! and I was afraid they might know about my conversation with my husband. The cousin took me home, and on my way we spoke about my husband. I could bear it no longer, and so told her' everything that had taken place between us on account of that unfortunate reception. She calmed me down, saying that it was an entirely insignificant and very common misunderstanding, which would leave no traces behind ; she explained to me from her standpoint my husband's character, and found that he had become very incommunicative and proud ; I agreed with her, and I thought that I myself now judged him more calmly and understood him better. But later, when my husband and I were left alone, that judgment about him lay like a crime upon my conscience, and I felt that the abyss that separated us had widened. III. From that day on our life and our relations changed. We no longer felt so happy, when left alone, as we had been. There were questions which we avoided, and it was easier for us to converse in presence of a third per- son than when left face to face. The moment the con- versation turned on the life in the country or on the ball, imps seemed to be jumping about in our eyes, and we felt ill at ease if we had to look at each other, as though we felt in what place the abyss was, which separated us, and as though we were afraid to approach it. I was convinced that he was proud and excitable, and I had to be cautious in order not to touch him on his weak points. He was convinced that I could not live without society, that the country was not for me, and that it was necessary to submit to that unfortunate, taste. Both of us avoided direct allusions to these subjects, and falsely judged each other. We had long ago ceased being the most perfect people in the world to each other, but compared ourselves with others, and secretly judged one another. I fell ill before our departure, and we went to a sum- mer residence, instead of returning to the country ; from there my husband went himself to see his mother. When he left I was well enough to go with him, but he per- suaded me to stay, claiming that he was afraid for my health. I was sure that he had no fears in regard to my health, but that he was afraid we should not be happy 363 364 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS in the country; I did not insist very mucli, and so I remained. Without him there was a void, and I felt lonely, but when he returned I saw that he no longer added to my life what he had brought to it before. Our former rela- tions, when every thought and feeling which was not communicated to him weighed upon me as a crime, when every act and word of his appeared to me to be a sample of perfection, when we wanted to laugh from sheer joy, as we looked at each other, — these relations had so im- perceptibly passed into other relations that we did not notice how they had disappeared. With each of us there rose separate interests and cares, which we no longer tried to share in common. We were, indeed, no longer vexed by the fact that each of us had a separate world which was foreign to the other. We became accustomed to this thought, and a year later the little imps no longer bobbed in our eyes when we looked at each other. His fits of merriment with me, his childishness, entirely disappeared ; there disappeared also his readiness to for- give and his indifference to everything, which used to provoke me so much before ; there was no longer that deep glance which used to confuse and delight me ; there were no longer any prayers and transports in common ; we even did not see each other much, for he was most of the time away, and he was not afraid or sorry to leave me alone ; I was all the time in society where I did not need him. There were no more scenes and misunderstandings between us : I tried to please him ; he fulfilled all my wishes, and we seemingly loved each other. When we were left alone, which happened but seldom, I experienced no joy, no agitation, no embarrassment with, him ; it was as though I were alone. I knew very well that it was my husband, not a new, unknown man, DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 365 but a good man, — my husband, whom I knew as I knew myself. I was convinced that I knew precisely what he would do, or say, or how he would look, and if he hap- pened to do or look differently from what I expected, it always seemed to me that he must be mistaken. I expected nothing of him. In short, he was my husband and nothing else. It seemed to me that that was the way it ought to be, that there were no other relations, and that no other rela- tions had ever existed between us. When he went away on some journey, I was at first lonely and felt terribly : with- out him I saw more clearly what his support meant for me ; when he came back, I fell upon his neck with joy, though two hours later I entirely forgot that joy, and I had nothing to talk about with him. Only in moments of calm, moderate tenderness, which were between us, I thought that something was not quite right, that I had some pain in my heart, and I thought I read the same in his eyes. I was conscious of that Umit of tenderness, beyond which he seemed to be unwilling, and I was un- able, to go. At times that made me sad, but there was no time to reflect upon anything, and I tried to forget the sorrow resulting from the indistinctly perceived change in the distractions which were always ready for me. The society Hfe, which at first had overwhelmed me by its splendour and by the flattery of my vanity, soon took complete possession of my inclinations, became a second nature, put its fetters upon me, and' took up in my soul the place which had been prepared for sentiment. I no longer was myself, and was. afraid to dwell on my con- dition. All my time, from late morning to late night, was taken up and did not belong to me, even if I did not drive out. This no longer gave me pleasure or ennui, but it seemed to me that thus, and not otherwise, it had always to be. Thus three years passed, during which our relations 300 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS remained the same, as though they had stopped and con- gealed, and could become neither worse nor better. Dur- ing these three years two important events took place in our domestic life, but neither of them changed our re- lations : those were the birth of my first child and the death of Tatyana Sem^novna. At first the maternal feeling seized me so powerfully and produced such unexpected transports in me that I thought that a new life would begin for me; but two months later, when I again began to go out in society, this sentiment kept diminishing and passed into habit and a cold performance of duty. My husband, on the contrary, after the birth of our first baby, became the same gentle and calm home-body he had been, and trans- ferred his former tenderness and merriment to his child. Frequently, when I entered the nursery in my ball dress, in order to cross the child for the night, I found my husband there, and I noticed what I took to be his re- proachful and stem glance directed at me, and I felt ashamed. I suddonly was horrified at my indifference for the child, and asked myself whether I really was worse than other women. " But what is to be done ? " I thought. " I love my son, but I can't sit whole days with him : I feel ennui, and I sha'n't pretend for anything in the world." His mother's death was a great bereavement to him. He found it hard, he said, to live in Nikdlskoe after her ; although I was sorry for her and sympathized with my husband in his loss, I now felt more at ease and happier in the country. All those three years we passed mainly in the city; to the country I went only .once for two months; in the third year we went abroad. We passed a suminer at a watering-place. I was then twenty-one years old. Our affairs, I thought, were in a flourishing condition ; from my domestic life J demanded nothing more th^o what it gave me ; all DOMESTIC HAPPINESS S67 ■whom I knew seemed to love me ; my health was good, and my toilet was the best at the watermg-place ; I knew that I was pretty ; the weather was beautiful ; an atmos- phere of beauty and elegance surrounded me, and I was very merry. I was not as merry as I used to be at Nikdl- skoe, when I felt that I was happy in myseK ; that I was happy because I had deserved that happiness; that my happiness was great, but ought to be greater still ; that I wanted more and more happiness. Then it had been different, but even that summer I was happy. I wanted nothing ; I hoped for nothing, was afraid of nothing, and my hfe seemed to be full, and my conscience seemed to be calm. From among all the young men of that season there was not one whom I in any way dis- tinguished from the rest, or even from old Prince K , our ambassador, who paid court to me. One of them was young, another old, one a blond Enghshman, an- other a Frenchman with a Httle beard, — they were all the same to me, but they were aU necessary to me. They were all equally indifferent persons who formed the cheerful atmosphere of Hfe which surrounded me. Only one of them, D , an Itahan marquis, more than the rest attracted my attention by the boldness with which he expressed his admiration for me. He never missed an opportunity of being with me, of dancing, driv- ing out, being in the Casino, and so forth, and of telling me that I was beautiful. I saw him several times through the window near our house, and frequently the disagree- able, fixed glance of his sparkling eyes made me blush and turn around. He was young, handsome, elegant, and, above everything else, by his smile and the expression of his brow resembled my husband, though he was hand- somer still. This resemblance startled me, though in general, in his lips, in his glance, in the long chin, there was in him, instead of the charm of an expression of kind- ness and the ideal composure of my husband, something 368 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS coarse and animal. I then imagined that he was passion- ately in love with me, and I frequently thought of him with proud compassion. I at times tried to assuage him, to lead him up to a tone of semi-confidential, calm friend- ship, but he brusquely repelled all these attempts and con- tinued disagreeably to embarrass me with his unexpressed passion, which was ready to burst forth at any time. Al- though I was not conscious of it, I was afraid of that man, and against my will frequently thought of him^ My husband was acquainted with him, and he held himself colder and haughtier with him than with our other acquaintances, for whom he was only the husband of his wife. At the end of the watering season I became ill, and for two weeks did not leave my room. When I for the first time after my illness went out in the evening to hear the music, I heard that while I was absent there had arrived the long expected Lady S , famous for her beauty. There was a circle around me, and I was cheerfully received; but a better circle was formed around the newly arrived honess. Everybody about me spoke only of her and her beauty. She was pointed out to me, and she was indeed charming ; but I was disagreeably affected by the self-contentment expressed in her face, and so I mentioned it. On that day, everything, which before had been merry, appeared dull. On the following day Lady S arranged an outing to the castle, which I declined. Hardly anybody remained with me, and everything defi- nitely changed in my eyes. Everything and everybody seemed stupid and dull to me, and I felt like weeping, like getting through with the cure at once, and returning to Eussia. There was some evil feeling in my soul, but I was not yet conscious of it. I announced myself in ill health and stopped appearing in grand society ; only in the morning did I go out to drink the waters, or I drove with L M , a Bus- DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 369 sian lady acquaintance, to look at the surrounding coun- try. My husband was not there during that time: he had gone for a few days to Heidelberg, waiting for the end of the cure and for our return to Eussia ; he seldom came to see me. One day Lady S drew all society with her on a chase while L- M and I after dinner drove to the castle. As our carriage was going at a slow pace over a winding avenue between century-old chestnut- trees, through which the beautiful and elegant Baden surroundings were revealed to us in the distance, as they lay illuminated by the rays of the setting sun, we fell into a serious conversation, such as we had never had before. L M , whom I had known for quite a while, now for the first time presented herself to me as a good and clever woman, to whom it was possible to teU everything and with whom it was a pleasure to be friends. We spoke of family, of children, of the empti- ness of society at the watering-place, and we wanted to go back to Eussia, to the country, and felt both sad and good. We entered the castle under the influence of this serious feeling. Within the walls it was shady and fresh ; the sun was playing above on the ruins; somebody's steps and voices were heard. Through the door could be seen, as though in a frame, that charming, but for us Eussians cold, Baden landscape. We sat down to rest ourselves, and silently looked at the setting sun. The voices were heard more distinctly, and I thought my name was mentioned. I began to listen and involuntarily heard every word. The voices were familiar to me : it was Marquis D and a Frenchman, his friend, whom I knew also. They were speaking of me and of Lady S . The Frenchman was comparing us two, analyzing her beauty and mine. He was not saying anything offensive, but the blood rushed to my heart when I heard bis words, He gave a 370 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS detailed account of what there was beautiful in me and in Lady S . I already had a baby, and Lady S was only nineteen years old ; my braid was prettier, but the lady's waist was better; the lady was a great lady, while "yours," he said, "is neither here nor there, just one of those petty Eussian princesses, of whom there has been of late such an abundance here." He concluded that I did well in that I did not try to contest with Lady S , and that I was absolutely buried in Baden. " I am sorry for her." " But if she will not be consoled with you — " he added, in a merry and harsh voice. " If she goes away I will follow her," rudely remarked the voice with the Itahan accent. " Happy mortal ! He still can love ! " laughed the Frenchman. " Love ! " said the voice and grew silent. " I cannot help loving ! Without it there is no life. The only good there is in life is to have love-affairs. Mine never stop in the middle, and I will bring this one to a successful issue." " Bonne chance, mon ami" said the Frenchman. We did not hear what followed because they went around the corner, and we heard their steps from the other side. They were going down the steps and a few minutes later they came out through a side door and were very much surprised to see us. I blushed when Marquis D came up to me, and I felt terribly when, upon leaving the castle, he offered me his arm. I could not refuse, and we walked to the carriage back of L M , who was walking with his friend. I was offended by what the Frenchman had said of me, though I secretly acknowledged that he mentioned only what I had felt ; but the words of the marquis surprised and provoked me by their coarseness. I was tormented by the thought that I had heard his words and that, ia spite of it, he was not afraid of me. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 371 I loathed his proximity to me, and, without looking at him, without answering him, and trying to keep my arm in sUjCh a way as not to hear him, I hurriedly walked behind L M and the Frenchman. The marquis was saying something about the beautiful landscape, about the unexpected happiness of meeting me, and some- thing else, but I was not listening to him. I was all that time thinking of my husband, of my son, of Eussia. I was ashamed of something, sorry for something, desir- ing something, and was hurrying home to my lonely room in the HStel de Bade, in order to reflect at liberty upon what was rising in my soul. But L M walked leisurely. To the carriage there was quite a dis- tance yet, and my gentleman, I thought, persisted in slowing down his steps, as though attempting to stop me. " It is impossible ! " I thought, and determinately walked faster. But he positively held me back and even pressed my hand. L M turned around the corner, and we were all alone. I felt terribly. " Pardon me," I said, coldly, and wanted to free my hand, but the lace of the sleeve caught in his button. He bent with his breast toward me and began to unhook it, and his gloveless fingers touched my hand. A novel sen- sation, intermediate between terror and enjoyment, ran up my back like a chill. I looked at him so as to express with my cold glance all the loathing which I felt for him ; but instead, my glance expressed fright and agitatioE^. His burning, moist eyes, right near my face,, looked passionately at me, at my neck, at my bosom ; both his hands were fingering my arm above the wrist ; his open lips were sayiag something : they were saying that he loved me, that I was everything to him ; and his lips came nearer to mine and his hands pressed mine more firmly and burned me. A fire ran through my veins ; my eyes grew dark : I trembled, and the words with which I wanted to stop him 372 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS dried up in my throat. Suddenly I felt a kiss on my cheek, and I, all in a tremble and ^ chilling, stopped and glanced at him. Having no strength to say any,thing or to move, I, in expectancy, waited and wished for something. All that lasted but a moment. But that moment was terrible! I saw aU of him in that one moment. I now understood his face so well, — that abrupt, low brow showing underneath his straw hat and resembling that of my husband ; that beautiful straight nose with the large, open nostrils, that long, sjiarply pointed, pomaded moustache and little beard, those cleanly shaven cheeks, and that sunburnt neck. I hated him, I was afraid of him, — he was so strange to me. But at that moment the agitation and passion of that strange man affected me so powerfully, I wanted so insuperably to abandon myself to the kisses of that coarse and beautiful mouth, to the embraces of those white hands with the thin veins and with the rings on their fingers, and I was so drawn to throw myself headlong into the suddenly opened, attract- ing abyss of forbidden pleasures ! — " I am so unfortunate," I thought, " so let more and more misfortunes be gathered upon my head." He embraced me with one arm and bent down to my face. "Let more and more shame and sin be heaped upon my head." " Je vous aime," he whispered, in that voice which so much resembled that of my husband. I thought of my husband and my child as of once dear beings between whom and me everything was now ended. But suddenly L M 's voice, calling me, was heard around the bend of the road. I came to my senses, tore my hand away from him, and, without looking at him, almost ran up to L M . We seated ourselves in the car- riage, and only then I glanced at him. He doffed his hat and asked me something, smiling. He did not imder- DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 373 stand the inexpressible loathing which I experienced toward him at that moment. My life appeared so unfortunate to me, my future so hopeless, the past so black ! L M was talking to me, but I did not understand her words. It seemed to me that she was speaking to me only from a sense of pity, in order to conceal the contempt which I provoked in her. The kiss burned my cheek with shame, and the thought of my husband and child were intolerable to me. When I was left alone in my room I thought that I should now be able to reflect upon my condition, but I felt terribly by myself. I did not finish the tea which was brought to me, and, without knowing why, I with feverish haste began to prepare myself to go to Heidel- berg by the eveniug train. When I sat dowu with the maid in the empty car, and the engine started, and the fresh air was wafted upon me through the window, I began to reflect, and the past and future began to present themselves more clearly to me. All my married hfe from the day we left for St. Peters- burg suddenly presented itself to me in a new light and lay as a reproach upon my conscience. I now for the first time thought vividly of our early life in the country, and of our plans. For the first time the question occurred to me, " What have my pleasures during all that tim6 been ? " and I felt myself guilty in respect to him. " But why did he not stop me ? Why was he double- faced before me ? Why did he avoid explanations, anil why did he offend me ? " I asked myself. " Why did he not use all the power of love over me ? Or did he not love me ? " However guilty he may have been, the kiss of a strange man was there on my cheek, and I felt it. The nearer we came to Heidelberg the more vividly did 1 think of my husband and the more terrible did the impending meeting appear to me. " I will tell him every- thing, everything ; I will cover everything with tears of 374 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS repentance," I thought, " and he will forgive me." But I did not know myself what that " everything " was, and did not myself believe that he would forgive me. The moment I entered my husband's room and saw his calm, though surprised, face, I felt that I had nothing to tell him, nothing to confess, and nothing to ask forgive- ness for. I was to remain with the unuttered grief and repentance. " What has made you come ? " he said. " I was going to come to you to-morrow." But, upon looking closer at my face, he seemed to be frightened. "What is it? What is the matter with you ? " he said. « Nothing," I rephed, with difficulty keeping back my tears. " I have come to stay. Let us go to Eussia to-morrow, if possible." He for quite awhile looked silently and attentively at me. " Tell me what has happened to you ! " he said. I involuntarily blushed and lowered/my eyes. In his eyes there flashed a feeling of provocation and anger. I was frightened at the thoughts which might come to him, and so I said, with an exercise of hypocrisy, of which I had not thought myself capable : " Nothing has happened. I simply felt dull and lonely, and I have been thinking a great deal about our life a^^d about you. I have so long been guilty in respect to you ! Why do you take me to places where you do not like to go ? I have long been guilty in respect to you," I repeated, and again tears stood in my eyes. "Let us go to the country, and for ever ! " " Ah, my dear, let us avoid sentimental scenes ! " he said, coldly. " I am glad you want to go back to the country, because we have little money left; but as to being there for ever, that is an idle dream. I know that you will not endure it there. But, here, you had better drink some tea," he concluded, getting up, in order to call a gervanti DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 375 I imagined everything he might think of me, and I was offended by the terrible thoughts which I ascribed to him, as I met the unsteady and apparently abashed glance which was directed upon me. "No, he does not want to, and he cannot, understand me ! " I said that I wanted to go out to look at the baby, and went away from him. I wanted to be alone and weep, weep, weep. TV The long unheated, empty Nikolskoe house was again revived, but that which lived in it was not revived. Mamma was no more, and we were alone face to face. Now we no longer needed solitude, — it oppressed us. The winter passed the more disagreeably for me, since I was ill and did not regain my strength until after the birth of my second son. The relations, between my hus- band and me remained as cold and friendly as during our city life, but in the country every deal, every wall and divan, reminded me of what he had been to me and of what I had lost. It seemed as though an unfor- given insult had come between us, as though he were punishing me for something and acting as though he did not notice it himself. There was nothing to ask forgiveness for, nor was there any cause for asking his mercy : he was punishing me only by not giving to me, as before, all of himself, all his soul ; but he did not give it to anybody or to anything, as though he no longer had it. At times it occurred to me that he only pretended in order to vex me, and that the former feeling was still liv- ing in him, so I tried to rouse it. But he every time seemed to avoid explanations, as though suspecting me of duplicity, and was afraid of sentimentalities as of some- thing ridiculous. His glance and tone said : " I know everything, I know everything. There is no use in talking ; I know everything you wish to say. I know also that you will say one thing and will do another." 376 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 377 At first I was offended by this fear of frankness, but later I became accustomed to the thought that it was not frankness, but the absence of any need of frankness. My tongue would not have moved now to tell him that I loved him, or to ask him to say the prayers with me, or to call him to listen to my music. Between us were felt certain conditions of propriety. We Uved each apart, he with his occupations, in which I had no need and no desire to participate, and I with my idleness, which did not offend and grieve him as formerly. The children were too small yet, and could not unite us. But spring came. Katya and S6nya came for the summer to the country ; our Nikolskoe house was being rebuilt, and so we moved to Pokrovskoe. It was the same old Pokrovskoe house, with its terrace, with the folding table and the piano in the light parlour, and with my old room with the white curtains, and my, as it were, forgotten girlish dreams. In this room were two little beds, one, my old bed, in which I at night crossed toss- ing plump Kokdsha, and the other, a smaller one, from which Vanya's little face peeped out from his swaddling- clothes. After crossing them I frequently stopped in the middle of the quiet room, and suddenly old, forgotten, youthful visions rose from all the comers, from the walls, from the curtains. Old voices began to sing girls' songs. Where were now those visions ? Where were those soft, sweet songs ? Everything which I had hardly dared to hope for had come to pass. My indistinct, mingling dreams had become a reahty, and reahty had become a heavy, hard, and cheerless life. And yet everything was the same : the same garden could be seen through the win- dow; the same open space, the same road, the same' bench, over yonder above the ravine ; the same nightin- gales' songs were borne from the pond; the same lilacjs were in full bloom; the same moon stood above the 378 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS house ; and yet everything had changed so terribly, so impossibly ! All that could be so dear and near now was cold ! Just as of old we, Katya and I, now sat softly in the drawing-room, speaking of him. But Katya was wrinkled and sallow ; her eyes no longer sparkled with joy and hope, but expressed sympathetic grief and compassion. "We no longer went into ecstasies over him as in former days: we judged him; we did not marvel why and wherefore we were happy, and not as in former days did we wish to tell to the whole world what we were thinking about. We, like conspirators, whispered to each other, and for the hundredth time we asked ourselves why everything had become so sad. He was still the same, only the wrinkle between his eyebrows was deeper, there were more gray hairs on his temples ; but his deep, attentive glance was now con- tinually shrouded from me. I, too, was still the same, but there was no love, and no desire to love, in me. There was no need of work, no contentment with myself. And my former religious ecstasies and my former love for him, my former fulness of life seemed so remote to me. I should not now have understood that which then had seemed so clear and just: the happiness of living for another. Why for another, when there was no pleasure even in living for myself ? I had completely given up music ever since I left for St. Petersburg ; but now the old piano and the old music attracted me. One day I was not well and I stayed at home ; Kdtya and S<5nya had gone with him to Nikdlskoe to look at the new structure. The tea-table was set ; I went down and, waiting for them, sat down at the piano. I opened the sonata " Quasi una fantasia," and began to play it. There was no one present to hear or see me, and the Viudows to the garden were open ; the familiar, sad, and DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 379 solemn sounds were borne through the room.. I finished the first part and, quite unconsciously, from old habit, turned around to the corner where he used to sit and listen to me. But he was not there. The long-untouched chair stood in its corner ; through the window a lilac-bush could be seen against the bright sunset, and the freshness of evening poured in through the open windows. I leaned against the piano, with both my hands covered my face, and fell to musiug. I sat thus for a long time, painfully recaUing the irretrievable past, and timidly thinking of the present. Ahead of me there seemed to be nothing, as though I wished nothing and hoped for nothing. " Is it possible I have outlived myself ? " I thought. I raised my head in terror and, to forget myself and not to think, I again began to play the same andante. " My God ! " I thought, " forgive me if I am guilty, or return to me all that was so beautiful in my soul, or instruct me what to do and how to live now ! " The noise of wheels could be heard on the grass, and before the porch and on the terrace could be heard the cautious, familiar steps, and they grew silent. My for- mer feeling no longer responded to these familiar steps. When I was through, steps were heard behird me, and a hand lay on my shoulder. " How clever of you to play this sonata," he said. I was silent. " Have you not yet had tea ? " 1 gave a negative shake of my head and did not turn around, in order not to betray the traces of agitation which were still left on my face. " They will be here soon. The horse was a little rest- ive, and so they are walking down the highway," he said. "Let us wait for them," I said, going out upon the terrace, in the hope that he would follow me ; biit he asked about the children, and went out to them. Again his presence, his simple, kind voice bereft me of my con- 38P DOMESTIC HAPPINESS viction that I had lost anything. What else was I to wish for ? He was kind, gentle, and a good husband and father, — ■ I did not know myself what was lacking. I went out on the veranda and sat down under the can- vas of the terrace upon the same bench I had sat upon on the day of our declaration of love. The sun had set ; it was getting dark and a gloomy vernal cloud hung over the house and garden ; only beyond the trees could be seen a clear strip of the sky with the dying twilight and an evening star just bursting into light. Over everything hovered the shadow of a hght cloud, and everything was awaiting a Hght spring rain. The wind died down ; not one leaf, not one grass-blade was stirring; the odour of the Ulac-bushes and elders was so strong in the garden and upon the teixace that it seemed the whole air was in bloom: it came in gusts, now weakening, now growing stronger, and I felt hke closing my eyes and seeiug and hearing nothing, but inhaling that sweet fragrance. The dahhas and rose-bushes, not yet in bloom, stretch- ing out motionless in the black, dug-up earth of the garden- bed, seemed to be growing slowly upward along their white, planed-off supports. The frogs croaked lustily and penetratingly near the ravine, as though for the last time before the rain which tv^ould drive them into the water. One thin, incessant, aqueous sound rose above this din. The nightingales called each other at intervals, and could be heard agitatedly flitting from place to place. A night- ingale this spring again tried to settle in the bush near the window, and as I came out I heard him fly over into the avenue, where he gave one roll of trills and grew silent, also in expectancy of something. I endeavoured in vain to calm myself: I was waiting and f eehng sorry for something. He returned from up-stairs and sat down at my side. " It looks as though our people will get wet," he said. '' Yes," I said, and we were both silent for quite awhile. DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 381 The windless cloud dropped lower and lower ; the air grew calmer, more fragrant and motionless, and suddenly a drop fell and seemed to rebound from the canvas awning of the terrace; another broke against the pebbles of the path ; there was a splash against the burdocks, and there came down large drops of a refreshing, increasing rain. The nightingales and frogs were silenced ; only the thia, aqueous sound, though appearing more remote through the rain, was stiU in the air, and^a bird, apparently find- ing shelter in the dry Reaves, was uttering its even, monot- onous sounds somewhere near the ten-ace. He arose and was on the point of leaving. "Where are you going?" I asked, holding him back. " It is so nice here." " I must send them an umbrella and galoshes," he rephed. ■" It is not necessary : the rain will soon be over." He agreed with me, and we remained near the balus- trade of the terrace. I leaned with my arm on the slip- pery, wet rail and bent- my head forward. The fresh rain dropped unevenly on my hair and neck. The cloud, grow- ing lighter and thinner, exhausted itself over us; the even sound of the rain gave way to that of intermittent drops falling from above and from the leaves. Again the frogs croaked down below ; again the nightingales flut- tered and began to trill, now on one side and now on another. Everything cle9,red up in front of us. " How nice it is ! " he said, sitting down on the balus- trade and passing his hand through my wet hair. This simple caress acted upon me like a reproach, and I wanted to cry. ■ " What more does a man want 1 " he said. " I am now so contented that I need nothing more : I am quite happy ! " " You used to talk differently to me about your happi- ness," I thought to myself " No matter how great it was, you said that you wanted something more and more. 382 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS Now you are satisfied and calm, while in my heart there seem to be unexpressed repentance and unwept tears." " I, too, feel weU," I said, " but I am also sad because everything before me is so nice. In me everything is so incoherent and empty, and I wish for something, while here it is so beautiful and quiet. Does not some pining mingle with your enjoyment of Nature, as though you wished for something of the past ? " He took his hand away from my head and was silent for a momerit. " Yes, that used to be the case with me, especially in the spring," he said, as though recalling something. " I, too, used to sit up nights, wishing and hoping, and those were good nights ! But then everything was ahead, and now everything is behind. Now I am satisfied with what there is, and I feel fine," he concluded, with such careless confidence that, however painful it was for me 'to hear it, I beheved that he was telling the truth. " And you wish for nothing ? " I asked. "Nothing impossible," he replied, guessing my senti- ment. " You are getting your head wet," he added, ca- ressing me like a child, and again passing his hand through my hair. " You envy the leaves and grass because the rain wets them; you would like to be the grass, the leaves, and the rain, wiile I rejoice looking at them, as at anything in the world which is good, young, and happy." " And you are not sorry for anything in the past ? " I continued to ask, feeling that my heart was getting heavier and heavier. He mused awhile and again grew silent. I saw that he wanted to give me an entirely frank reply. " No ! " he answered, briefly. " It is not true ! It is not true ! " I said, turning around to him and looking him in the eye. "Are you not sorry for the past ? " • » DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 383 " No ! " he repeated once more. " I am thankful for it, but I do not regret the past." " And would not like to bring it back ? " I asked. He turned aside and began to look into the garden. " I do not wish it any more than I should wish to have wings grow on me," he said. " It is not possible ! " "Would you not improve the past? Do you not re- proach yourself or me ? " " Never ! Everything was for the best ! " " Listen ! " I said, touching his hand, that he might turn around to me. " Tell me why you never told me that you wanted me to live as you wanted ; why you gave me the liberty which I did not know how to use ; why you stopped teaching me. If you had only wanted to, and if you had guided me differently, there would have been nothing, nothing," I said, in a voice in which there was ever more strongly expressed cold vexation and reproach, and not my former love. " What would there not have been ? " he said, turning to me in surprise. " There is nothing as it is. Every- thing is all right. All is very well," he added, smiling. " Is it possible that he does not understand, or, worse still, that he does not want to understand ? " I thought, and tears stood in my eyes. " It would not have happened that, although innocent in regard to you, I should be punished by your indiffer- ence and even contempt," I suddenly burst out. " It would not have happened that without any fault of mine you have suddenly taken! away from me everything which was dear to me." " What are you saying, my dear ? " he said, as though not understanding my words. " No, let me speak now — You have taken away from me your confidence, love, respect even ; after all that has happened I will not believe that you love me. No, I must tell you at once what has been tormenting me so 384 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS long," I again interrupted him. " Am I to be blamed for not knowing Ufe, while you made me find it out for my- self ? Am I to be blamed because now, when I myself have come to understand what is to be done, when I have been strugghng for more than a year to return to you, you push me aside, as though not understanding what I want? And you are doing this in such a way that I cannot reproach you, while I am guilty and wretched. Yes, you want to throw me again into that life which might have caused your misfortune and mine." " In what way have I made you see this ? " he asked me, with genuine terror and surprise. "Did you not say yesterday, — and you have been saying it all the time, — that I shall not get used to our life here, and that we musf again go to St. Petersburg for the winter, although that city is hateful to me ? " I continued. "Instead of supporting me, you avoid all frankness, every sincere and tender word with me. And then, when I shall have fallen completely, you will reproach me, and rejoice at my fall." " Hold on, hold on ! " he said to me, sternly and coldly. '' It is not good what you are saying there. It only proves that you are not well disposed toward me, that you do not — " "That I do not love you? Speak! Speak!" I fin- ished for him, and tears burst forth from my eyes. I sat down on the bench, and covered my face with my handkerchief. " That is the way he has understood me ! " I thought, trying to keep back the sobs that were strangling me, " Our former love is at an end," a voice said in my heart. He did not come up to me, did not console me. He was offended by what I had told him. His voice was calm and dry. "I do not know what it is you reproach me for," he began; "if because I have not loved you as before — " DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 385 " Loved ! " I fQuttered into my handkerchief, and bitter tears flowed more copiously upon it. " The fault is with time and with us. Each period has its own love — " He was silent. "Shall I tell you the whole truth, now that you want me to be frank ? Just as during that year, when I first knew you, I passed whole sleepless nights thinking of you, and stirred up my love, and that love grew and grew in my heart, even so in St. Petersburg and abroad I stayed awake terrible nights, breaking up and crushing the love which tormented ine. I did not break it up, but I broke up that which tormented me, and I became quieter, while I still love you, but with another love." " Yes, you call it love, but it is a torment," I muttered. " Why did you allow me to live in society, if it seemed SD noxious to you that you would even have lost your love for me on account of it ? " " Not society, my dear," he said. " Why did you not make use of your power ? " I con- tinued. " Why did you not bind, or kill me ? I should be better off now than losing all that formed my happi- ness ; I should feel better and not so ashamed." I again sobbed and covered my face. Just then Katya and Sonya, cheerful and wet, came up on the terrace with loud talking and laughter; but, upon seeing us, they grew quiet and immediately went out. We were long silent after they had gone; I wept all my tears, and felt easier. I looked up at him. He sat leaning his head on his arm and wanted to say something in reply to my glance, but only drew a deep sigh, and again leaned on his arm. I walked over to him and took his arm away. He turned his thoughtful glance upon me. " Yes," he said, as though continuing his thoughts, " all of us, but especially you women, must in person hve 386 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS through all the nonsense of life in order to return to life itself; it is impossible to trust another in this matter. You were then far from having lived through all that charming and agreeable nonsense which I admired in you ; I have allowed you to live through it, and I have felt that I had no right to embarrass you, although for me that time had passed long ago." " Why did you yourself go through all that nonsense and allow me to live through it, if you love me?" I said. " Because you would have gladly believed me, but you could not do that; you had to find it out for yourself, and you have." "You reflected, you reflected a great deal," I said. "You loved httle." We were silent again. " What you have just said is cruel, but it is true," he said, rising suddenly, and walking up and down the terrace. " Yes, it is true, I was to blame," he added, stopping in front of me. " Either I had no right to let myself love you at all, or I should have loved you more simply, yes." " Let us forget everything," I said, timidly. "No, what is past Cannot be brought back, never," and his voice became softer as he said that. " Everything has come back," I said, placing my hand upon his shoulder. He took my hand away and pressed it. " No, I did not tell the truth when I said that I did not regret the past. Yes, I regret it; I weep for that past love which is not and never can be again. Who is to be blamed for it ? I do not know. There is left a love, but not the one that was before : its place is left, but anguish has made that love lose its strength and sap, and there are only left recollections and gratitude; but — " DOMESTIC HAPPIJiTESS 387 " Don't speak that way ! " I interrupted him. ' Let everything be as of old — It can be, can it not ? Yes ? " I asked, looking him in the eye. But his eyes were clear and calm, and they did not look deeply into mine. As I was speaking I felt that what I wished and asked him for was no longer possible. He smiled a calm, gentle, and, as I thought, an old man's smile. " How young you still are, and how old I am," he said. " There is no longer in me that which you seek. Why deceive myself ? " he added, continuing to smile himself. I stood silently near him, but my soul became quieter. " We shall not try to repeat Ufe," he continued, " we shall not lie to ourselves. Thank God there are no longer the old troubles and agitations ! We have nothing to search for and be agitated about. We have found what we wanted, and enough happiness has fallen to our share. Now we must stand aside and give a chance to this one here," he said, pointing to the nurse who came up with Vanya and stopped at the door of the terrace. " That's the way, my dear," he concluded, bending my head to him and kissing it. Not a lover, but an old friend, was kissing me. From the garden ever stronger and sweeter rose the fragrant freslmess of night ; the sounds and the silence grew more solemn, and upon the sky the stars burned ever more frequently. I looked at him, and suddenly I felt hghter, as though that sickly moral nerve which had made me suffer had been removed from me. I suddenly understood clearly and calmly that the feeling of those days was irretrievably lost, like that time itself, and that it not only was impossible to bring it back, but that it would only cause hardships and embarrassment. And, when it comes to that, was that time which seemed to me so happy really so good ? And all that was so long, so long ago ! — ■ 388 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS " Well, it is time to driak tea ! " he said, and we went together to the drawing-room. In the door I again met the nurse with V^ya. I took the child into my arms, covered his bared red little legs, pressed him close to me and kissed him, barely touching him with my lips. He moved his tiny hand with the sprawling, wrinkled fingers as though La sleep, and opened his dim Httle eyes as though looking for something or recalling something; siiddenly these eyes were directed toward me, a spark of intelligence flashed through them, his fat lips puckered and opened for a smile. " Mine, mine, mine ! " I thought, with a blissful tension iu all my Hmbs, pressing him to my breast and with difficulty restraining myself from causing him pain. I began to kiss his cold little feet, his stomach, his hands, and his little head, just covered, with hair. My husband came up to me ; I quickly covered the baby's face and again uncovered it. " Ivan Sergy4ich ! " said my husband, touching his chin with his finger. But I quickly covered up Ivan Sergy^ich. Nobody but me was to look for any length of time at him. I glanced at my husband ; his eyes laughed, looking into miue, and for the first time after a long interval it was again easy and a joy for me to look into his. With that day ended my romance with my husband : the old sentiment became a precious, irretrievable remi- niscence, and a new feeling of love for my children, and for the father of my children, laid the foundation for another, an entirely different and happy life, which has not ended even at the present moment. POLIKUSHKA A Novel i860 1 '"A POLIKUSHKA A Novel " As you wish, madam I Only the Dutlovs are to b? pitied. They are every one of them fine fellows ; and if we do not present at least one manorial servant, one of theirs will certainly have to go,'' said the clerk. " As it is, all point to them. However, as you wish it." He changed the position of his right hand over his left, holdiug both before his belly, bent his head to the other side, drew in his thin lips almost with a smacking sound, rolled his eyes, and grew silent with the obvious intention of keeping a long silence and of listening without retort to all the nonsense which the lady would certainly tell him. He was a clerk chosen from among the manorial servants. He was clean shaven and wore a long coat of a special cut for clerks, and was standing one autumn evening before his mistress with a report. According to the conception of the mistress, this report consisted in listening to accounts of past estate operations and laying out the future ones. According to Eg6r Mikhdylovich's, the clerk's, conception, a report was a ceremony consisting in standing up straight on both his toed-out feet in the comer, with bis face turned 391 392 POLIKUSHKA to the divan, listening to all kinds of irrelevant tattle, and by all kinds of means exasperating the mistress to a point when she would hurriedly and impatiently say, " All right, aU right ! " to all of Eg6r Mikhaylovich's propositions. Just now the question under discussion was the con- scription. After St. Mary's Intercession, three men had to be presented. Two had unquestionably been determined upon by fate, through the coiacidence of domestic, moral, and economic conditions. In regard to these there could be no wavering or discussion, neither on the side of the Commune, nor on the mistress's side, nor on the side of public opinion. The third one was ia dispute. The clerk wanted to save all three young Dutldvs and to offer the married manorial servant, Polikushka, who had a very bad reputation and who had frequently been caught stealing bags, lines, and hay ; but the mistress, who had often shown favours to Pohkushka's ragged children, and who had been mendiag his morality by means of gospel pre- cepts, did not want to give him up. At the same time she was not ill-disposed toward the Dutldvs, whom she did not know and had never seen. Por some reason she was not able to perceive, and the clerk could not make up his mind to explain it to her outright, that if Pohkiishka would not go, Dutldv would certainly have to. " I do not wish the Dutldvs any misfortune," she said, feehngly. " If you do not wish it, you will have to pay three hundred roubles for a recruit," was the reply which ought to have followed upon that, but diplomacy did not permit it. And thus Egdr Mikhaylovich stood calmly, even lean- ing slightly against the doorpost, but preserving an ex- pression of servOity upon his countenance, and watched the lady's quivering lips and the bobbing of the ruche on her cap, together with her shadow upon the wall below the picture. He did not consider it in the least necessary to make out the meaning of her words; The lady spoke POLIKtJSHKA 393 long and much. He had a spasm of yawning back of his ears, but he cleverly changed that spasm into a cough by putting his hand over his mouth and making a pretence at clearing his throat. I lately saw Lord Palmerston sitting with his hat on, while a member of the opposition thundered agaiust the ministry, and suddenly getting up and replying to all points of his opponent in a speech which lasted three hours. When I saw that I was not surprised, because I had had occasion of seeing something similar a thousand times between Egor Mikhaylovich and his mistress. Either because he was afraid of falling asleep, or because it seemed to him that she was too much carried away, he transferred the weight of his anatomy from his left leg to his right, and began with a sacramental exordium, as he always began : " As you please, madam, only — only there is a gather- ing now in front of my office, and we must make an end of it. The official order says that the recruits have to be taken to town by St. Mary's Intercession. The peasants point to the Dutldvs and to no one else. The Commune does not consider our interests : they do not care if we ruin the Dutldvs. I know what a hard time they have had. Ever since I have had charge of things here, they have been poor. The old man has just had the pleasure of seeing his younger nephew, when they are to be ruined again. I am caring for your property, peimit me to tell you, as though it were my own. It is a pity, madam, whatever your pleasure may be. They are no kith nor kin to me, and I have received nothing from them — " " Neither did I have the intention, Egdr," the lady interrupted him, though she at once concluded that he had been bought by the Dutldvs. "But theirs is the best peasant farm in the whole Pokrdvskoe : they are God-fearing, industrious men. The old man has been a church elder for thirty years ; he does 394 POLlKUSflKA not drink, does not swear, and attends church." (The clerk knew how to get at her.) " The main thing is, per- mit me to inform you, that he has only two sons ; the rest are his nephews. The Commune points to them, but, in reality, he ought to cast a double lot. Others, on account of their want, have divided up with three sons, and now they are all right, but these have to suffer for their virtue." Here the lady was entirely at a loss: she did not understand what a " double lot " and what the " virtue " was; she only heard sounds and watched the nankeen buttons on the clerk's coat : the upper button he appar- ently buttoned less frequently, so it was firmly attached, but the middle button had been puUed out and hung loose, so that it ought long ago to have been sewed on again. As all know, at a talk, especially on business matters, it is not at all necessary to understand what one is told, but one must remember precisely that which one intends to say. Even thus the lady acted. "Why do you not want to understand me, Eg6r Mi- khaylovich ? " she said. " I do not want Dutlov to be a soldier. It seems to me that you know me well enough to understand that I am doing all I can to help my peasants, and that I do not wish them harm. You know that I am ready to sacrifice everything in order to free myself from this sad necessity and not to have to give up Dutldv and Khoryushkin." (I do not know whether it occurred to the clerk that in order to free herself from the sad necessity it was not necessary to sacrifice every- thing, but that three hundred roubles would do it ; any- way, this thought might have occurred to him.) " But I will tell you this much : I will not give up Pohkushka for anything. When, after the last affair with the clock, he himself confessed and wept, and swore that he would mend his ways, I spoke with him for a long time, and I saw that he was touched and that he sincerely repented POLIK'GSHKA 395 of his deed." (« Off she goes ! " thought Egdr Mikhdy- lovich and began to watch the syrup which was in her glass of water. " Is it orange or lemon ? I suppose it is something pungent," he thought.) " Seven months have passed since, and he has not been drunk once, and he behaves beautifully. His wife tells me that he is a differ- ent man now. How can you expect me to punish him now since he has improved so ? And is it not inhuman to send a man to the army when he has five children and is all alone ? No, you had better not mention that to me, Egor— " And the lady sipped from her glass. Egdr Mikhaylovich watched the water gurgling down her throat, and then he retorted, briefly and sharply : " So you order me to determine on Dutldv ? " The lady clapped her hands. " Why do you not want to understand me ? I do not wish the Dutlovs any misfortune, and I have nothing .against them. God is my witness that I am always ready, to do something for them." (She looked at the picture in the corner, but remembered that it was not God. " Well, that makes no difference," she thought. It is strange she did not think of the three hundred roubles.) " But what am I to do ? How do I know what ought to be done ? I can't know it. I depend upon you : you know what I want. Do so as to satisfy all, according to the law. What is to be done? They are not the only ones. Everybody has troublesome moments. Only I will not allow Polikushka to go. You must understand that that would be terrible on my part." She would have spoken much longer, she was so ani- mated ; but just then a chambermaid entered the room. •^"What is it, Dunyasha ? " " A peasant has come to ask Egdr Mikhaylovich whether he commands the gathering to wait?" said Punyasha, looking angrily at Egor Mikhaylovich. (" What 396 POLIKtTSHKA a clerk ! " she thought. " He has excited the lady, and now she will not let me fall asleep before two o'clock.") "So go, Egor," said the lady, " and do the best you can." " Yes, madam." He said nothing about Dutldv. " Whom do you command me to send to the gardener for the money ? " " Has Petriisha not yet returned from town ? " " No, madam." " Can't Nikolay drive down there ? " " Father is down with the lumbago," said Dunyasha. " Shall you not order me to drive there to-morrow ? " said the clerk. " No, you are wanted here, Egor." The lady feU. to musing. " How much money is it ? " " Four hundred and sixty roubles, madam." " Send Polikiishka," said the lady, casting a determined look at Egdr Mikhaylovich. Eg6r Mikhaylovich, without opening his teeth, stretched his lips, as though to smile ; he did not change the rest of his face. " Yes, madam." " Send him to me ! " "Yes, madam," and Egor Mikhaylovich went to the office. II. PoLiKtJSHKA, as an insignificant and slovenly man, and as being from another village, did not enjoy the protec- tion of housekeeper, or butler, or- clerk, or chambermaid, and his " corner " was the worst imaginable, although there were seven in his family. The " corners " had been built by the late master. They were arranged as follows : In a stone hut, twenty-five feet square, there stood in the middle a Kussian oven ; around it there was a " colidor," as the manorial servants called it, and in every corner a " corner " was fenced off with boards. There was, consequently, little space in each, especially little in Polikushka's comer, the farthest from the door. A nuptial couch with a quilt coverlet and chintz pillows, a cradle with a baby in it, a little three-legged table, on which the food was prepared, the clothes were washed, and all the house-goods placed, and on which Polikushka him- self worked (he was a veterinarian) ; vats, clothes, chickens, a calf, and the seven of the family filled the whole comer. Nobody would have been able to move, if the common oven had not ofifered one-fourth, upon which things and people were placed, and if it had not been possible to go out on the steps. To tell the truth, it was not possible.: in October it was cold, and of warm clothes there was but one sheepskin coat for the whole seven of them ; but the children could warm themselves by running, and the grown ones by working, or any of them by climbing on the oven, where it was often forty degrees Reaumur. One would think that it was dreadful to live under 397 S98 POLIKUSHKA Buch conditions ; but they did not mind it, — they man- aged to get along. Akulina washed the children and fed them and her husband ; she spun, and wove, and bleached her linen, cooked and baked in the common oven, and exchanged words and gossip with her neighbours. Her monthly allowance of food sufficed not only for the children, but as an extra for her cow. The wood was free, and so was the feed for the cattle. Also some hay from the Stable fell to their share. They had a garden strip. The cow had had a calf ; there were also chickens of their own. Polikushka was attached to the stable. He looked after two stallions, and bled the horses and cattle; he cleaned hoofs, lanced sores, and put on ointments of his own invention, and for this he received money and provi- sions. There were also the manorial oats which they had, and in the village there was a peasant who regularly every month gave twenty pounds of mutton for two measures of the oats. One could get along, if there were not a grief to account for, and the grief for the family was great indeed. Poli- kushka had in his youth been working in a stud, in another village. The groom, under whose charge he was, was the first thief in the whole district : he was deported to Siberia. Polikushka had received his instruction from this groom, and, being young, he became accustomed to " these trifles," so that, no matter how much he tried, he could not cure himself of the habit. He was a young, weak man ; he had no parents, and there was no one to teach him. Polikushka liked to drink, but he did not like things to lie around loose. A strap, a saddle-cloth, a lock, a coupling-pin, or anything more expensive, found a place with Polik^y Ilich. There were everywhere people who accepted these things and paid for them in wine or money, according to agreement. These earnings are th? easiest, POLIKUSHKA 399 say the people: one needs nothing here, neither study, nor work, and when you have tried it once, you do not wish to do any other work. There is just one bad thing about these earnings : although the things come easy and cheap, and such a life is pleasant, bad people sometimes spoil your trade, and you have to pay for it all at once, and then you are not especially glad of living. Just so it had happened with Polikushka. Polikiishka was married, and God gave him happiness : his wife, the cattle-keeper's daughter, was a healthy, intelligent, indus- trious woman, and she bore him children, one better than the other. Polikushka did not abandon his trade, and everything went well. Suddenly he had bad luck, and he got caught. He got caught on a mere trifle: he had put away a peasant's leather reins. They were found, and he received a beating, and was taken to the lady, after which he was watched. He was caught a second and a third time. The people put him to shame ; the clerk threatened him with military service ; his wife wept and grieved her life away ; every- thing began to go topsyturvy. He was a kind and not at all a bad man, only he was weak, hked to take a drink, and had become so used to it that he could not let it alone. His wife would scold him' and even beat him, when he came home drunk, and he would weep. " I am an unfortunate," he would say, " and what shall I do ? May my eyes burst, I will give it up, I will do it no more ! " Behold, two months later he would again go away from home ; he would be drinking, and be gone for two days. " He must be getting money somewhere," people would say. His last affair was with the office clock. There was in the office an old wall clock, that had long been out of repair. He happened to come in by himself through the 400 POLIKUSHKA open door : he was tempted by the clock, so he took it down and carried it away to town, where he disposed of it. It so happened that the shopkeeper, to whom he had sold the clock, was some kin to a manorial woman ; when he came to the country for the hoHdays he told about the clock. They began to iuquire about it, as though really anybody cared much about the clock. The clerk particu- larly was not fond of Polikushka. The whole thing was found out. The lady was informed of it. The lady called up Polikushka. He immediately fell down before her feet, and with feeling and touchingly, as liis wife had instructed him, confessed his whole guilt. He acquitted himself well. The lady began to reason with him. She talked and talked, and preached to him about God, and virtue, and the life to come, and about his wife and children, and moved him to tears. The lady said : •' I shall forgive you, only you must promise me never to do it again." " I sha'n't do it in all my hfe ! May I go through the floor, and may my entrails be torn out, if I do ! " said PoHkiishka, weeping touchingly. Polikushka came home, and there bawled all day long Hke a calf, and lay on the oven. Since then nothing tvrong had been noticed in Polikushka. Only his Mfe was not a joy to him : people looked upon him as a thief, and when the time of the conscription came, they all pointed to him. As was said before, Polikushka was a veterinarian. How he had suddenly become a veterinarian, nobody knew, least of all he lumseK. In the stable of the stud he had, under the deported groom, exercised no other function than that of cleaning the manure out of the enclosures, and sometimes grooming the horses and haul- ing water. He could not have learned it there. Then he was a weaver ; then he worked in a garden and cleaned the paths ; then for a punishment he broke bricks ; then, POLIKtJSHKA 401 working out, he hired himself out as a janitor with a merchant. Consequently he had had no experience there, either. During his last stay at home he slowly began to acquire a wide reputation as an unusual, even a supernatural, vet- erinarian. He bled horses once or twice ; then he threw a horse and fumbled around in its thigh; then he de- manded that the horse be taken to a trave, where he began to cut its frog to the quick, though the horse strug- gled and even whined, saying that that meant to " let the subungulate blood." Then he explained to a peasant that the blood ought to be let from both veins " for greater Hghtness," and began to strike the dull lancet with a mallet ; then he pulled the selvage of his wife's kerchief underneath the belly of the iunkeeper's horse. Finally he began to sprinkle vitriol on all kinds of sores, to put on wet compresses from a vial, and to give them sometimes internal doses, such as occurred to him. The more he tormented and killed the horses, the more people believed him, and the more horses were brought to him. I feel that it is not quite proper for people of our class, for gentlemen, to laugh at Polikushka. The artifice which he employed in order to gain confidence is the same which has affected our fathers and us, and will affect our children. A peasant, who with his belly presses down the head of his only mare, which not only forms his wealth, but is almost part of his family, and who in faith and terror looks at the solemn and frowning face of Poh- kiishka, and at his thin, bared arms, while his hands purposely press the painful spot and he boldly cuts the sound flesh with the secret thought, " The bow-legged one will get over it," and pretends that he knows where the blood is, and where the pus, where the dry vein and where the wet vein, while he holds with his teeth a rag bandage or a vitriol vial, — that peasant would not sus- pect that Polikushka's hand could be raised to cut with- 402 POLIKUSHKA out knowing what he was doing. He himself could not do it. After the horse had been cut open, he would not reproach himself for having permitted it to be cut open without cause. I do not know how you feel about it, but I have experienced precisely the same with a doctor who, at my request, has tormented people who were near to my heart. A lancet and a mysterious whit- ish vial with a sublimate, and the words " apoplexy, piles, let blood, matter," and so forth, are they any different from " nerves, rheumatism, organisms," and so forth ? Wage du zu irren und zu traumen, refers not so much to poets as to doctors and veterinarians. ni. That very evening, while the gathering, choosing a recruit, was dining near the office in the chill murkiness of an October night, Polikiishka was sitting on the edge of the bed at the table and in a bottle mixing a horse medicine, about which he knew nothing. Here was sub- limate, sulphur, Glauber's salt, and some grass, which Polikushka had collected, having once come to the conclu- sion that this grass was good for asthma, and regarding it as proper also in other diseases. The children were already lying down, two on the oven, two on the bed, and one in the cradle near which Akulina was sitting spinning. A dip from the unguarded manorial candles, in a wooden candlestick, was standing on the window, and, in order that her husband might not be disturbed in his important work, Akulina got up several times to snuff the dip with her fingers. There were some freethinkers who regarded Polikiishka as a worthless veterinarian and a worthless man ; others, again, and they were in the majority, looked upon him as a bad man, but a great master of his art. Akulina, how- ever, notwithstanding the fact that she frequently scolded and even beat him, regarded him as unquestionably the first veterinarian and the first man in the world. PoUkiishka poured some ingredients into the palm of his hand. (He did not use a scale, and ironically referred to the Germans who used it by saying, " This is not an apothecary shop!") PoHkiishka added this ingredient 403 404 POLIKUSHKA which he had in his hand and stirred it all up ; hut it did not look enough to him, and so he added ten times as much. " I will put in the whole lot, so it will raise better," he said to himself. Akulina swiftly lifted her head in re- sponse to her lord's voice, expecting some command ; but, upon seeing that she was not concerned in the matter, she shrugged her shoulders. " He is clever, I must say ! " she thought, and once more began to spin. The paper from which the ingredient had been emptied fell under the table. Akulma did not overlook that. " Anyutka," she called out, " father has dropped some- thing ; pick it up ! " Anyutka thrust her thin, bare legs out from underneath a capote with which she was covered, hke a kitten crawled under the table, and fetched the paper. " Here, papa," she said, making with her chilled little feet a dive for the bed. " Don't pus' me," screamed her younger sister, lisping, and in a sleepy voice. " Look out ! " said Akulina, and both heads were hid under the capote. " If he offers me three roubles," said Polikushka, Cork- ing up the bottle, " I will cure his horse. It is cheap at that," he added. " It's no httle headache it gives me, I must say ! Akulina, go and ask Nikita for a little tobacco. I'll give it back to him to-morrow." Polikushka took out of his trousers a linden pipe-stem, which had once been painted, and had sealing-wax for a mouthpiece, and began to put on the pipe. Akulina left the spinning-wheel and went out, without catching in the yarn, which was a hard matter to avoid. Polikushka opened the cupboard, put the bottle inside of it, and tilted into his mouth the empty wine-bottle, but there was no brandy in it. He frowned, but when his wife brought the tobacco, a,nd he filled the pipe, lighted POLIKU^SHKA 405 it, and aat down on the bed, his face shone with content- ment and with the pride of a man who has finished his day's work. He was happy, either because he thought of how on the morrow he would take hold of the horse's tongue and pour down its throat that wonderful mixture, or because he reflected that a useful man is never refused anything, and that even now Nikita had sent him some tobacco. Suddenly the door, which was hanging on one hinge, was thrown back, and into the room entered the girl " from up there," not the second, but the third servant, who was kept to be sent on all kinds of errands. " Up there," as everybody knows, means the manor, even if it be down below. Aksyiitka, as the girl was called, always flew like a bullet, whereat her arms did not bend, but swayed like a pendulum, according to the rapidity of her motion, not at her sides,' but in front of her body ; her cheeks were always redder than her pink dress ; her tongue always moved as fast as her legs. She flew into the room and, for some reason getting hold of the oven, began to sway, and, as though wishing to utter by all means not more than two or three words at once, suddenly, out of breath, delivered the following, as she turned to Akulina : " The lady has commanded Polik^y Ilich to come up there this very minute, so she has commanded — " She stopped, and with difficulty drew breath. " Egor Mikhay- lovich was at the lady's, they spoke about recruits, they mentioned Polik^y Ilich — Avdotya NikoMevna has com- manded him to come this very minute. Avdotya Niko- laevna has commanded " (again a sigh) "him to come this very minute." Aksyiitka looked for about half a minute at PolikiishkEt, at Akulina, at the children, who stuck their heads out from underneath their coverlets, picked up a nutshell which was lying on the oven, threw it at Anyutka, and, once more repeating " this very minute," like a whirlwind 406 POLIKUSHKA. flew out of the room, and the pendulums began to sway with customary rapidity across the line of motion. Akulina got up again and fetched her husband's boots. They were worthless, torn, soldier's boots. She took the caftan down from the oven and handed it to him, without looking at him. " Ilich, won't you change your shirt ? " '* No," said Pohkushka. Akulina did not once look at his face while he silently put on his boots and caftan, and it was well for her that she did not. Polikiishka's face was pale, his lower jaw was trembling, and in his eyes there was that tearful and submissive and deeply wretched expression which is found only in good, weak, and guilty persons. He combed his hair and was on the point of leaving; his wife stopped him, fixed the cord of his shirt, which was hanging over his coat, and put his cap on his head. " Oh, Polik^y Ilich, does the lady want to see you ? " was heard the voice of the joiner's wife beyond the par- tition. It was but that very morning that the joiner's wife had had a heated dispute with Akulina on account of a pot of lye which Polikiishka's children had spilled, and in the first moment it gave her pleasure to hear that Poli- kushka was called to the lady, for it certainly meant no good. Besides, she was a sly, diplomatic, and yenomous woman. No one knew better than she how to cut one with a word ; at least she thought so about herself. " No doubt they want to send you to town to make some purchases," she continued. " I suppose she is after having a trustworthy man, and so she is sending you. In that case, Polik^y Ilich, please buy me a quarter of a pound of tea." Akulina held back her tears, and her lips were com- pressed into an evil expression. Nothing would she have liked better than getting her fingers into the nasty hair POLIK^SHKA 407 of that slut, the joiner's wife. But, as she looked at her children and thought that they would be left orphans and she a soldier-widow, she forgot the venomous joiner's wife; covered her face with her hands, sat down on the bed, and her head fell down on the pillows. " Mamma, you are crussing me," said the lisping little girl, pulling her dress away from under her mother's elbow. " I wish you were all dead ! I have borne you for misfortune!" exclaimed Akulina and sobbed out loud, to the delight of the joiner's wife, who had not yet forgotter the lye of the morning. IV. Half an hour passed. The baby began to cry, and Aku- lina got up to feed it. She was no longer weeping, but, leaning her still pretty, thin face upon her arms, she fixed her eyes on the flickering remnant of the candle, and thought of why she had married, why so many soldiers were needed, and how she could pay back the joiner's wife. Her husband's steps were heard. She dried the ves- tiges of her tears and got up to let Polikushka come in. Polikiishka entered with a dashing gait, threw his cap upon the bed, drew long pufifs of breath, and ungirded himself. " Well ? What did the lady want you for ? " " Hem ! We might have known ! Polikushka is no good ! But when anything is up, who is wanted ? Poli- kushka." " What is up ? " Polikushka was in no hurry to answer. He lighted his pipe and spit out. " She has commanded me to go to town to fetch some money from the merchant." " To get some money ? " asked Akulina. Polikushka smiled and shook his head. " She is great on talking ! ' You,' says she, ■ are marked as an untrustworthy man, only I trust you more than anybody else.' " Polikushka spoke loud in order that the neighbours might hear him. " ' You have promised me to mend,' says she, ' so here is the first proof that I trust you : go,' says she, ' to the merchant, get the money, and 408 POLIKUSHKA 409 bring it back ! ' ' We,' says I, ' madam, we,' says I, ' are all your serfs, and we must serve you as we should serve God, because I feel that I can do everything for your comfort and must not swerve from any duty ; whatever you will command I will do, because I am your slave.' " He again smiled that peculiar smile of a weak, good, guilty man. " ' So you will do it well ? ' says she. ' Do you understand that. your fate depends upon it ?' bays she, ' Ot course I understand that I might do anything. If people have said something against me, it is easy enough to slander a man, but I, it seems to me, have never con- trived against your comfort.' I just talked to her so fine that my mistress softened. ' You will be my first servant/ says she." He was silent- for a m.oment, and again the same smile was on his face. " I know how to speak with them. When I worked out, I was sometimes jumped upon by people. If I only had a chance to speak with them I greased them up so that they became smoother than silk." " How much money is it ? " Akulina asked again. " Fifteen hundred roubles," Polikiishka answered, care- lessly. She shook her head. " When will you go ? " " She has commanded me to go to-morrow. ' Take any horse you wish,' says she. ' Go to the office, and God be with you ! ' " " The Lord be praised," said Akulina, rising and cross- ing herself. " May God help you, Ilich," she added, in a whisper, so that she might not be heard behind the parti- tion, and holding him by the shirt-sleeve. '' Ilich, listen to me ! I implore you by Jesus Christ to kiss the cross and swear before leaving that you will not take a drop into your mouth." " You don't suppose I will, when I am travelh'ng with such money ? " he blurted. " Somebody was playing tbfl 410 POLIKUSHKA piano there, oh, so awfully cleverly ! " he added, after a moment's silence and smiling. " I think it was the young lady. I was standing up there before the lady, but there, behind the door, the miss was rattling it off fine. She just would let herself loose and roll it off so softly, — it was just a ioy to listen. I should like to play myself, really I should. I'd study it out. I am a great hand at such things. Let me have a clean shirt for to-morrow." They lay down to sleep happy. In the meantime there was a noisy gathering near the office. It was not a trifling matter. The peasants were out in full force, and while Egor Mikhaylovich was with the mistress the heads were covered and more voices than before could be heard in the common conversation, and the voices were louder than before. The groan of the heavy voices, now and then interrupted by breathless, hoarse, shrieking speech, hovered in the air, and this groan, hke the sound of a roaring sea, reached the win- dows of the lady, who experienced a nervous disquietude akin to the sensation provoked by a storm. It gave her a twinge of dread and discomfort. She seemed to feel that the voices would any minute grow louder, and that some- thing would happen. " Why can't they do everything quietly, peacefully, without quarrelling, and without a noise," she thought, " in a Christian, fraternal, and rehg- ious manner ? " Several voices were speaking together, but louder than all shouted F^dor Eyezun, the carpenter. He was a doubler^ and was attackiag the Dutlovs. Old man Dutlov was defending himseK ; he stepped out from the crowd, behind which he had been standing, and, in a stranghng voice, swinging his arms, and holding his beard, spoke so much through his nose that he himself would have found it hard to understand what he was saying. His children and nephews stood in a serried rank close to him. Old Dutldv reminded one of the mother hen in the ^Doublers are families possessing two able-bodied men. 411 4:12 POLIKUSHKA game of "Vulture." The vulture was Ryezun, and not Eyeziin alone, but all the doublers and siuglers, almost all men of the meeting, who were attacking Dutlov. Matters were like this : Dutlov's brother had been made a soldier some thirty years before, and so he, being a tripler, did not wish to be in turn for the conscription, claiming that his brother's service exempted liim, and demanding to be placed on a level with the doublers, among whom the common lot for the third recruit should be cast. There were four more triplers, besides Dutldv; but one of them was the elder, and the lady had excused him ; from another family a recruit had been sent up the previous conscription. From the remaining two families two soldiers had been appointed. From these one had not come at all to the gathering, and only his wife stood sadly back of the crowd, hoping that somehow the wheel would turn in her favour ; the other of the two appointed sol- diers, red-haired Eoman, in a torn coat, though he was not poor, stood leaning against the porch and, with droop- ing head, kept silent all the time, except that now and then he glanced attentively at the loudest speaker, after which he again lowered his head. His whole form seemed to exhale wretchedness. Old Sem^n Dutlov was a man to whom anybody, who knew him but slightly, would entrust hundreds and thousands of dollars for safe- keeping. He was a reserved. God-fearing, industrious man ; he was, besides, a church elder. For this reason the excitement with which he spoke was the more strik- ing. Ryezun, the carpenter, on the other hand, was a tall, swarthy, riotous, drunken, bold man, especially glib in disputes and debates at the meetings and in the market- place with workmen, merchants, peasants, or gentlemen. Now he was calm and malicious, and from the height of his stature, with all the power of his sonorous voice and POLIKUSHKA 413 oratorical talent, was crushing the drawling church elder, who was now completely lifted out from his peaceful rut. Among the participants in the debate there was also round-faced, young-looking, square-headed, curly-bearded, thick-set Gerdsim Kopylov, one of the speakers who fol- lowed after Eyezun. He belonged to the younger genera- tion and was distinguished for his sharp speech,, and had already gained prominence in the meetings of the Com- mune. Then there was FMor M^lnichny, a sallow, haggard, lank, stooping peasant, also young, with scant hair in his beard, and small eyes, always bihous and gloomy, finding a bad side in everything, and frequently puzzling the meetings by his unexpected and abrupt questions and remarks. Both these speakers were on Kyeziin's side. Besides these, two babblers now and then took part in the debate : one of them, with a most good-natured physi- ognomy and long blond beard, Khrapkov, who kept saying all the time, " Now, my dear friend," and another, a small man,- with a birdlike face, Zhidk6v, who, too, had a set phrase for everything, " which means, friends," and who addressed everybody and never spoke to the point. They were both now for one side, and now for the other, but nobody paid any attention to them. There were still others like them, but these two kept flitting about between the crowd, shouting more than the rest and frightening the lady ; they were listened to less than the rest, but, stunned by the noise and din, they completely abandoned themselves to the pleasure of their itching tongues. There were still many other characters among these peasants of the Commune: there were gloomy, decent, indifferent, timid ones ; there were also women back of the men, with sticks in their hands ; but of these I shall tell some other time, if God will grant me to do so. The crowd at large consisted of peasants who stood at the meeting as if at church ; in , the rear they conversed in a 414 POLIKUSHKA whisper about domestic affairs, or about clearing the underbrush in the woods, or they waited in silence for the talkers to stop prattling. Then there were the rich, whose well-being could neither be increased nor diminished by these meetings. Such was Ermil, with a broad, shining face, whom the peasants. called big-belhed because he was rich. Such also was Starostin, upon whose face lay the self-satisfied ex- pression of power : " Say what you please, but nobody will touch me. I have four sons, but not one of them will be made a soldier." Now and then the freethinkers, like Kop^lov and Eyeziin, teased these also, but they replied calmly and firmly, with the consciousness of their inviolability. If Dutlov reminded one of the mother hen in the game of " Vulture," his lads did not exactly remind one of fledgelings ; they did not toss about, or squeak, but stood silently in the rear. The eldest, Ignat, was about thirty years old ; the second, Vasili, was also married, but unfit as a soldier ; the third, Ilya, his nephew, who had but lately been married, a light-complexioned, ruddy-faced lad in a foppish sheepskin coat (he worked out as a driver), stood looking at the people, now and then scratch- ing the back of his head below the cap, as though it were not at all his business, whereas it was he that the vultures were anxious to tear away. "If it comes to that, my grandfather was a soldier himself," said one, " so I will decline to draw a lot myself. There is no law on that, my friend. At last conscription they shaved Mikh^ich a soldier, although his uncle had not yet returned home." "Neither your father nor your uncle has served the Tsar," Dutl6v was saying at the same time, "and you have served neither the masters, nor the Commune, but have only passed your days in drinking, so that your chil- dren had to divide up the property. Yoa can't get along POLIKUSHKA 415 yourself, so you point to others; but I was a hundred- man for ten years, and an elder, and have twice burned down, and nobody has helped me ; and because there is peace and decency on our farm, you want to ruin me! Give me back my brother ! I suppose he died there. Judge honestly and according to God's law. Orthodox people, and don't pay any attention to what a drunken fellow is babbling." At the same time Gerasim was saying to Dutldv : " You are pointing to your brother ; but he was not sent up by the Commune, but the masters punished him for his misdeeds, so he cannot serve you as an excuse." Gerdsim had hardly finished his speech, when sallow, lank F^dor M^lnichny, stepping forward, began in a gloomy voice : " That's it ! The masters send up whom they please, so what good is there in having the Commune take it up ? The Commune has decreed that your son should go ; but if you do not want him to go, you will ask the lady, and she may order my head to be shaven, although I am a singler with children. So here is the law," he said, sarcastically. And, waving his hand in disgust, he went back to his place. Eed-haired Eom^n, whose son had been appointed, raised his head and said, " That's so, that's so ! " and from anger sat down on the steps. , Those were not all the voices that spoke at the same time. Not only were those in the rear speaking of their affairs, but even the babblers did not forget their duty. " Indeed, Orthodox people," said little Zhidkdv, repeat- ing Dutldv's words, " we must judge in Christian fashion. In Christian fashion, so to speak, my friends, we must judge." " We must judge according to our consciences, my dear friend," said good-natured Khrapkdv, repeating KopJ^lov's words, and pulling Dutldv by his sheepskin coat. "It 416 POLIKUSHKA was the will of the master, and not the decision of the Commune." " That's right ! That's what it is ! " said others. " What drunken fellow is barking there ? " retorted Ryeziin. " Have you ever given me to drink, or is your son, whom they pick up on the road, going to reproach me with drinking ? Friends, let us pass a resolution. If you want to save the DutWvs, and will appoint a doubler, or even a singler, he will only make fun of us." " Dutlov has to go ! What is the use in talking ? " " Of course ! Triplers have to draw lots first," spoke several voices. " Let us h ir what is the command of the lady ! Egdr Mikhaylovicl said that they wished to send up a manorial servant," som.body remarked. This statement for a moment held back the dispute, but soon it was renewed, and again passed over to person- ahties. Ign^t, of whom Ryeziin had said that he had been picked up on the road, began to prove to Eyeziin that he had stolen a file from some transient carpenters, and that while drunk he had almost beaten his wife to death. Ryezun replied that he beat his wife whether he was sober or drunk, and that he did not beat her enough at that, which made everybody laugh. But he felt insulted about* the file, and walked over nearer to Igndt, asking him: " Who stole it ? " " You did," boldly replied sturdy Ignat, stepping still nearer toward him. " Who stole it ? Didn't you ? " shouted Ryezun. " No, you ! " exclaimed Ignat. After the file, a stolen horse was taken up, and a bag of oats, and a garden strip on the common pasture, and a dead body. And the two peasants said such a lot of ter- rible things to each other that if only one hundredth part POLIKUSHKA 417 of what they accused each other had been true, they ought to have been both of them, according to the law, at least deported to Siberia. Old Dutlov in the meantime chose another mode of defence. He did not Hke his son's shouts. He stopped him, saying : " It is a sin to talk that way ! Stop it, I say;" and he began himself to prove that triplers were not only those who had three sons together, but- even those who had divided up the land, and he pointed to Starostin. Starostin smiled sHghtly, cleared his throat, and, strok- ing his beard in the manner of a rich peasant, replied that the mistress's will would decide that. Apparently his son must have deserved it, if it was commanded to pass by him. As regards the divided families, Gerdsim, too, shattered Dutl(5v's argument by saying that it should not have been permitted, as it had not been with the old master, to divide the property, that no one went for berries when the summer was gone, that now singlers would not be delivered up. " Did they divide it up out of mischief ? Why should they now be completely ruiued ? " were heard the voices of those who had divided up, and the babblers joined them. " Buy a recruit, if you do not like it ! You can ^o it ! " Eyezun said to Dutlov. Dutl6v in desperation buttoned his caftan and stood back of other peasants. " Evidently you have been counting up my money," he said, angrily. " Let us hear what Egor Mikh^ylovich is going to tell us from the lady ! " VI. Egoe Mikhaylovich had actually just then left the house. One cap after another was raised above the head, and the nearer the clerk was coming, the more the bald crowns and foreheads, and the gray, half-gray, red, black, and blond heads were uncovered, and by degrees the voices died down until there was perfect silence. Eg6r Mikhaylovich stood up on the porch and looked as though he wanted to speak. Egor Mikhaylovich, in his long coat, with his hands uncomfortably stuck in his front pockets, in a factory-made cap poised in front, and standing with firmly planted, spreading feet on a com- manding elevation, above the preponderatingly old and handsome bearded heads, which were raised and turned toward him, had an entirely different aspect from that which he had in presence of the lady. He was majestic. " Here, good men, is the lady's decision : it does not please her to give up a manorial servant, and whomsoever you -vjill yourselves appoint, will go. We need three this year. In reality, it is only two and a half, and one-half is for the next time. It is all the same : if not this time, it will have to be the next." " Of course ! That is so ! " said several voices. " According to my judgment," continued Eg6r Mikhay- lovich, "Khoryushkin and Mityiikhin's Vaska ought to go, — such is God's own will." " Precisely ! It's correct ! " said some. " The third is to be either Dutlov, or one of the doub- lers. What do you say ? " 418 POLTKtJSHKA 419 " Dutldv," said some, " the Dutldvs are triplers." And again the noise rose by degrees, and again mention was made of the pasture strip, and of some sacks stolen from the manor. Egdr Mikhaylovich had been superin- tending the estate for twenty years, and was a clever and experienced man. He stood still awhile, listened for about fifteen minutes, and suddenly commanded all to keep silent, while the Dutlovs would cast lots which one of the three it was going to be. The lots were cut. Khrapkov took one out from the cap which had been shaken up : it was Ilya's lot. All were silent. " Is it mine ? Let me see," said Ilya, in a faltering voice. All were silent. Eg6r Mikhaylovich ordered them to bring the recruit money on the following day, seven kopeks from each hearth, and, informing them that all was ended, dismissed the meeting. The crowd began to move, putting their caps on as they went around the cor- ner and dinning with their tongues and boots. The clerk stood on the porch", looking at the retreating crowd. When the young Dutldvs had gone around the comer, he called up old Dutldv, who had himself stopped, and went I with him to the office. " I am sorry for you, old man," said Egdr Mikhaylovich, sitting down in an armchair at the table. " It is your turn. Are you going to buy off your nephew, or not ? " The old man, without making any reply, looked sig- nificantly at Eg6r Mikhaylovich. "There is no getting out of it," Egdr Mikhaylovich Jreplied to his glance. " I should like to buy him off, Eg6r Mikhaylovich, but I have no money. I have lost two horses this summer. I married off my nephew. Evidently this is our fate for living an honest life. It is easy enough for him to talk." (He was thinking of Eyezun.) Eg6r Mikhaylovich rubbed his face with his hand, and / i'Zi) POLlKtSHKA yawned. He was obviously getting tired of tlie matter, and it was time for tea. " Old man, don't be sinning ! " he said. " Take a good look under your floor, and maybe you will find four hun- dred old roubles there. I will buy you a first-class vol- unteer. Only the other day a fellow came to see me about it." " In the Government ? " asked Dutldv, meaning the city by that appellation. "Well, wiU you buy him off?" " I should like to, I swear by God, but — " Egdr Mikhaylovich sternly interrupted him : " Listen to me, old man ! See to it that Ilya does nothing to himself. Whenever I send for him, wKether it be this evening, or to-morrow, he must be ready. You will take him there, and you will be responsible for him. If, God forfend, something should happen to him, I will get your eldest son's head shaved. You hear ? " " It is really wrong to treat doublers that way, Egdr Mikhaylovich," he said, after a moment's silence. "My brother died a soldier, and now they take my son : why must I suffer so ? " he said, almost weepiug, and ready to fall down before his feet. " Go now, go," said Egor Mikhaylovich. " I can't help it, such is the law. Watch Ilj&, for you are responsible for him." Dutldv went home, thoughtfully striking the linden- stick on the tufts of the road. Vll. Early on the following moiniiig there stood in front of the servants' wing a travelling-cart, in which the clerk travelled, to which was hitched a broad-boned bay horse, for some unknown reason called Drum. Anyutka, Poli- kushka's eldest daughter, stood barefoot, ia spite of the raia with hail and with a cold wind, before the head of the horse, with one hand holding the bridle at a distance, with evident fear, and with the other holding down over her head a yellow and green jacket which ia the family fulfilled the duty of a coverlet, fur coat, cap, rug, coat for Polikushka, and many more duties. There was a stir in the " corner." It was still dark ; the mornuig twihght of a rainy day with difficulty pene- trated the window which was here and there pasted up with paper. Akulina, who for a time neglected the cook- ing in the oven, and the children, of whom the younger ones had not yet wakened, and were freezing, because their coverlet had been taken away to be used as wearmg apparel, while in its place had been put their mother's kerchief, — Akulina was busy seeing off her husband. The shirt was clean. The boots, which, as they say, begged for porridge, caused her especial worry. In the first place, she took off her own thick, woolteri stockings; the only ones which she had, and gave them to her hus- Ijand; in the second, from the saddle-cloth, 'which had been lying loose in the stable, and which Pohkushka had brought home two days before, she had managed to make inner soles in such a way as to stop up the gaps aiid pre- 421 422 POLIKtJSHKA serve his feet against dampness. Polikushka himself, sitting with his feet on the hed, was busy turning his belt in such a way as to make it look different from a dirty rope. The cross httle lisping girl, who, with the fur coat above her head, was still stumbling over it, had been despatched to Nikita to ask for a cap. The stir was increased by the manorial servants, who came to ask Polikushka to buy things for them in town, — for this one pias, for that one tea, for another sweet- oil, for still another tobacco, and sugar for the joiner's wife, who had by that time got the samovar ready and, to appease Polikushka, had brought him a pitcher of what she called tea. Although Nikita refused to give his cap, and it became necessary to fix his own, that is, push back the protruding cotton battiQg and sew up the hole with a veterinary needle ; although at first he could not get on the boots with the saddle-cloth soles ; although Anyiitka was chilled and let Drum out of her hand, and Mashka in the fur coat had to go in her place, and then Mashka had to take off the fur coat, and Akulina herself had to go to hold Drum, — it all ended by Pohkushka's putting on all the apparel of the family, leaving behind nothing but the jacket and sUppers. After he was all dressed up, he seated himself in the cart, wrapped the coat about him, fixed the hay, once more wrapped himself, separated the lines, wrapped himself more tightly, just as dignified people do, and started. His boy, Mishka, who had run out on the porch, asked for a ride. Lisping Mdshka, too, began to ask for a ride, saying that she was not " fleezing without the coat," and Polikushka checked in Drum and smiled his weak smile, while Akulina put the children into the cart and, bending over to him, told him in a whisper that he must not forget his oath to drink nothing on his way. Pohkiishka took the children as far as the smithy, put them down, again POLIKUSHKA 423 wrapped himself, again adjusted his cap, and drove off alone in a slow, dignified trot, his cheeks shaking at every jolt, and his feet striking the body of the cart. Mashka and Mishka with such rapidity and with such shrieks ran barefoot to the house over the slippery hill, that a dog, which ha;d found its way from the village to the yard of the manor, looked at them and, suddenly taking its tail between its legs, started home with loud barking, whereat the shrieks of Polikiishka's heirs were increased tenfold. The weather was miserable : the wind cut in the face, and something which was not snow, nor rain, nor hail now and then struck Polikushka's face and bare hands, which he hid with the cold lines under the sleeves of his camel-hair coat, and struck the leather covering of the arch, and Drum's old head, which dropped its ears and closed itc eyes. Then it suddenly stopped, and it grew clearer; one could plainly see the bluish snow clouds, and the sun began to peep through, but without determination and without cheerfulness, just like the smile of Polikiishka himself. Notwithstanding all that, Polikiishka was merged in agreeable thoughts. He, whom they had intended to deport, who had been threatened with military service, whom only a lazy person did not scold and beat, who was always pushed into the worst places, — he now was travelling to receive a " sum " of money, and a big sum at that, and the mistress trusted him, and he was travelling in the clerk's cart with Drum, the lady's driving-horse, like an innkeeper, with leather straps and reins. Poli- kiishka sat up straighter, fixed the batting in his cap, and again wrapped himself in his coat. However, if Polikiishka thought that he exactly re- sembled a rich innkeeper, he was mistaken. Of course, we all know that merchants from ten thousand on travel in carts with leather trappings; stiU it is a different 424 POLIKUSHKA. matter. Such a man has a beard, wears a blue or blaclv caftan, drives a well-fed horse, and sits in a box : all you have to do is to see whether the horse is well fed, whether he is well fed, how he sits, how the horse is harnessed, what tires there are on the wheels, how he himself is girded, and you immediately can tell whether the peasant sells by the thousand roubles, or by the hundred. If any experienced man had looked closely at Pohkiishka, at his hands, his face, his young beard, his belt, at the hay care- lessly thrown into the box, at lean Drum, at the worn tires, he would have told at once that a mere peasant was travelling there, and not a merchant, not a wholesale dealer, nor an innkeeper, nor a man dealing by the thousand roubles, nor by the hundred, nor even by the ten roubles. Pohkushka did not think so, and he was mistaken, agreeably mistaken. He would bring back fifteen hun- dred in the bosom of his coat. If he will have a mind to, he will turn his horse to Odessa instead of home, and wiU travel whither God will take him. Still, he will not do it, but will faithfully bring the money back to the mistress and will tell her that he had been entrusted with greater sums than that. Upon coming abreast with a tavern. Drum began to pull at the left line, to slow down, and to turn in ; but Polikushka, despite the fact that he had money with him, given him for the purchase of various things, gave Drum the whip and drove on. The same he did at the next tavern. At noon he got off his cart and, opening the gate of the merchant's house, where the people of his mistress used to stop, led the horse in, unhitched it, put up the horse and gave it hay, dined with the merchant's labourers, at which occasion he did not fail to tell them on what important errand he had come, and went, with the letter in his cap, to the gardener. The gardener, who knew Polikxxshka, read the letter, ^nd with obvious suspicion POLIKUSHKA 425 asked him whether it was so that he had been ordered to bring the money back. Polikiishka wanted to appear offended, but he could not; he only smiled his smile. The gardener read the letter once more and gave him the money. Having received the money, Polikiishka put it in the bosom of his coat and went to his lodging. Neither the dram-shops nor the tavern tempted him. He experienced a pleasurable irritation in his whole being, and he stopped more than once at the shops with tempting wares, boots, coats, caps, chintz goods, and victuals. After standing there a little while, he went away with the pleasant sen- sation : " I can buy it all, but I won't." He went to the market and bought everything he had been commissioned to buy, and haggled for a tanned fur coat, for which twenty-five roubles was asked. The sales- man, looking at Polikushka, for some reason doubted his ability to buy it; but Polikushka pointed to his bosom, saying that he could buy out his whole shop, if he wanted to, and asked to be allowed to try on the fur coat. He crumpled the fur, beat it, blew into it, even became per- meated by its smell, and finally took it off with a sigh. " The price does not suit me. If you would let it go for fifteen," he said. The merchant angrily threw the coat across the table, and Pohkushka went out, and in a happy mood returned to his lodging. After having eaten his supper, and hav- ing watered Drum and given him oats, he climbed on the oven, took out the envelope, examined it for a long time, and asked an innkeeper who could read, to tell the address for him ; it bore the inscription, " With the enclo- sure of one thousand six hundred and seventeen roubles in assignats." The envelope was made of common paper, and the seals were of brown sealing-wax with the repre- sentation of an anchor : there was one large one in the middle and four small ones in the corners ; the sides had 426 POLIKtJSHKA. some drops of sealing-wax upon them. Polikushka exam- ined all this and studied it, and even fingered the sharp edges of the assignats. He experienced a childish joy, knowing that such a sum was in his hands. He stuck the envelope into the hole of the cap, put the cap under his head, and lay down to sleep; but even in the night he awoke several times and fingered the envelope. Every time he found the envelope in its place, he experienced the happy sensation that he, Polikushka, the disgraced and offended man, was carrying such a sum, and that he would faithfully deliver it, even more faithfully than the clerk would do it. VIIL About midniglit the merchant's workmen and Poli- kushka were wakened by knocks at the gate and the calls of peasants. Those were the recruits who were being brought up from Pokr6vskoe. There were ten of them : Khoryiishkin, Mityushkin, and Ilyd (Dutl6v's nephew), two substitutes, the elder, old Dutldv, and the drivers. A night-lamp was burning in the kitchen, and the cook was sleeping on a bench under the images. She jumped up and began to light a candle. Polikiishka, too, awoke, and, bending down from the oven, began to look at the peasants as they were coming in. They all en- tered, crossed themselves, and sat down on the benches. They were all very calm, so that it was difficult to tell who were the recruits and who their guards. They gave their greetings, talked awhile, and asked for something to eat. It is true, some of them were taciturn and sad ; but others again were jolly, having apparently had some- thing to drink. Among these was Ilyd, who had never drunk before. " Well, boys, shall we eat our. supper or go to sleep ? " asked the elder. " Eat supper," replied Ilya, throwing open his fur coat and seating himself on a bench. " Send for brandy ! " " No brandy now," the elder said, in passing, and again turning to the others. " Take a bite of bread, boys ! What is the use of waking the people ? " " Give me some brandy," repeated Ily^, without looking at any one, and in a voice which indicated that h^ ^ould not stop so soon. 4g7 428 POLIK^SHKA The peasants obeyed the elder's advice, fetched some bread from their carts, ate it, asked for a little kvas, and lay down, some of them on the floor, others on the oven. Ily^ now and then kept repeating : " Let me have some brandy, I say. Let me have it ! " Suddenly he espied Polikiishka: "Polikushka, Polikushka! Are you here, dear friend ? I am going to be a soldier ! They are taking me away from my mother and from my wife — How she cried ! They have sent me up ! Treat me to brandy ! " " I have no money," replied Polikushka. " With God's aid you may be rejected yet," Polikushka added, to con- sole him. " No, my friend, I am as pure as a birch ; I have no diseases. Wliat fault can I have ? What better soldiers does the Tsar want ? " Polikushka began to tell a story of how a peasant gave the doctor a blue assignat, and how he was freed by that. Ilya moved up to the oven, and they talked more freely. " No, Pohkushka, now it is all ended, and I myself do not want to remain. Uncle has sold me. He could buy me off, but he is sorry for his son, and for the money, too They are sending me up, — now I do not want to myself." (He spoke softly, confidentially, under the influence of calm grief.) " The only thing is, I am sorry for mother : the dear one felt so bad about it ! And I am sorry for my wife : they have ruined the woman just for nothing ; now she will suffer ; a soldier's widow, that's all she will be. It would have been better not to have married. Why did they get me married ? They will be here to- morrow." " Why have they brought you so early ? " asked Poli- kushka. "We heard nothing about it, and there you suddenly are — " " Evidently they are afraid I might do something cc POLIKtJSHKA 429 myself," replied Ily^, smiling. '^Tliey need not fear, I will do nothing. I won't be lost as a soldier, either, only I am sorry for my mother. Why did they get me mar- ried ? " he said, softly and sadly. The door opened and slammed violently, and in came old Dutl6v, sha,king off his cap, in his bast shoes, which were so large that they looked like boats. " Afanasi," he said, making the sign of the cross and turning to the innkeeper, " haven't you a lantern so I can go out and give the horses some oats ? " Dutlov did not look at Ilya, and calmly began to light a tallow dip. His mittens and whip were stuck in his belt, and his camel coat was properly girded, as though he had been travelling with a caravan, so habitually simple, peaceful, occupied with his farm task, did his industrious face look. When Ilyd saw his uncle, he grew silent, again gloomily directed his eyes to something upon the bench, and, turn- ing to the elder, said : " Give me some brandy, Ermila. I want some liquor to drink." His voice was angry and gloomy. " This is no time for liquor," replied the elder, sipping from a cup. " You see that the people have had their supper and are now lying down ; don't make such a fuss about it ! " The word " fuss " led him to the idea of becoming really unruly. " Elder, I will cause some misfortune if you do not give me some brandy." " Can't you bring him to his senses ? " the elder turned to Dutldv, who had lighted the lantern, but had stopped to listen to what would happen next, looking compassion- ately awry at his nephew, as though surprised to see him act so childishly. Hyd cast down his eyes and repeated : 430 POLIKUSHKA. " Let me have brandy, or I will do something bad." " Stop, Ilya ! " the elder said, meekly. " Really, stop it ! It will be better if you do." But before he had fully finished his words, Ilyd jumped up, smashed a window-pane with his fist, and called out, at the top of his voice : " You would not listen to me, so here you have it ! " and he rushed up to the other window to smash that one too. Polikushka, in the twinkling of an eye, rolled over twice and concealed himself in the corner of the oven, frightening all the cockroaches. The elder threw down his spoon and ran up to Ilya. Dutldv leisurely put down the lantern, ungirt himself, clicking his tongue all the while, shook his head, and went up to Ilya, who was struggling with the elder and the innkeeper, who did not let him come up to the window. They caught his hands and seemed to be holding them firmly ; but the moment Ilya saw his uncle with the belt, his strength was in- creased tenfold; he tore himself away, and, rolling his eyes, advanced toward Dutl<5v with clenched fists. " I will kill you ! Don't come up, you barbarian ! You have ruined me, you, with your robber sous, have ruined me ! What did you get me married for ? Don't come up, or I'll kill you ! " Ilya was terrible. His face was crimson; his eyes could not find a resting-place ; his whole body, his youth- ful body, trembled as in an ague. He looked as though he wanted, and were able, to kill all three men who were advancing toward him. "You are drinking your brother's blood, you blood- sucker ! " Something flashed in Dutldv's eternally calm face. He made a step forward. " You won't do it in kindness," he suddenly exclaimed. Is ap outburst of energy he with a rapid motion seized POLlKtJSTteA 431 his nephew, rolled down on the floor with him, and, with the aid of the elder, began to tie his arms. They strug- gled for about five minutes ; finally Dutldv got up with the help of the other peasants, pulling Ilya's hand away from his fur coat, to which he was clinging ; after he was up he lifted Ilya with his arms tied behind and placed him in a sitting posture in the corner, back of the bench. "I told you it .would be worse," he said, out of breath from the struggle and adjustiag his shirt belt. " What is the use of sinning ? We shall all die. Put a coat back of his head," he added, turning to the innkeeper, " or else the blood will msh to his head," and he himself took the lantern, girded himself with a cord, and went out to the horses. Ilya, with dishevelled hair, pale face, and crumpled shirt, surveyed the room, as though trying to recall where he was. The innkeeper picked up the glass shivers and stuck a short coat into the window to keep out the wind. The elder again sat down to his cup. " Oh, Ilya, Ily^ ! I am sorry for you, truly I am ! But what is to be done ? Khoryiishkia is married, too ; evi- dently such is fate." " I am perishing through the fault of that rascal of an uncle," Ilya exclaimed, with cold malice. "He is sorry for his own son — Mother said that the clerk told him to buy me off. He does not want to ; he says he can't do it. Brother and I have brought quite a lot to his house ! — He is a scoundrel ! " Dutl6v entered the room, prayed toward the images, took off his wraps, and sat down near the elder. The cook brought him some more kvas and a spoon. Ilyd grew silent and, closing his eyes, leaned against the coat. The elder pointed silently at him and shook his head. Dutlov waved his hand. " Of course I am sorry for him. He is my own broth- er's child. But, though I pity him, they have made me 432 POLIKtJSHKA out a scoundrel to him. His wife — she is cunning, even though she is young — put it iuto his head that we had enough money to buy a recruit with. So he reproaches me with it. I pity the lad very much ! " " He is a nice fellow ! " said the elder. " I have no power over him. To-morrow I shall send Ignat, and his wife, too, wanted to come." " Send him, that will be all right," said the elder. He got up and climbed upon the oven. " What is money ? Money is dust." " If one had money, who would think of stinting it,? " said one of the merchant's workmen, raising his Ijead. / " Oh, the money, the money ! Much sin comes from it," remarked Dutlov. " There is nothing in the world from which there comes so much sin as from money, and it says so in the Gospel." " So it says," repeated the innkeeper. " A man once told me that there was a man who had saved up a great deal of money ; he did not want to leave any after him, be- cause he loved his money so, and took it with him in his grave. As he was dying he told them to put his cushion in the coffin with him. It did not occur to them what it was, and so they did as he asked them to. Later the sons began to look for the money, but there was none. It occurred to one son that, no doubt, the money was in that cushion. The case was taken to the Tsar, and he per- mitted them to dig up the grave. WeU, what do you thiuk ? They dug it up, but there was nothing in the cushion, and the coffin was full of snakes ; so they fiUed up the grave again. That's what money docs ! " " Of course, it leads to much sin," said Dutlov, and he got up, and began to pray. After his prayer he looked at his nephew: he was asleep. Dutlov walked over to him, took off his belt, and himself lay down. Another peasant went to the horses to sleep. IX. As soon as everything quieted down, Polikushka, like a guilty person, softly climbed down and began to dress himself. For some reason he felt uncomfortable sleeping in the same room with the recruits. The cocks were now crowing more frequently to each other. Drum had eaten up all his oats and was begging to be taken to the trough. Pohkiishka harnessed him and took him out past the peasant carts. The cap with its contents was all right, and the wheels of the cart again rumbled over the frozen road to Pokr(5vskoe. Polikushka felt more at ease only when he left the town far behind. Before that it seemed to him that they would be iu pursuit of him at any moment, that they would stop him and tie up his arms instead of Ilya's, and that on the following day they would enhst him. The cold and terror made a chill creep up his spine, and he kept pulling Drum's reins. The first men he met were a pope in a tall winter cap and a crippled labourer. Polikushka felt even worse than before. At a distance from the town the terror passed away by degrees. Drum was going at a pace ; the road could be seen ahead. Polikushka took off his cap and felt for the money. '■' Had I not better put it in my bosom ? " he thought. " I shall have to ungird myself. As soon as I get up the hill, I will get off the cart and fix myself. My cap is sewn up on top, and it can't come out below from the lining. I sha'n't take off my cap before I get home." Having reached the foot of the bill, Drum of his own 433 434 POLIKUSHKA free will leaped up the hill, and Polikiishka, who wanted, like Drum, to get home as soon as possible, did not hold him back. Everythiag was in order, at least he thought so, and he abandoned himself to dreaming of the mis- tress's gratefulness, of the five roubles which she would give him, and of the joy of his family. He took down his cap, fingered the envelope once more, pulled his cap deeper down over his head, and smiled. The plush on the cap was rotten, and, for the very reason that Akulina had sewn up the torn comer on the previous day, it fell to pieces at the other end, and that very motion, with which Polikiishka, in taking off the cap, was trying in the dark to push the envelope with the money farther into the lining, — that very motion ripped the cap and made the envelope stick out with one comer from the plush. It was beginniag to grow lighter, and Polikiishka, who had not slept all night, dozed off. In pulling down his cap, the letter protruded even more. In his sleep Poli- kiishka began to strike his hear" agaiast the rounds of the cart. He awoke near the bouse. His first motion was to clasp his cap ; it was tight on his head, and he did not take it off, being convinced that the envelope was in it. He touched Drum with his whip, again' assumed the aspect of an innkeeper, and, casting a dignified look about him, began to jolt on his way up to the house. There was the kitchen, there the " wing ; " there the joiner's wife was carrying rolls of linen ; there was the office, and there the manor, in which Polikiishka would soon show that he was a trustworthy and honest man, that " it is easy enough to slander any man," and the lady would say : " Thank you, Pohkiishka ! Here are for you three," and maybe five, and maybe ten roubles, and would order them to bring him a glass of tea, and maybe a dram of brandy. Tt would not be bad in this 01 Id. " For the ten roubles we will celebrate the holi- POLIKUSHKA 435 days, and buy boots, and will at last pay Nikita the four roubles and a half, for he has been dunning me so much — " When within about one hundred paces from the house, Polikushka straightened liimseK up, adjusted his belt and collar, took off his cap, smoothed his hair, and, leisurely stuck his hand into the lining. The hand stirred about in the lining, faster, faster ; he stuck in the other hand ; his face grew paler, paler ; one hand came entirely through — Polikushka jumped on his knees, stopped the horse, and began to examine the cart, the hay, the purchases, to feel in his bosom and trousers : the money was not any- wherei. "OLord! What is that? What will that be?" he roared, clasping his head. But, recalhng that he might be seen, he turned Drum back, slammed his cap down on his head, and drove sur- prised and dissatisfied Drum back again along the road. " I can't bear being driven by Polikushka," was what, no doubt. Drum thought. " Once in my lifetime has he given me to eat and drink in season, and that, too, only in order to deceive me. How hard I tried, running home ! I am tired, and no sooner do I smell our hay than he drives me back again." " Get up, devil's jade ! " Polikushka cried through tears, rising in his cart, jerking the reins over Drum's mouth, and striking him with the whip. All that day nobody saw Polikushka at Pokrdvskoe. The lady asked for him several times after dinner, and Aksyutka kept flying to Akulina ; but Akulfna said that he had not yet arrived, that evidently the merchant had detained him, or that something might have happened to the horse. '' Maybe the horse is lame ? " she said. " Last time Maksim drove the whole day, and he himself had to walk all the way." Aksyutka again adjusted her pendulums on the way toward the house, and Akulina endeavoured to find ex- planations for the detention of her husband and tried to calm herself, — but in vain! Her heart felt heavy, and she could not well perform any work for the morrow, which was a holiday. She was the more vexed because the joiner's wife assured her that she had herself seen a man, just like Polikiishka, come up as far as the avenue and turn back again. The children, too, were in impatience and disquietude waiting for their father, but for different causes. An- yutka and Mashka were left without the fur coat and camel-hair coat, which made it possible for them, even though by turns, to go out into the street, and so they were compelled to make circles about the house, iu noth- ing but their dresses, with increased rapidity, by which they put to no small amount of discomfort the inmates of the " wing," both those who entered it and who came out of it. Once Mashka ran into the legs of the joiner's 436 POLlkuSHKA 437 wife, who was carrying water, and, although she bawled from pain, having struck against the woman's knee, she had her top-lock pulled, which made her howl so much the louder. When she did not run up against anybody, she flew in through the door and over a vat climbed upon the oven. The mistress and Akulina were the only ones who were sincerely concerned about Polikushka ; the children were only concerned about that which he wore. Egor Mikhay- lovich, while reporting to his mistress, ia response to her question, '' Has Polikushka not yet returned, and where can he be ? " only smiled and answered, " I can't tell," and was apparently satisfied because his supposition had come true. " He ought to be back by noon," he said, significantly. All that day nobody knew anything about Polikushka ; only later they found out that neighbouring peasants had seen him running up and down the road without a cap, and asking everybody whether they had not found a letter. Another man had seen him sleeping by the roadside, near the horse and cart, which were turned in. " I thought," said that man, " that he was drunk, and that the horse, from the way his sides were sunken, had not been fed or watered for two days." Akulina did not sleep all night: she was listening all the time, but Polikushka did not come. If she had been alone, and had had a man cook and a servant-girl, she would have been unhappier still; but the moment the third cockcrow was heard and the joiner's wife got up, Akulina had to get up herself and attend to the oven. It was a holiday : before dawn the loaves had to be taken out ; she had to make kvas, bake flat-cakes, milk the cow, iron shirts and dresses, wash the children, bring water, and keep her neighbour from occupying the whole oven. Akulina took up her work, listening all the time. It was already daylight; the church-bells had been rung ; the children were dressed, and Polikushka was still 438 POLIKUSHKA away. There had been a light frost the evening before ; the fields, the road, and the roofs were unevenly covered with snow; that day, as though for the holiday, was bright, sunshiny, and frosty, so that one could hear and see a long distance. But Akulina, who was standing at the oven and had leaned with her head over the orifice, was so busy with the baking of the flat-cakes that she did not hear Polikiishka driviQg up, and only by her children's cries did she know that her husband had arrived. Anyutka, being the eldest, had herself greased her hair and dressed herself. She wore a new, though crumpled, pink chintz dress, a present from the mistress, which stuck out like the body of a cart and was an object of envy to the neighbours ; her hair glistened, — she had used up half a tallow dip on it ; her shoes were not new, but of fine leather. Mashka still wore the jacket and Was dirty, and Anyutka did not let her come close to her, for fear of getting soiled. Mashka was in the yard when her father drove up with the mat-bag. " Father has come," she screeched, and, bolt- ing past Anyutka through the door, soiled her sister's dress. Anyutka, no longer afraid of getting soiled, gave Mashka a thrashing on the spot, while Akulina could not tear herself away from her work. She only shouted to her children : " Look out there ! I'll spank every one of you ! " and looked back at the door. Polikiishka, with the bag in his hand, stepped into the vestibule and imme- diately made for his comer. Akulina thought that he was pale and that on his face there was something inter- mediate between a tearful expression and a smile; but she had no time to make it out. " Well, Polikiishka, is everything all right ? " she asked him, standing at the oven. PoHkushka muttered something, but she did not under- stand him. POLIKUSHEA 439 " Well," she cried, " have you seen the lady yet ? " Polikiishka sat on the hed in liis corner, looking wildly about him and smiling his guilty and deeply miserable smile. He for a long time made no reply. " Polikiishka, why are you so long in answering ? " was heard Akulina's voice. " Akulona, I have returned the money to the lady. She thanked me so much for it ! " he suddenly said, and began to look around more restlessly, and to smile. Two objects in particular arrested his restless, feverishly open eyes: the ropes that were attached to the cradle, and the baby. He walked over to the cradle and with his thin fingers began hurriedly to untie a knot in the rope. Then his eyes dwelt on the baby ; but just then Akulina, with the flat-cakes on a board, entered the corner. Polikiishka rapidly concealed the rope in the bosom of his coat and sat down on the bed. " What is the matter with you, Polikiishka ? You act as though beside yourself," said Akulina. " I have not slept any," he replied. Suddenly something flashed past the window, and in a twinkle Aksyutka, the girl from up there, flew in hke an arrow. " The lady has commanded Polikdy IHoh to come to her this very minute," she said. " This very minute, Av- ddtya Nikolaevna has commanded — this minute." Polikiishka looked at Akulina and at the girl. " Directly ! What more does she want ? " he said, in such a simple way that Akulina's fears were allayed. "Maybe she wants to reward me! Tell her I will be there at once." He rose and went out. Akulina took a trough, put it on a bench, poured water into it from some pails that were standing at the door and from the hot kettle in the oven, rolled up her sleeves, and tried the water. " Come, Mdshka, I'll wash you." 440 POLIKUSHKA The angry, lisping girl bawled out loud. " Come, you brat, I want to put a new shirt on you. Stop your bawling ! Come, I have to wash your sister yet." In the meantime Polikiiskha stepped out ; he did not follow the girl, but went to another place. In the vestibule there was a straight staircase near the wall, which led to the loft. Upon coming out into the vestibule, Polikiishka looked around him ; seeing nobody there, he bent down and, almost on a run, nimbly and swiftly climbed the staircase. " What can be the cause of Polikushka's not coming ? " the lady said, impatiently, turning to Dunyasha, who was scratching the head for her. " Where is Polikiishka ? Why is he not coming ? " Aksyutka again flew into the yard, and again darted into the vestibule and ordered Polikushka to come to the lady. " He went long ago," replied Akulina, who, having washed Mashka, had just put her suckhng babe into the trough, wetting his scanty hair, in spite of his shrieks. The boy cried, frowned, and tried to catch something with his impotent Httle hands. Akulina with one of her big hands supported his plump, dimpled, soft back, and with the other washed him. " See whether he has not fallen asleep somewhere," she said, looking restlessly around. Just then the joiner's wife, unkempt, with bared breast, holding up her skirts, was going up to the loft to fetch the clothes that were drying there. Suddenly a shriek of terror was heard in the loft, and the joiner's wife, like one demented, with closed eyes, on her hands and feet, more slid down on her back, than ran down the staircase. " Polikushka ! " she cried. Akulina dropped her babe. " He has hung himself ! " roared the joiner's wife. POLIKtrSHKA 441 Akulina ran out into the vestibule, not noticing that the child rolled backward, like a ball of twine, and, with his feet in the air, fell with his head into the water. " He is hanging — on a rafter," shouted the joiner's wife, but, upon seeing Akulina, she stoppSd. Akulina ran to the stairs ; before she could be held back, she rushed up and, with a terrible cry, fell, hke a dead body, on the stairs, and would have been killed if the people who had assembled from aU sides had not caught her. XI. For a few moments nothing could be made out in the universal turmoil. There were no end of people there ; all cried, all spoke, and the children and old women wept. Akulina lay unconscious. Finally the men, the joiner and the clerk, who had run up to the place, went up-stairs, and the joiner's wife told for the twentieth time : " I was not thinking of anything as I went for the pelerines ; suddenly I looked like this : I saw a man ; again I looked : a cap, turned inside out, was lying pear by. His legs were dangling. A chill ran up my spine. It is no small matter to see a man hanging, and it was I who saw him. I do not remember myself how I got down. God saved me by a miracle. Truly, the Lord has shown me His mercy. It is no small matter, considering the height and the dizziness ! I should have been killed." The people who had gone up-stairs told the same. Polikiishka was hanging down from a rafter, in nothing but his trousers and shirt, strangled by the rope which he had taken off the cradle. His cap, turned inside out, lay near him. The camel-hair coat and the fur coat lay folded up near by. His feet reached to the floor, and there were no signs of life in him. Akulina regained her senses and again made for the staircase, but people did not let her go up. " Mother, S^mka has dlowned himself," suddenly screeched the lisping girl in the comer. Akulma again plunged forward and ran into the corner. The child lay motionless on his back in the trough, and his little legs did not stir. Akulina grabbed him, but the child did not 442 POLIKUSHKA 443 breathe nor move. Aktilma threw him on the bed, leaned on her arms, and burst forth into such a loud, sonorous and terrible laugh, that Mashka, who at first had started laughing herself, closed her ears and, weeping, ran out into the vestibule. The people, sobbing and crying, crowded into the " corner." The child was taken out and rubbed, but all in vain. Akulina tossed on the bed and roared so loud that all who heard that laughter felt terribly. Only now, as one saw such a variegated crowd of men and women, of old men .and children, crowding in the vestibule, could one get an idea what a mass of people and what kind of people were Hving in the " wing " of the manor. All were bustling ; all were talking ; many were weeping, and nobody was doing anything. The joiuer's wife still found some people who had not heard her story, and again told of how her tender feelings had been startled by the unexpected sight, and how God had saved her from falling down-stairs. The old butler, in a woman's jacket, told of how a woman had been drowned in the pond in the lifetime of the late master. The clerk sent messengers to the commissary and the priest and appointed a guard. The girl from up there, Aksyiitka, stood looking with bulging eyes through the hole in the loft, and, although she could see notliing, was unable to tear herself away in order to go to the lady. Agafya Mikhaylovna, the old lady's former chambermaid, asked for tea to quiet her nerves with, and was weeping. Grandmother Anna with her experienced, plump hands, saturated with sweet oil, put the body of the child on the table. The women stood about Akulina and looked silently at her. The children, pressing themselves into the comers, kept looking at their mother and screaming, then grew silent, then again looked at her, and pressed themselves farther into the corners. Boys and men were gathered near the porch ; they were 444 POLIKUSHKA looking with frightened faces through the doors and windows, seeing nothing and understandiag nothing, and aaking each other what was up. One said that the joiner had chopped off his wife's foot with an axe. Another said that the washerwoman had brought triplets into the world. A third told them that the cook's cat had gone mad and had bitten a number of people. But the truth began to spread by degrees, and finally reached the lady's ears. It seems they had not time to prepare her for it : rude Egdr simply reported the fact to her, by which he so unnerved her that she could not calm herself for a long time afterward. The crowd was beginning to quiet down ; the joiner's wife got the samovar ready and brewed some tea, whereat the strangers who had received no invitation regarded it as improper to stay any longer. The boys were beginning to fight at the porch ; all knew what the matter was and, crossing themselves, were beginning to disperse, when suddenly somebody called out, " The lady ! The lady ! " and all again assembled and crowded together, in order to make a gangway for her ; they wanted all of them to see what she was going to do. The lady was pale and in tears ; she crossed the thresh- old into the vestibule, into Akulina's corner. Do2ens of heads were crowded together and looking through the door. One pregnant woman was squeezed so badly that she screamed ; but, immediately taking advantage of this circumstance, she pushed herself forward, Indeed, it was worth while seeing the lady in Akulina's " corner " ! This was for the manorial servants the same as red fires at the end of a show. It is great when it comes to burn- ing red fires, and so it was great to see the lady in silk and laces go into Akulina's corner. The lady walked up to Akulina and took her hand ; but Akulina drew it back. The old manorial servants shook their heads in disap- proval. POLIKUSHKA 445 " Akulina," said the lady, " you have children, so take care of yourself." Akulina burst out laughing, and got up. " All my children are like silver, like silver — I have no paper," she muttered, in rapid speech. " I told PoH- kiishka not to take any paper, now they have smeared you, they have smeared you with tar, with tar and soap, lady. No matter how bad the scars are, they will come off." And she burst forth into a more terrible laugh. ,The lady turned around and asked them to fetch the surgeon'^ assistant and a mustard poultice. "Let me have some cold water ! " and she went to look for it her- self ; but, upon seeing the dead child, before which stood Grandmother Anna, the lady turned aside, and all saw her cover her t&,ce with her handkerchief and weep. Grandmother Anna (What a pity the lady did not see it! She would have appreciated it, for it was done for her sake) covered the baby with a piece of linen, straightened out his little hands with her plump, nimble hand, and shook her head so, and stretched her lips, and blinked significantly, and sighed so that one could see what a good heart she had. But the lady did not see it, and could not see it. She sobbed ; she had a fit of hysterics and had to be helped out into the vestibule and taken home. " That's all there was of her," thought some, and began to disperse. Akulina kept laughing and talkiug nonsense. She was taken to another room : they bled her and put mustard poultices on her and ice' on her head ; but she understood as little what was going on, and did not weep, but laughed and said and did such things that the good people who were attending her could not keep from laugh- ing themselves. xn. It was not a merry holiday in the Pokrdvskoe manor. Although it was a beautiful day, the people did not come out for a stroll; the girls did not assemble in order to sing songs ; the factory lads, who had come from town, did not play the accordion, or the balalayka, and did not play with the girls. All were sitting in their corners, and if they were talking, they spoke as 'softly as though the evil one were present and could hear them. In the daytime it was still tolerable ; but in the even- ing, as it grew dark, the dogs began to whine, and, as though portending misfortune, a wind rose and blew into the chimneys, and such a terror fell upon the inhabitants of the manor yard that whoever had candles lighted them before the images ; who had a " corner " to himself went to ask permission to stay overnight with his neigh- bours, where there were many people ; and who had to go to the stalls, did not go, and without pity left the cattle without feed for that night. All the holy water, which the people kept in bladders, was used up that night. Many even heard somebody walking on the lofts with heavy tread, and the blacksmith saw a dragon fly straight upon the loft. In Polikushka's comer there was no one ; the children and the demented woman were transferred elsewhere. There lay only the body of the child, and two old women and a pilgrim were there ; the pilgrim in her zeal read the psalter, not over the babe, but just on the occasion of the whole calamity. The mistress had commanded it. 44d POLIKUSHKA 447 These old women and the pilgrim themselves heard, at the end of every division in the psalter, the rafter creak- ing up-stairs and somebody groaning. Then they said, " Let God rise," and everything grew quiet again. The joiner's wife called a relative of hers to stay with her that night, but she did not go to sleep and drank up aU the supply of tea which she had laid in for a week. They, too, heard the rafters creak up-stairs and what seemed to be bags falling down. The peasants on guard gave courage to the manorial servants, or else they would have died from fear that night. The peasants lay in the vestibule on hay, and later affirmed that they, too, had heard wonderful things in the loft, although they had been doing nothing that night but calmly discussing the conscription, munching bread, scratching themselves, and, above all, filling the vestibule with their peculiar peasant odour, so that the joiner's wife, passing by them, spit out and berated them for being louts. However it be, the dead man was hanging aU the time in the loft, and it seemed as though the evil spirit that night had veiled the "wing" with his immense pinion, displaying his power and more than ever coming near to those people. At least all of them felt so. I do not know whether that fear was just. I even think that it was not at aU. I think that if a bold fellow had taken a candle or lantern that night and, protecting himself or even not protecting himself with the sign of the cross, had walked up to the loft, and, with the candle-light slowly dispelling the terror of the night in front of him and lighting up the rafters, the sand, the chimney with its covering of spider-webs, and the pelerines, which the joiner's wife had forgotten there, — if he had made his way up to Polikiishka, and if, not submitting to the feel- ing of terror, he had raised the lantern to the level of his face, he would have seen the familiar, haggard body, with its legs standing on the floor (the rope had slipped), 448 POLIKUSHKA lifelessly bent sidewise, with the collar of the shirt, underneath which the cross could not be seen, unbuttoned, and his head drooping on his breast, and his good face with open, dead eyes, and his meek, guilty smile, and solemn calm and quiet over everything. Eeally, the joiner's wife, who, pressing into the corner of her bed, with dishevelled hair and frightened eyes was telling that she had heard bags fall, was by far more terrible than PoHkiishka, although he had taken off his cross and had put it on the rafter. " Up there," that is, in the manor, there reigned the same terror as in the " wing." The lady's room smelled of eau de Cologne and medicine. Dunydsha was heating yellow wax for a plaster. What the plaster was for I do not know ; but I do know that the plaster was made every time the lady was ill. Just now she was unnerved to the point of illness. To keep up Dunyasha's courage, her aunt had come to stay over- night with her. These three and the girl were sitting in the maids' room and speaking softly. " Who will go for the oil ? " asked Dunydsha. " I won't go for anything in the world, Avddtya Mkolaevua," repUed the second girl. " Don't say that ! You will go with Aksyiitka." " I will run down by myself," said Aksyiitka, imme- diately losing her courage. Aksyiitka with one hand raised her skirt and, not being able on that account to swing both her arms, swung her one arm twice as violently across the line of motion and darted away. She shuddered and felt that if she heard or saw anything, even if it were her own living mother, she would be undone from fear. She flew with closed eyes over the familiar path. XIII. " Is the lady sleeping or not ? " a thick peasant voice" suddenly spoke near Aksyutka. She opened her eyes, which had been closed, and saw somebody's figure which, she thought, was taller than the " wing " ; she screamed, and bolted back so that her skirt had no time to fly after her. With one bound she was on the porch, with another in the maids' room, where she with a savage cry threw herself down on the bed. Duuydsha, her aunt, and the second girl almost died from fear; but before they had fully recovered, slow, heavy, indecisive steps were heard in the vestibule and at the door. Dunyasha made for the lady's room, dropping the plaster ; the second girl hid herself behind some skirts hanging on the wall ; the aunt, more courageous than the rest, was on the point of holding down the door, but it opened and a peasant entered the room. It was Dutlov in his boat-Hke boots. He paid no attention to the terror of the girls. He searched with his eyes for the images, and, not having discovered the small image which was hanging in the left corner, he made the sign of the cross toward a cup- board, put his cap on the window, and, sticking his hand far into his short fur coat, as though wishing to scratch himself under the arm, fetched out the letter with the five brown seals with the representations of an anchor upon them. Dunyasha's aunt clasped her breast. She barely had strength to say : 449 450 POLl^USttKA " You have frightened me, Naumych ! 1 can't spea-eak a word. I thought the end had come." " How could you do it ? " said the second girl, moving out from behind the skirts. "You have disturbed the lady, too," said Dunyasha, coming in through the door. "What makes you come to the girls' porch, without asking permission ? A regular lout!" Without excusing himself, Dutldv repeated that he "wanted to see the lady. " She is not well," said Dunyasha. Just then Aksyiitka snorted with such an indecently loud laugh that she had to hide her head in the pillows of the bed, from which she, in spite of the threats of Dunyasha and her aunt, could not take it away without blurting out again, as if something were bursting in her pink breast and red cheeks. It seemed so funny to tier that all should have been frightened, — and she again hid her head and, as though in spasms, twisted her shoes and bobbed up with her whole body. Dutldv stopped and looked attentively at her, as though to give himself an account of what was going on in her, but, not being able to make out a thing, he turned aside and continued his speech. " It is, as I say, a very important matter," he said. " Tell her that a peasant has found the letter with the money." " What money ? " Before going in to report, Dunydsha read the address, and asked Dutldv where and how he had found the money which Polikiishka was to have brought home from town. Having found out all the details and pushing the errand-girl, who did not stop snorting, into the vestibule, Dunyasha went to the lady, but, to Dutldv's surprise, the lady did riot receive him, and did not say anything sensible to Dunyasha. POUKtJSHKA 451 " I know nothing, and do not want to know," said the lady, "what peasant and what money you are talking of. I cannot and do not want to see anybody. I want him to leave me in peace." '' What am I to do ? " said Dutldv, turniag around the envelope. "It's no small amount. What does it say here ? " he asked Dunyasha, who again read the address for him. Dutldv somehow could not believe it. He hoped that, maybe, the money did not belong to the lady, and that the address had not been properly read to him. But Dunyasha read the same. He sighed, put the envelope in the bosom of his coat, and was getting ready to leave. " I suppose I shall have to give it to the commissary," he said. " Wait, I will try once more," Dunydsha stopped him, having carefully watched the disappearance of the envel- ope in the bosom. " Let me have the letter ! " Dutldv fetched it out again, but did not at once deposit it in Dunydsha's outstretched hand. " Tell her that Sem^n Dutldv found it on the road." " But let me have it ! " "I thought it was just a letter, but a soldier read it and said that it had money in it." " Let me have it ! " "I did not even dare go home on account of it — " again said Dutldv, without parting from the precious envelope. "Tell her so." Dunyasha took the envelope, and went with it again to the lady. " Ah, my God, Dunyasha ! " said the lady, in a reproach- ful voice. " Don't tell me about that money ! When I think of that baby — " " The peasant does not know to whom you commajid bjm to give it," again said Dunydshe^. 452 POLIKIJSHKA The lady opened the envelope, shuddered, the moment she saw the money, and reflected for awhile. " How terrible money is ! How much evil it does ! " she said. " It is Dutldv, madam. Do you command him to go, or shall you deign to come out to see him ? Is all the money there ? " asked Dunyasha. " I do not want that money. This is terrible money. How much wrong it has done already! Tell him to keep it, if he wants to," the lady suddenly exclaimed, trying to find Dunyasha's hand. " Let him take it, and do with it what he pleases." " It is fifteen hundred roubles," remarked Dunyasha, smiling slightly like a child. " Let him take it all," impatiently repeated the lady. " Do you not understand me ? This is unlucky mouey, and don't you ever speak of it to me ! Let the peasant that found it take it ! Go, go now ! " Dunyasha went to the maids' room. ■-■- Is it all there ? " asked Dutlov. " Count it up yourself," said Dunyasha, giving him the envelope. " I am commanded to give it to you." Dutlov put his cap under his arm, and, bending over, began to count. " Haven't you an abacus ? " Dutldv understood that the lady did not know enough to count it up, and had ordered him to count it. " You can count it up at home. It is for you ! Your money ! " said Dunyasha, angrily. " ' I do not want to see it,' she said ; ' give to him who brought it ! ' " Without unbending his back, Dutldv fixed his eyes upon Dunyasha. Dunyasha's aunt clapped her hands. " Holy saints ! What luck God has given you ! Holy saints ! " The second girl could not believe it. POLIKUSHKA 453 '* Avddtya Nikolaevna, you are jesting." "There is.no jesting here. She commanded me to give it to the peasant — Take the money and go ! " said D.un- yasha, without concealing her anger. " It's grief to some and luck to others." " It's no trifling matter, — fifteen hundred roubles," said the aunt. " More," confirmed Dunyasha. " Well, I suppose you will place a ten-kopek candle before St. Nicholas," Dun- yasha remarked, scornfully. " Why don't you come to your senses ? It would be luck enough for a poor man ! But he has plenty of his own." ' Dutldv finally comprehended that it was no joke. He collected the money which he had laid out to count and put it back into the envelope ; but his hands were trem- bling, and he kept looking at the girls, to convince himself that it was not a joke. "I declare, he can't come to, he is so happy," said Dunyasha, letting him see that she despised both the peasant and the money. " Let me put it up for you ! " She was on the point of taking it ; but Dutldv would not let her; he crumpled the money, pushed it in deeper, and took his cap. " Are you happy ? " " I do not know what to say. It is just — ; " He did not finish his sentence; he only waved his hand, smiled, almost burst out in tears, and went out. The bell in the lady's room was rung. " WeU, did you give it to him ? " " I did." - "Was he happy?" " He was just like insane." " Ah, call him back ! I want to ask him how he found it. Call him in here. I can't go out." Dunyasha ran out and found the peasant in the vestibule. He had not yet put on his cap, but, bending over, having 454 POLIKUSHKA taken out his pouch, he was loosening its cords, while holding the money in his teeth. It may have appeared to him that so long as the money was not in the pbuch it was not his. When Dunyasha called him he became frightened. " What is it, Avdotya — Avdotya Nikolaevna ? Does she want to take it back ? If you will take my part, upon my word, I will bring you some honey." " As you have brought it to me before." The door was again opened, and the peasant was taken before the lady. He did not feel happy. " Oh, she will take it back!" he thought fpr some reason, lifting his feet as though walking through high grass, and trying not to make a noise with his bast shoes, as he passed through the rooms. He did not understand a thing that was going on around him. He passed by a mirror, saw some flowers, and a peasant in bast shoes lifting his feet, and a gentleman painted with eyes, and some kind of a green vat, and something white — Behold, that some- thing white began to speak, — it was the lady. He could not inake out a thing, — he only bulged out his eyes. He did not know where he was, and everything appeared as though in a fog. " Is it you, Dutlov ? " " Yes, madam. Just as it was, so I left it," he said. " I am not at all glad, I swear to God ! I just wore out the horse — " " It is your luck," she said, with a contemptuous but kindly smile. " Take it ! " He only roUed his eyes. " I am glad that you got it. May God grant you to use it for your good ! Well, are you glad ? " " Of course I am ! I am very glad, madam ! I will pray for you all the time. I am so glad that our lady, thank God, is living. It was not my fault." " How did you find it ? " POUKUSHKA 455 " It means that I always could have tried for the lady in honour, and not — " " He is all mixed up, lady," said Dunyasha. " I had taken my nephew to have him enlisted ; I was coming home, when I found it on the road. Polikiishka must have dropped it." " Go, go, my dear ! I am glad." " I am so glad, madam ! " said the peasant. Then he said that he had not thanked her properly, and that he did not know what he ought to do. The lady and Dunydsha smiled. He again stepped as if going through the grass, and had the hardest time to keep him- self from starting on a trot. It still appeared to him that they might stop him and take it away from him. XIV. After coining out into the air, Dutldv walked off the road to the lindens, ungirt himself in order to get more easily at his pouch, and began to put the money away. His lips trembled, stretching out more and more, although he did not speak a single word. After having put away the money and fastened his belt, he made the sign of the cross and went, like a drunken man, reeling along the road : he was so occupied with the thoughts that burst upon him. Suddenly he saw before him the form of a peasant who was coming toward him. He called out to him : it was Efim who was standing sentinel near the wing, with a club in his hand. " Oh, Uncle Sem&," Efim exclaimed, cheerfully, coming nearer, for he felt ill at ease by himself. " Well, uncle, have you taken down the recruits ? " " I have. What are you doing there ? " " I have to guard Polikushka, who has hung himself." « Where is he ? " "There, in the loft, they say, he is hanging," repHed Efim, pointing with the club to the roof of the wing in the dark. Dutldv looked in the direction of the arm, and, although he did not see a thing, he frowned, blinked, and shook his head. " The commissary has come," said Efim, " so the coach- man said. They will take him off at once. It is a terrible thing at night, uncle. I won't go up-stairs at night for anything in the world, if they ask me. Eg6r Mikhdylo- vich may kill me, but I won't go." " What a sin, what a sin ! " repeated Dutldv, apparently 466 POLIKUSHKA 4&7 for propriety's sate, without thinking of what he was saying, and wanting to go on; hut the voice of Egor Mikhaylovich stopped him. " Oh, there, guard, come here ! " shouted Egdr Mikhay- lovich from the porch. Efim replied to him. " Who was that other peasant with you ? " " Dutl<5v." " You, Sem^n, come here ! " Upon Coming nearer, Dutlov, in the light of the lantern, recognized Egor Mikhaylovich and a small man, an official in a cap with a cockade and uniformed overcoat : it was the commissary. " The old man will go with us," said Egor Mikhaylovich, when he saw him. It gave the old man a twinge, but there was no getting out of it. " You, Efim, young lad, run up to the loft where the man has hanged himself and fix the staircase so that his Honour can pass over it." Efim, who had said that he would not go up to the wing for anything in. the world, now ran toward it, clat- tering with his bast shoes as though they were logs. The commissary struck fire and lighted his pipe. He lived within two verstsi and had just been hauled up by the chief of the rural police for drunkenness, and so he now was in a fit of zeal : having arrived at ten o'clock at night, he wanted immediately to examine the dead man. Egor Mikhaylovich asked Dutl6v what he was doing there. On their way up, Dutlov told the clerk about the money which he had found and what the lady had done to him. Dutldv said that he came to ask Eg6r Mikhdylovich's permission. To Dutldv's terror, the clerk demanded the envelope, and looked at it. The commiS' sary,too, took the envelope into his hands and briefly and abruptly asked for the details: 458 POLlKtJSHKA " Well, the money is gpne," thought Dutldv, and was beginning to prove his innocence. But th6 commissary gave him back the money. " What luck for this tawny-handed fellow ! " he said. " It comes pat to him," said Egdr Mikhaylovicbj " he has just taken his nephew up to have him enlisted : now he will buy him off." " Ah ! " said the commissary, walking ahead. " Will you buy Ilyd off ? " asked Egdr Mikhaylovich. " How can I ? Will there be enough money for that ? And, besides, it is too late." " As you please," said the clerk. They both followed the commissary. They went to the wing, in the vestibule of which the malodorous guards were waiting with a lantern. Dutldv walked behind them. The guards looked guilty, which could be due only to the smell which they had raised there, for they had done no wrong. All were silent. " Where ? " asked the commissary. " Here," Egdr Mikhaylovich said, in a whisper. " Efim, you are a young lad, so go ahead with the lantern ! " Efim had already fixed the upper deal and seemed to have lost all fear. Stepping over two and three steps at a time, he with cheerful face marched ahead, now and then turning back and with the lantern lighting up the way for the commissary. Egdr Mikhaylovich came after the commissary. Dutldv, who had put one foot on the staircase, drew a sigh, and stopped. About two minutes passed, and their steps died down in the loft ; evidently they had reached the body. " Uncle, they are calling you," Efim called down through the hole. Dutldv ascended the stairs. Only the busts of the commissary and of Egdr Mikhaylovich could be seen back of the rafter in the light of the lamp ; back of them some- body else was standing with his back to him. It was POLIKUSHKA 459 Polikiishka. DutloV climbed over a beam, and, crossing himself, stopped. " Turn him around, boys," said the commissary. Nobody stirred. " Efim, you are a young lad," said Egdr Mikhdylovich. The young lad stepped over the beam, and, turning Polikiishka around, stood near by, looking with a most cheerful glance now at Polikushka and now at the author- ities, as one who is showing an albino or Julia Pastrana looks now at the public and now at the object of his show, ever ready to fulfil the wishes of the public. " Turn him around once more ! " Polikushka was swung around once more ; he shghtly swayed his hand and stirred up the sand with his foot. " Take Mm down ! " " Do you want the rope cut, Vasili Borisovich ? " said Egdr Mikhaylovich. " Let us have an axe, boys ! " The guards and Dutlov had to be commanded twice to put their hands to it; but the young lad handled Poli- Isiushka as though he were a carcass of a sheep. Finally the rope was cut, and the body taken down and covered up. The commissary said that on the morrow the physi- cian would come, and dismissed the people. XV. DuTLOV went to his house, moving his Jips. At first he felt ill at ease, but in the measure as he approached the village, this feeling passed away, and the sensation of joy more and more penetrated his soul. In the village could be heard songs and drunken voices. DutWv never drank and now went straight home. It was late when he entered his hut. His wife was asleep. His elder son and the grandchildren were sleeping on the oven, while his second son slept in the storeroom. Ilya's wife only was not asleep: she was sitting on a bench in a dirty, every-day shirt, and with uncovered hair, and was weep- ing. She did not get up to open the door for the uncle, but only wept the louder and pronounced lamentations. According to the opinion of the old woman, she lamented very well and eloquently, although . on account . of her youth she could not have had much experience in the matter. The old woman got up and fixed a supper for her hus- band. Dutlov sent Ilya's wife away from the table. " Stop it, stop it ! " he said. Aksinya rose, and, lying down on a bench, did not cease weeping. The old woman silently set the table for him, and then cleaned all off. Dutlov did not say a word. After his prayer, he belched, washed his hands, and, taking the abacus down from the nail, went into the storeroom. There he said something in a whisper to the old woman ; then she came out, and he began to rattle with the abacus. Finally he slammed to the lid of a coffer and climbed into the space under the 460 POLIKUSHKA 461 floor. He was long busy in the storeroom and under the floor. When he came back the room was dark, the hght of the torch having gone out. The old woman, who in the daytime was quiet and listless, now was rolling on the hanging-bed and snoring as loud as she could. Ily^'s tearful wife was also asleep and breathing softly. She slept on the bench, without having undressed herself, just as she was, and without having put anything under her head. Dutl6v began to pray, then looked at Ilya's wife, shook his head, put out the torch, belched once more, climbed on the oven, and lay down with his little grandson. In the dark he threw down the bast shoes and lay down on his back, looking at the cross-beam above the oven, which was barely visible above his head, and hstening to the cockroaches that were swarming along the wall, and to the sighs, the snoring, the rubbing of one leg against another, and the sounds of the cattle in the yard. He could not fall asleep for a long time. The moon rose; it grew hghter in the room and he could see Aksinya in the corner, and something else, which he could not make out. He did not know whether it was p camel-hair coat which his son had forgotten, or whether it was a vat which the women had placed there, or a man standing there. He probably dozed off, but he began to gaze at it again. Apparently the gloomy spirit, who had led Polikiishka to commit that terrible deed and whose presence all the manorial servants felt on that night, had evidently reached with his pinion down to the village, to Dutldv's hut, where lay the money which he had used for Polikushka's ruin. At least Dutldv felt his presence, and it unnerved him: he could neither sleep nor get up. Seeing some- thing which he could not make out, he recalled Ilyd with his. tied arms, and Aksinya with her eloquent lamenta- 462 POLIKUSHKA tion, and Polikushka with the swinging arm-wrists. Sud- denly it appeared to the old man that somebody had passed by the window. " What is that ? Is the elder coming to see me ? " he thought. "What does he want now?" thought the old man, hearing steps in the vestibule. " Did the old woman not latch the door as she went out to the vestibule ? " The dog barked in the back yard, and he kept walking through the vestibule, as the old man later told, as though he were looking for a door ; then he passed on, began to grope along the wall, stumbled against a vat, which made a hollow noise. Again he began to grope, as though look- ing for the latch. Now he held it. A shiver ran up the old man's body. Now he pressed the latch and came in, in human form. Dutlov knew that it was he. He wanted to, make the sign of the cross, but could not. He went up to the table, upon which lay the table-cloth, pulled it off, threw it on the floor, and climbed on the oven. The old man saw at once that he had assumed Polikiishka's form. He grinned, and his hands dangled. He climbed up on the oven and threw himself straight on the old man and began to choke him. " It is my money," said Polikushka. " Let me go, I will not do it," Sem^n wanted to say, but could not. Polikdshka choked him with all the weight of a stone mountain pressing on his chest. Dutl6v knew that if he said a prayer, he would let him go, and he knew what kind of a prayer it was, but he could not pronounce it. His grandchild was sleeping near him. The boy gave a piercing shriek and began to cry : his grandfather had jammed hiin against the wall. The boy's cry released the old man's lips. " Let God rise," said Dutlov. He released him a little. " And his enemies will be dispersed," lisped Dutlov. He went down from the oyeji. Dutldv hea,rd hio} POLIKUSBKA 4^3 strike the floor with both his feet. Dutldv kept saying prayers which he knew, saying them one after the other. He went to the door, past . the table, and so slammed it that the whole house shook. But all were asleep, except the old man and his grandson. The old man kept saying his prayers and trembling with his whole body ; the grandson wept, falHng asleep, and pressed close to his grandfather. Everything was quiet again. The old man lay motion- less. A cock crowed behind the wall, right under Dut- lov's ear. He heard the hens stirring and the young cock trying to crow after the old one, but making a failure of it. Something moved over the old man's legs : it was the cat. It jumped down with its soft feet on the floor and began to mew near the door. The old man got up. He raised a window; outside it was dark and muddy ; a wagon hmber was standing under the window. He went barefoot, making the sign of the cross, out into the yard to the horses. It was at once apparent that the master had come. The mare which was standing under the penthouse near a buttress had become entangled in her halter, had spilled some cliafi", and, raising her leg and turning her head back, was waiting for her master. The colt had rolled himself on the manure heap. The old man raised him on his feet, disentangled the mare, added some feed, and went back to the house. The old woman got up and lighted a torch. " Wake the boys, I will go to town," and, lighting a wax taper from the images, he crawled with it into the space below the floor. Not only at Dutlov's house, but in the houses of all the neighbours, the fires were made, when he came out from it. The boys were up and dress- ing thenlselves. The women went in and out with buckets and pails of milk. Ignat was hitching up the cart. His second son was greasing another. The young 464 POLIKUSHKA woman no longer wept, but, having dressed herself and put on her kerchief, was sitting on a bench in the room, waiting for the time when she would go to town to bid her husband farewell. The old man seemed to be unusually stern. He did not say a word to any one, put on his new caftan, girded himself, and with all of Polikiishka's money went to Eg6r Mikhdylovich. " Don't lose time ! " he shouted to Ignat, who was turn- ing a wheel on a raised and greased axle. "I will be back at once, so let everything be ready ! " The clerk had just got up and was drinking tea. He himself was getting ready to go to town to present the recruits. " What do you want ? " he asked. " Eg6r Mikhaylovich, I want to buy off the lad. Do me the favour! You told me the other day that you knew a volunteer in town. Instruct me what to do, for we are ignorant." " Well, have you thought the matter over ? " " I have, Egdr Mikhaylovich : I am sorry for him, he is my brother's son. Whatever he may be, I pity him. This money is the cause of too much sinning. Do me the favour, instruct me ! " he said, bowing as far as his waist. Egdr Mikhaylovich, as always in such cases, for a long time thoughtfully and silently smacked his lips, and, having considered the matter, wrote two notes and told him how and what to do in town. When Dutlov came home, the young woman had already left with Igndt, and the dappled, pot-bellied mare, all hitched up, was standing at the gate. He broke a stick out from the wattled fence, wrapped himself in his coat, seated himself in the cart box, and started his horse. Dutlov drove his mare so fast that she at once lost all her belly, and Dutldv no longer looked at her, so POLIKUSHKA 465 as not to be touched to sympathy. He was vexed by the thought that he would somehow be too late at the con- scription, that Ily^ would be enlisted, and that the devil's money would be left on his hands. I shall not describe in detail all the adventures of Dutldv on that morning; I will only say that he had unusual bad luck. The master, to whom Egdr Mikh^y- lovich had given him a note, had a volunteer all ready, who was indebted to him to the amount of twenty-three roubles and who had been approved of by the military board. The master wanted four hundred for him, and a burgher, who had been trying to get him for the last three weeks, had offered three hundred for him. Dutldv finished the matter in a very few words. " Will you take three twenty-five ? " he said, stretching out his hand, but with such an expression that it was evident that he was ready to add more immediately. The master pulled his hand away and contiaued to ask four hundred, "Won't you take three and a quarter?" repeated Dutldv, seizing the master's right hand with his left and threatening to come down on it with his right. " Won't you take it ? God be with you ! " he suddenly exclaimed, striking the master's hand and swinging his body away from him. " I suppose it has to be ! Take three and a half ! Get the receipt ready. Bring here the lad ! And here is the earnest. Two red bills, will that do ? " Dutldv ungirt himself and drew out the money. The master did not draw his hand back, but pretended not to be satisfied yet. He did not accept the earnest, and wanted him to stand treat for the company and the volunteer. "Don't sin," repeated Dutldv, pushing the money into his hand; "we shall all die," he repeated, in such a meek, persuasive, and confident tone that the master said: 466 POLIKUSHKA "Let it be!" and again clapped Dutldv's hand and began to pray. " God grant you luck ! " he said. The volunteer was wakened. He had been sleeping off a spree from the day before. They examined him and went with him to the office of the military board. The volunteer was merry, asked for rum, for which Dutl<5v gave him some money, and lost his courage only as they entered the vestibule of the government building. For a long time there stood in the vestibule the old master in a, blue cloak and the volunteer in a short fur coat, with raised eyebrows and bulging eyes. For a long time they kept whispering, trying to get somewhere, wish- ing to see somebody, for some unknown reason doffing their caps in front of every scribe, and in deep meditation listening to the decision which a scribe, whom the master knew, brought out to them. All hope to get the mat- ter settled on that day was abandoned, and the volunteer was again growing merry and talkative, when Dutlov suddenly espied Eg6r Mikhaylovich, to whom he at once clung, begging him with low obeisances to help him. Egor Mikhaylovich aided him so well that at about three o'clock the volunteer, to his great disgust and sur- prise, was taken into the enhstment-room, where under universal merriment, which for some reason was shared by all, from the guards to the president, he was undressed, shaved, dressed again, and let out through a door. Five minutes later Dutlov counted out the money, received a receipt, and, bidding the merchant and volunteer good-bye, went to his lodging to the merchant's, where the Pokrdv- skoe recruits were. 11yd and his young wife were sitting in a corner of the merchant's kitchen ; the moment the old man entered, they stopped talking and fixed their submissive, hostile glance upon him. As usual, the old man said his prayer, ungirt himself, fetched out the document, and called inte POLIKUSHKA 467 the room his eldest son Ignat and Ilya's mother, who were in the yard. " Don't sin, Ilya ! " he said, walking over to his nephew. " You told me a terrible word last night. Don't you know I pity fon ? If it had been in my power I should not have given you up. Now God has given me luck, and so I have not spared the money. Here is the docu- ment," he said, placing the receipt on the table and cautiously opening it with his crooked, unbending fingers. Into the room came all the Pokrdvskoe peasants, the merchant's workmen, and even strangers. All had guessed what was up, but no one interrupted the old man's solemn speech. " Here is the document ! I paid four hundred roubles for it. Don't blame your uncle." Ilya rose, but was silent, not knowing what to say. His lips quivered from agitation ; his old mother went up to him, sobbing, and wanted to fall around his neck ; but the old man slowly and commandingly pushed her hand aside and continued speaking. "You told last night a word," the old man repeated once more, " and with that word you have, so to speak, stuck a knife into my heart. Your father, dying, entrusted you to me, and you had been like my own son to me, and if I have in any way offended you, we are all living in sin. Is it not so. Orthodox people ? " he turned to the peasants who were standing around him. " Here is also your own mother, and your young wife : here is the receipt. God take the money ! Forgive me, for Christ's sake ! " Turning back the flap of his camel-hair coat, he slowly knelt down and bowed down to the ground before Ily^ and his vrife. The young people tried in vain to keep him back : he did not get up until his head had touched the floor, after which he adjusted his clothes and sat down on a bench. Ilya's mother and wife wept with joy ; in the crowd were heard words of approval. " This is just 468 POUKUSHKA and godly," Said one. " What is money ? You can't buy a lad for money," said another. " What a joy ! " said a third, "in short, he is a just man." Only the peasants who were to be enlisted as recruits said nothing and silently went out into the yard. Two hours later the carts of the Dutldvs left the suburb of the town. In the first of these, drawn by the dappled mare with the big belly and sweaty neck, sat the old man and Ignat. In the back of the cart shook bundles of water-chestnuts and white-bread. In the second cart, which was not guided by any one, sat the staid and happy young woman and her mother-in-law, their heads covered with kerchiefs. The young woman kept -a wine-bottle under cover. Ily^, curling up, with his back to the horse and with a red face, was being jolted in the front of the cart, eating white-bread and never ceasing to talk. The voices and the rumble of the wheels on the pave- ment, and the snorting of the horses, — everything mingled in one merry sound. The horses, swaying their tails, increased their pace as they felt the nearness to home. Passers-by and people in vehicles looked back at the happy family. Just as they left the town, the Dutldvs overtook a party of recruits. A group of recruits stood around a dram- shop. One of them, with that unnatural expression which a shaven head gives a person, having his gray cap poised on the back of his head, was strumming a balaMyka ; another, without a cap, with a brandy-bottle in one hand, was dancing in the middle of the circle. Ignat got out of the cart to shorten the traces. All the Dutldvs watched the dancer, with curiosity, approval, and merriment. The recruit did not seem to see any one, but he felt that the admiring public was growing larger, and that increased his strength and agility. He danced briskly. He was frowning, his ruddy face Was motionless, and his mouth had stopped on a smile which had long POliIKUSHKA 469 ago lost its expression. It seemed as though all the powers of his soul were directed toward the one object of placing his feet as fast as possible now on the heels and now on the toes. Now and then he stopped and winked to the balaldyka player, who began more briskly to strum all the strings and even to strike the wood with his knuckles. The recruit stopped, but even in this motionless position he seemed to be dancing. Suddenly he began to move slowly, jerking his shoulders ; then he suddenly darted upward, squatted down while in full motion, and with a wild scream began to dance the national jig. The boys laughed ; the women shook their heads ; the men smiled approvingly. An old under-officer stood calmly near the dancer, vath an expression which said : " This is new to you, but quite old to us." The balalayka player was apparently tired ; he looked lazily around, as he struck a false chord, and suddenly knocked his fingers on the wood of the instrument, and the dance was over. " Oh, Al^kha," said the musician, pointing to Dutldv. " There is your godfather ! " "Where? My dear friend!" shouted Al^kha, that same recruit whom Dutldv had bought, and, tripping forward with tired feet and holding the brandy-bottle over his head, he moved up to the cart. "Mishka, a glass ! " he shouted. " Master ! My dear friend ! What a pleasure this is, indeed ! " he exclaimed, stieking his drunken head into the cart and treating the men and the women to brandy. The men drank it, but the women declined it. "My dear ones, what can I offer you ? " cried Al^kha, embracing the women. A pastry woman was standing in the crowd. Al^kha saw her ; he grabbed her tray and poured the contents of it into the cart. " Don't be afraid, T will pay you, — the devil," he screeched in a tearful voice, and immediately pulled out 470 POLIKUSHKA of his pocket a tobacco-pouch with money, which he threw to Mishka. He stood leaniag against the cart, and looked with moist eyes upon those who were sitting in it. " Which one is the mother ? " he asked. " Is it you ? I must treat her, too." He stood thinking for a moment, then he fumbled in his pocket, fetched from it a new, folded kerchief, untied the sash with which he was girded under his overcoat, quickly took the red kerchief down from his neck, crumpled the whole lot, and stuck them into the old woman's lap. " Here it is, a gift from me," he said, in a voice which grew ever more quiet. " What for ? Thank you, my dear ! What a simple lad," said the old woman, turning to old Dutlov, who had come up to their cart. Al^kha grew completely quiet, and, looking dull, as though falling asleep, dropped his head lower and lower. " I am going for you, and am perishing for you ! " he said. " And so I make you gifts." " I suppose you have a mother of your own," said one in the crowd. " What a simple lad ; what a pity ! " Al^kha raised his head. " I have a mother," he said. " I have a father too. They have disowned me. Listen, old woman ! " he added, taking the hand of Ilya's mother. "I have given you presents. Listen to me, for Christ's sake! Go to the village of Vddnoe! Ask there for old woman Nikd- novna ; she is my mother, you hear ? — and tell her, that old woman, old Nikdnova, the third hut from the end, a new well — tell her that Al^kha, her son — you know — Musician, let her go ! " he shouted. And he began to dance once more, speaking all the time, and smashing the bottle with what brandy there W^s l^ft in it against the floor. fOLlKUSHO. 471 Ignat climbed into the cart and wanted to drive on. " Good-bye, God grant you luck ! " said the old woman, wrapping herself in her fur coat. AMkha suddenly stopped. " Go to the devU ! " he shouted, threatening them with clenched- fists. " May your mother ! — " " O Lord ! " exclaimed Ilya's mother, making the sign of the cross. Ignat pulled the mare's reins, and the cart again rumbled along. AMkha, the recruit, stood ia the middle of the road and, clenching his fists, with an expression of rage in his face, cursed the peasants as much as he could. " What are you stopping for ? Go on ! Devils, blood- suckers ! " he cried. " You won't get away from me ! Devils ! Bast shoe churls ! — " With this word his voice faltered, and just as he stood, so he fell in a heap on the ground. The Dutldvs soon rode out into the open country and, upon looking back, no longer saw the recruits. After having driven about five versts at a slow pace, Ignat got down from his father's cart, in which the old man had fallen asleep, and walked by the side of Ilya's cart. The two emptied the brandy-bottle which they had brought with them from town. A little later, Ilya started a song and the women seconded him. Ignat shouted merrily, keeping time with the song. A merry post trdyka came rapidly toward them. The driver shouted briskly to his horses, as he came abreast with the two merry carts; the postilion looked back and winked to the red faces of the peasants and women, who were being jolted in the cart, singing a merry song. CONTENTS PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES: PAGE On Popular Education 3 On Methods of Teaching the Rudiments . 32 A Project of a General Plan for the Estab- lishment OF Popular Schools ... 60 Education and Culture 105 Progress and the Definition of Education . 152 Are the Peasant Children to Learn to Write FROM Us? 191 The School at YXsnaya PolyXna .... 225 Line^-Measurer 361 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES From the Periodical, Tdsnaya Poly ana 1862 ON POPULAR EDUCATION Popular education has always and everywhere afforded me an incomprehensible phenomenon. The people want education, and every separate individual unconsciously tends toward education. The more highly cultured class of people — society, the government — strive to trans- mit their knowledge and to educate the less educated masses. One would think that such a coincidence of necessities would satisfy both the class which furnishes the education and the one that receives it. But the very opposite takes place. The masses continually counteract the efforts made for their education by society or by the government, as the representatives of a more highly cul- tured class, and these efforts are frequently frustrated. Not to speak of the schools of antiquity, of India, Egypt, ancient Greece, and even Rome, the arrangement of which is as httle known to us as the popular opinion of those institutions, this phenomenon seems startling to us in the European schools from the days of Luther to our own times. Germany, the founder of the school, has not been able during a struggle of two hundred years to overcome the counteraction of the masses to the school. In spite of the appointments of meritorious invalid soldiers as teach- ers made by the Fredericks; in spite of the law which has been in force for two hundred years ; in spite of the 3 4 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES preparation according to the latest fashion, which teach- ers receive in seminaries ; in spite of the Germans' feeling of obedience to the law, — compulsory education even to this moment lies as a heavy burden upon the people, and the German governments cannot bring themselves to abolish the law of compulsory education. Germany can pride itself on the education of its people only by statisti- cal data, but the masses, as before, for the greater part take away from the schools nothing but a contempt for them. France, in spite of the fact that education had passed out of the hands of the king into those of the Directory, and from the hands of the Directory into those of the clergy, has succeeded as little as Germany, and even less, in the matter of popular education, so say the historians of education, judging from official accounts. Serious statesmen even now propose for France the introduction of compulsory education as the only means for overcoming the opposition of the masses. In free England, where the promulgation of such a law has been and always will be untliinkable, — which, how- ever, many regret, — society, and not the government, has struggled and still struggles with all possible means and more vigorously than elsewhere against the people's ex- pressed opposition to the schools. Schools are conducted there partly by the government and partly by private societies. The enormous dissemination and activity of these religio-philanthropic educational societies in England better than anything else prove the power of resistance with which the educating part of society there meets. Even the new country, the United States of North America, has not evaded that difficulty and has made education semi-compulsory. It is, of course, even worse in our own country, where the masses aie even more enraged against the idea of the school; where the most cultivated people dream of the ON POPULAR EDUCATION introduction of the German law of compulsory education ; and where all the schools, even those intended for the higher classes, exist only as bait for preferments of rank and for the advantages accruing therefrom. So far the children are everywhere sent to school by force, while parents are compelled to send their children to school by the severity of the law, or by cunning, or by offering them advantages, whereas the masses everywhere study of their own accord and regard education as good. How is this? The need of education lies in every man; the people love and seek education, as they love and seek the air for breathing ; the government and so- ciety burn with the desire to educate the masses, and yet, notwithstanding all the force of cunning and the per- sistency of governments and societies, the masses con- stantly manifest their dissatisfaction with the education which is offered to them, and step by step submit only to force. As at every conflict, so also here, it was necessary tq solve the question : What is more lawful, the resistance, or the action itself ? Must the resistance be broken, oi the action be changed ? So far, as may be seen from history, the question has been solved in favour of the state and the educating so- ciety. The resistance has been acknowledged to be unlawful, men seeing in it the principle of evil inherent in man, and so, without receding from its mode of action, that is, without receding from that form and from those contents of education, which society already possessed, the state has made use of force and cunning in order to annihilate the people's resistance. It must be supposed that the educating society had some reasons to know that the education which it pos- sessed in a certain form was beneficial for a certain people at a certain historical epoch. What were these reasons? What reasons has the 6 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES school of our day to teach this, and not that, thus, and not otherwise ? Always and in aU ages humanity has endeavoured to give and has given more or less satisfactory answers to these questions, and in our time this answer is even more necessary than ever. A Chinese mandarin who never leaves Pekiu may be compelled to learn by rote the say- ings of Confucius, and these saws may be beaten into children with sticks ; it was possible to do that in the Middle Ages, — but where are we to get in our time that strong faith in the iudubitableness of our knowledge, which would give us the right of forcibly educating the masses ? Let us take any mediaeval school, before and after Lu- ther ; let us take all the learned literature of the Middle Ages, — what strength of faith and of firm, indubitable knowledge of what is true and what false, is to be seen in those people ! It was easy for them to know that the Greek language was the only necessary condition of an education, because Aristotle was written in that language, the truth of whose propositions no one doubted for sev- eral centuries afterward. How could the monks help demanding the study of Holy Writ which stood on a firm foundation ? It was natural for Luther peremptorily to demand the study of Hebrew, for he knew full well that God Himself had in that language revealed the truth to men. Of course, so long as the critical sense of humanity was still dormant, the school had to be dogmatic, and it was natural for students to learn by heart the truths which had been revealed by God and by Aristotle, and the poetical beauties of Vei-gil and Cicero. For several centuries afterward no one could even imagine a truer truth or a more beautiful beauty. But what is the position of the school in our day, which has persevered in the same dogmatic principles, when, side by side with the class where the scholar learns by heart ON POPULAE EDUCATION < the truth about the immortaHty of the soul, they try to make it clear to him that the nerves, which are common to man and to a frog, are that which anciently used to be called a soul ; when, after the story of Joshua, the son of Nun, which is transmitted to him without explanations, he finds out that the sun had never turned around the earth ; when, after the beauties of Vergil have been explained to him, he finds the beauties in Alexandre Dumas, sold to him for five centimes, much greater ; when the only faith of the teacher consists in the conviction that there is no truth, that every- thing existing is sensible, that progress is good and back- wardness bad ; when nobody knows in what this universal faith in progress consists ? After aU this, compare the dogmatic school of the Middle Ages, where truths were indubitable, with our school, where nobody knows what truth is, and to which the children are nevertheless forced to go and the parents to send their children. More than that. It was an easy matter, for the mediseval school to know what ought to be taught, what first, and what later, and how it was all to be taught, so long as there was but one method and so long as all science centred in the Bible, in the books of St. Augustine, and in Aristotle. But how are we, in this endless variety of methods of instruction, proposed to us on all sides, in this immense mass of sciences and their subdivisions, which have been evolved in our time, — how are we to select one of the many proposed methods, one certain branch of the sciences, and, which is most difficult, how are we to select that sequence in the instruction of these sciences which would be sen- sible and just ? More than that. The discovery of these principles is the more difficult in our time, in comparison with the mediseval school, for the reason that then educa- tion was confined to one definite class which prepared itself to hve in certain well-defined conditions, while in our time, when the whole people has declared its right to be educated, 8 PEDAGOCHCAL ARTICLES it appears much more difficult and much more necessary for us to know what is needed for all these heterogeneous classes. What are these principles ? Ask any pedagogue you please why he teaches this and nob that, and this first and not later. If he will understand you, he will say that he knows the God-revealed truth, and that he considers it his duty to transmit it to the younger generation and to edu- cate it in those principles which are unquestionably true ; but he will give you no answer in regard to the subjects which do not refer to religious education. Another peda- gogue will explain to you the foundation of his school by the eternal laws of reason, as expounded by Fichte, Kant, and Hegel. A third will base his right of compulsion on the fact that the schools have always been compulsory and that, in spite of this, the result of these schools has been real education. Finally, a fourth, uniting all these princi- ples, will tell you that the school has to be such as it is, because religion, philosophy, and experience, have evolved it as such, and that that which is historical is sensible. All these proofs may be, it seems to me, divided into four classes : religious, philosophical, experimental, and historical. Education which has for its basis religion, that is, divine revelation, the truth and legaHty of which nobody may doubt, must indisputably be inculcated on the people, and in this — only in this — case is violence legal. Even thus missionaries do at the present time in Africa and in China. Thus they have proceeded up till now in the schools of the whole world as regards rehgious instruction, Cathohc, Protestant, Hebrew, Mohammedan, and so forth. But in our time, when religious education forms but a small part of education, the question what ground the school has to compel the young generation to receive rehgious instruction in a certain fashion remains unanswered from the religious point of view. ON POPULAR EDUCATION 9 Maybe the answer will be found in philosophy. Has philosophy as firm a foundation as religion ? What are these principles ? By whom, how, and when have these principles been enunciated ? We do not know them. All the philosophers search for the laws of good and evil; having discovered these laws, they, coming to pedagogy (they could none of them help touching upon that sub- ject), compel the human race' to be educated in conformity with these laws. But each of these theories, in a series of other theories, appears incomplete and furnishes only a new link in the perception of good and evil inherent in humanity. Every thinker expresses only that which has been consciously perceived by his epoch, consequently the education of the younger generation in the sense of tliis consciousness is quite superfluous : this consciousness is already inherent in the living generation. AH the pedagogico-philosophical theories have for their aim and problem the bringing up of virtuous men. How- ever, the conception of virtue either remains the same or develops infinitely, and, notwithstanding all the theories, the decadence and bloom' of virtue do not depend on edu- cation. A virtuous Chinaman, a virtuous Greek, Eoman, or Frenchman of our time, are either equally virtuous, or equally remote from virtue. The philosophical theories of pedagogics solve the ques- tion of how to bring up the best man according to a given theory of ethics, which has been evolved at one time or other, and which is accepted as indisputable. Plato does not doubt the truth of his own ethics, and on its basis he builds up education, and on that education he constructs the state. Schleiermacher says that ethics is not yet an accomplished science, and therefore the bringing up and the education must have for their aim the preparation of men who should be able to enter upon such conditions as they find in life, and who should at the same time be able tp WPrk vigorously upon tbejr future improvement. Edu- 10 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES cation in general, says Schleiermacher, has for its aim the presentation of a member all prepared to the state, church, public life, and science. Ethics alone, though it is not a finished science, gives us an answer to the. question what kind of a member of these four elements of life an educated man shall be. Like Plato, so all the philosophical pedagogues look to ethics for the problem and aim of education, some regard- ing this ethics as well-known, and others regarding it as an eternally evolving consciousness of humanity ; but not one theory gives a positive answer to the question of what and how to teach the masses. One says one thing, another another, and the farther we proceed, the more their propo- sitions become at variance. There arise at one and the same time various contradictory theories. The theologi- cal tendency struggles with the scholastic, the scholastic with the classical, the classical with the real, and at the present time all these directions exist, without contending with each other, and nobody knows what is true and what false. There arise thousands of various, strangest theories, based on nothing, like those of Eousseau, Pesta- lozzi, Froebel, and so forth; there appear side by side all the existing schools : the real, the classical, and the theological establishments. Everybody is dissatisfied with what is, and nobody knows that something new is needed and possible. If you follow out the course of the history of the phi- losophy of pedagogics, you will find in it, not a criterion of education, but, on the contrary, one common idea, which unconsciously lies at the foundation of all the pedagogues, in spite of their frequent divergence of opin- ion, — an idea which convinces us of the absence of that criterion. All of them, beginning with Plato and ending with Kant, tend to this one thing, to the liberation of the school from the historical fetters which weigh heavily upon it. They wish to guess what it is that man needs. ON POPULAR EDUCATION 11 and on these more or less correctly divined needs they build up their new school. Luther wants people to study Holy Writ in the original, and not according to the commentaries of the holy fathers. Bacon enjoins the study of Nature from Nature, and not from the books of Aristotle. Eousseau wants to teach life from life itself, as he understands it, and not from previously instituted experiments. Every step forward taken by the philosophy of history consists only in free- ing the school from the idea of instructing the younger generations in that which the elder generations considered to be science, in favour of the idea of instructing it in what are the needs of the younger generations. This one common and, at the same time, self-contradictory idea is felt in the whole history of pedagogy : it is common, because all demand a greater measure of freedom for the school; contradictory, because everybody prescribes laws based on his own theory, and by that very act that free- dom is curtailed. The experience of past and of existing schools ? But how can this experience prove to us the justice of the existing method of compulsory education ? We cannot know whether there is not another, more legal method, since the schools have heretofore not yet been free. It is true, we see at the highest rung of education (universities, public lectures) that education strives to become ever more free. But that is only a supposition. Maybe edu- cation at the lower steps must always remain compulsory, and maybe experience has proved to us that such schools are good. Let us look at these schools, without consulting the statistical tables of education in Germany, but by trying to know the schools, and learn their influence on the masses in reality. This is what reality has shown to me : A father sends his daughter or son to school against his wish, cursing 12 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES the institution which deprives him of his son's labour, and counting the days up to the time when his son will become schulfrei (this expression alone shows how the people look at the schools). The child goes to school with the conviction that the only power of which he knows, that of his father, does not approve of the power of the state, to which he submits upon entering school. The information which he receives from his older com- panions, who were in that institution before, is not cal- culated to enhance his desire to enter school. Schools present themselves to him as an institution for torturing children, — an institution in which they are deprived of their chief pleasure and youthful needs, of free motion ; where Gehorsam (obedience) and Buhe (quiet) are the chief conditions ; where he needs a special permission to go out " for a minute ; " where every misdeed is punished with a ruler (although in the official world corporal pun- ishment with the ruler is declared abolished) or by the continuation of study, — the more cruel condition for the child. School justly presents itself to the child's mind as an estabhshment where he is taught that which ' nobody understands ; where he is generally compelled to speak not his native patois, Mundart, but a foreign language; where the teacher for the greater part sees in his pupils his natural enemies, who, out of their own malice and that of their parents, do not wish to learn that which he has learned ; and where the pupils, on their side, look upon their teacher as their enemy, who only out of personal spite compels them to learn such difficult things. In such an institution they are obliged to pass six years and about six hours every day. What the results must be, we again see from what they really are, not according to the reports, but from actual facts. In Germany nine-tenths of the school population take ON POPULAR EDUCATION 13 away from school a mechanical knowledge of reading and writing, and such a strong loathing for the paths of science traversed by them that they never again take a book into their hands. Let those who do not agree with me show me the books that the people read ; even the Badenian Hebel, and the almanacs, and the popular newspapers are read as rare exceptions. As an incontrovertible proof that the masses have no education serves the fact that there is no popular hterature and, above all, that the tenth generation has to be sent to school with the same compulsion as the first. Not only does such a school breed loathing for educa- tion, but in these six years it inculcates upon these pupils hypocrisy and deceit, arising from the unnatural position in which the pupils are placed, and that condition of incoherence and confusion of ideas, which is called the rudiments of education. During my travels in France, Germany, and Switzerland I tried to discover the informa- tion held by pupils, their conception of school, and their moral development, and so I proposed the following ques- tions in the primary schools and outside of schools to former pupils : What is the capital of Prussia or Bavaria ? How many children did Jacob have ? Tell the story of Joseph ! In the schools they sometimes delivered themselves of tirades learned by rote from books; those who had fin- ished the course never answered the questions. If not learned by heart, I hardly ever could get an answer. In mathematics I discovered no general rule: they some- times answered well, and sometimes very poorly. Then I asked them to write a composition on what they had been doing on last Sunday. All the girls and boys, without a single exception, replied the same, that on Sunday they had used every possible chance of pray- ing, but that they had not played. This is a sample of tihe moral influence of the school. 14 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES To my question, which I put to grown men and women, why they did not study after leaving school, or why they did not read this or that book, they invariably rephed that they had all been to confirmation, that they had passed the quarantine of the school, and that they had re- ceived a diploma for a certain degree of education, — for the rudiments. In addition to that stupefying influence of school, for which the Germans have invented such a correct appella- tion, " verdummen," which properly consists in a con- tinuous contortion of the mental faculties, there is another, a more injurious influence, which consists in the fact that during the long study hours, when the cliild is dulled by his school life, he is for a long period of time, so valuable at his age, torn away from all those necessary conditions of development which Nature herself has made. One frequently hears or reads the statement that the home conditions, the rudeness of the parents, the field labour, the village games, and so forth, are the chief hindrances to school education. It may be that they really interfere with that school education, as pedagogues understand it ; but it is time to convince ourselves that these conditions are the chief foundation of all education, and that they are far from being inimical and hindrances to the school, but that they are its prime and chief movers. A child could never learn to distinguish the lines which form the distinctive letters, nor numbers, nor could he acquire the ability to express his thoughts, if it were not for these home conditions. It seems strange that this coarse domestic life should have been able to teach the child such difficult things and should all of a sudden become unfit to instruct him in such easy things as reading, writing, and so forth, and should even become injurious for such an instruction. The best proof of this is found in the comparison of a peasant boy who has ON POPULAR EDUCATION 15 never had any instraction with a gentleman's son who has been for five years under the care of a tutor : the superiority of mind and knowledge is always on the side of the first. More than that. The interest in knowing anything whatever and the questions which it is the problem of the school to answer are created only by these home conditions. Every instruction ought to be only an answer to the question put by life, whereas school not only does not call forth questions, but does not even answer those that are called forth by life. It eternally answers the same questions which had been put by humanity several centuries back, and not by the intellect of the child, and which he is not interested in. Such questions are : How was the world created ? Who was the first man ? What happened two thousand years ago ? What kind of a country is Asia ? What is the shape of the earth ? How do you multiply hundreds by thousands ? What will happen after death ? and so forth. But to the questions which life presents to him he receives no reply, the more so since, according to the police regulation of the school, he has no right to open his mouth even to ask to be allowed to go out, which he must do by signs iu order not to break the silence and not to disturb the teacher. The school is arranged in such a manner because the aim of the state school, established from above, is, for the main part, not to educate the people, but to educate them according to our method, — above all, that there should be schools, and plenty of them ! Are there no teachers ? Make them ! But there are not enough teachers. Very well ! let one teacher teach five hundred pupils : mScaniser I' instruction, Lancasterian method, pupil teachers. For this reason the schools which are estab- lished from above and by force are not a shepherd for the flock, but a flock for the shepherd. 16 tfiUAQOGtCAL ARTICLES ■ School is established, not in order that it should be con- venient for the children to study, but that the teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children's con- versation, motion, and merriment, which are their neces- sary conditions of study, are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, questions, conversation, and motion are prohibited. Instead of convincing themselves that, in order to act successfully on a certain object, it is necessary to study ic (in education this object is the free child), they want to teach just as they know how, as they think best, and in case of failure they want to change, not the manner of their teaching, but the nature of the child itself. From this conception have sprung and even now spring (Pesta- lozzi) such systems as would allow to mecaniser I'instruc- tion, — that eternal tendency of pedagogy to arrange matters in such a way that, no matter who the teacher and who the pupil may be, the method should remain one and the same. It is enough to look at one and the same child at home, in the street, or at school : now you see a vivacious, curious child, with a smile in his eyes and on his lips, sfceking instruction in everything, as he would seek pleasure, clearly and frequently strongly expressing his thoughts in his own words. ; r.ow again you see a worn- out, retiring being, with an expression of fatigue, terror, and ennui, repeating with the lips only strange words in a strange language, — a being whose soul has, like a snail, retreated into its house. It is enough to look at these two conditions in order to decide which of the two is mors advantageous for the child's development. That strange psychological condition which I will call the scholastic condition of the soul, and which all of us, unfortunately, know too well, consists in that all the higher faculties, imagination, creativeness, inventiveness, ON POPULAR EDUCATION Vl give way to other, semi-animal faculties, which consist in pronouncing sounds independently from any concept, in counting numbers in succession, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, in per- ceiving words, without allowing imagination to substitute images for these sounds, in short, in developing a faculty for crushing all higher faculties, so that only those might be evolved which coincide with the scholastic condition of fear, and of straining memory and attention. Every pupil is so long an anomaly at school as he has not fallen into the rut of this semi-animal condition. The moment the child has reached that state and has lost all his independence and originality, the moment there appear in him various symptoms of disease, — hypocrisy, aimless lying, dulness, and so forth, — he no longer is an anomaly : he has fallen into the rut, and the teacher begins to be satisfied with him. Then there happen those by no means accidental and frequently repeated phe- nomena, that the dullest boy becomes the best pupil, and the most intelligent the worst. It seems to me that this fact is sufficiently significant to make people think and try to explain it. It seems to me that one such fact serves as a palpable proof of the fallacy of the principle of compulsory education. More than that. Besides this negative injury, which consists in removing the children from the unconscious education which they receive at home, at work, in the street, the schools are physically injurious, — for the body, which at this early age is inseparable from the soul. This injury is especially important on account of the monotony of the scholastic education, even if it were good. For the agriculturist it is impossible to substitute anything for those conditions of labour, life in the field, conversation of elders, and so forth, which surround him ; even so it is with the artisan and, in general, with the inhabitant of the city. Not by accident, but designedly, tas J^atqre surrounded the agriculturist with rustic coij- 18 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES ditions, and the city dweller with urban conditions. These conditions are most highly instructive, and only in them can each develop. And yet, school lays down as the first condition of education the alienation from these conditions. More than that. School is not satisfied with tearing the child away from life for six hours a day, during the best years of the child, — it wants to tear three-year-old children away from the influence of their mothers. They have invented institutions {Kleinkinderhewahranstalt, in- fant schools, salles d'asile) of which we shall have occasion to speak more in detail. All that is lacking now is the invention of a steam engine to take the place of wet- nurses. All agree that schools are imperfect (I, on my side, am convinced that they are injurious). All admit that many, very many, improvements must be made. All agree that these improvements must be based on a greater comfort for the pupils. All agree that these comforts may be found out only through studying the needs of the children of school age and, in general, of every class in particular. Now, what has been done for the study of this difficult and complex subject ? For the period of several centuries each school has been based on the pattern of another, itself founded on the pattern of one before it, and in each of these schools the peremptory condition is discipline, which forbids children to speak, ask questions, choose this or that subject of instruction, — in short, all measures are taken to deprive the teacher of all possibility of making deductions in regard to the pupils' needs. The compulsory structure of the school excludes the possibility of all progress. And yet, when we consider how many centuries have passed in answering the chil- dren's questions which it did not occur to them to put, and how far the present generations have departed from that ancient form of culture, witli which they are inocu- ON POPULAR EDUCATION 19 lated, it becomes incomprehensible to us how it is these schools still exist. School, so it would appear to us, ought to be an implement of education and, at the same time, an experiment on the young generation, constantly giving new results. Only when experiment will be at the foundation of school, only then when every school will be, so to speak, a pedagogical laboratory, will the school not fall behind the universal progress, and experi- ment will be able to lay tirm foundations for the science of education. But perhaps history will answer our fruitless question : On what is the right based of compelling parents and pupils to be educated ? The existing schools, it will tell us, have been worked out historically, and just so they must continue to evolve historically, and to change in conformity with the demands of society and of time ; the farther we go, the better the schools become. To this I will reply : in the first place, that exclusively philosophic arguments are just as one-sided and false as exclusively historical arguments. The consciousness of humanity forms the cliief element of history ; conse- quently, if humanity becomes conscious of the inadequacy of its schools, this fact of consciousness becomes a chief historical fact, upon which ought to be based the structure of the schools. In the second place, the farther we pro- ceed, the schools do not get better, but worse, — worse as regards that level of education to which society has attained. School is one of those organic parts of the state which cannot be viewed and valued separately, because its worth consists only in a greater or lesser correspondence to the remaining parts of the state. School is good only when it has taken cognizance of the fundamental laws by which the people live. A beautiful school for a Russian village of the steppe, wliich satisfies all the wants of its pupils, will be a very poor school for a Parisian; and the best 20 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES school of the seventeenth century will be an exceedingly bad school in our time ; aaid, on the other hand, the very worst school of the Middle Ages was in its time better than the best in our time, because it better corresponded to its time, and at least stood on a level with the general education, if not in advance of it, while our school stands behind it. If the problem of the school, admitting the most general definition, consists in transmitting everything which the people have worked out and have become cognizant of, and in answering those questions which life puts to man, then there is no doubt but that in the mediaeval school the traditions were more hmited and the questions which presented themselves in life were easier of solution, and this problem of the school was more easily satisfied. It was much easier to transmit the traditions of Greece and Rome from insufficient and improperly worked out sources, the rehgious dogmas, the grammar, and that part of math- ematics which was then known, than to impart all those traditions which we have lived through smce, and which have removed so far the traditions of antiquity, and all that knowledge of the natural sciences, which are neces- sary in our day as answers to the every-day phenomena of life. At the same time the manner of imparting this has remained the same, and therefore the school has had to fall behind and get, not better, but worse. In order to maintain the school in the form in which it has been, and not to fall behind the educational movement, it has been necessary to be more consistent : it not only became incumbent to make education compulsory, but also to keep this education from moving forward by any other path, — to prohibit machines, roads of communication, and the art of printing. So far as we know from history, the Chinese alone have been logical in this respect. The attempts of the other n9,tiong tp fest-rict the art of printing, and, in general, the 0^ fOPtJLAii EbtJCATloN^ 21 restriction of the educational movement, have been only temporary and insufficiently consistent. Therefore, the Chinese of aU the nations may, at the present time, pride themselves on a good school, one that completely corre- sponds to the general level of education. If we are told that the schools are perfected historically, we shall only reply that the improvement of schools must be understood relatively, but that in respect to school, on the contrary, the compulsion becomes worse and worse in every year and with every hour ; that is, they more and more depart from the general level of education, be- cause their progress is disproportionate to the progress of education since the days of the invention of printing. In the third place, in reply to the historical argument that schools have existed and therefore are good, I shall myself adduce a historical argument. Last year I was in Marseilles, where I visited all the schools for the working people of that city. The proportion of the pupils to the population is very great, and so the children, with few ex- ceptions, attend school three, four, and even six years. The school programmes consist in learning by heart the catechism. Biblical and universal history, the four operations of arithmetic, French orthography, and book- keeping. In what way bookkeeping could form the sub- ject of iastruction I was unable to comprehend, and not one teacher could explain it to me. The only explanation I was able to make to myself, when I examined the books kept by the students who had finished the course, was that they did not know even three rules of arithmetic, but that they had learned by heart to operate with figures and that, therefore, they had also learned by rote how to keep books. (It seems to me that there is no need of proAdng that the tenue des livres, Buclilialtung, as it is taught in Germany and England, is a science which demands about fifteen minutes of explanation in case of a pupil who knows the four operations in arithmetic.) 22 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Not one boy in these schools was able to solve, that is, to put the simplest problem in addition and subtraction. And yet, they operated with abstract numbers, multiply- ing thousands with ease and rapidity. To questions from the history of France they answered well by rote, but if asked at haphazard, I received such answers as that Henry IV. had been killed by Julius Caesar. The same was the case with geography and sacred history. The same with orthography and reading. More than one haK of the girls cannot read any other books than those they have studied. Six years of school had not given them the faculty of writing a word without a mistake. I know that the facts which I adduce seem so incredible that many will doubt them ; but I could write whole books about the ignorance which I have witnessed in the schools of France, Switzerland, and Germany. Let any one who has this thing at heart study the schools, not from the reports of public examinations, but from extended visits and conversations with teachers and pupils in the schools and outside the schools. In Marseilles I also vis- ited a lay school, and another, a monastic school, for grown persons. Out of 250,000 inhabitants, less than one thou- sand, of these only two hundred men, attend these schools. The instruction is the same : mechanical reading, which is acquired in a year or in longer time, bookkeeping without the knowledge of arithmetic, religious instruction, and so forth. After the lay school, I saw the daily instruction offered in the churches ; I saw the salles d'asile, in which four-year-old children, at a given whistle, like soldiers, made evolutions around the benches, at a given command lifted and folded their hands, and with quivering and strange voices sang laudatory hymns to God and to their benefactors, and I convinced myself that the educational institutions of the city of Marseilles were exceedingly bad. If, by some miracle, a person should see all these estab- ON POPULAR EDUCATION 23 lishments, without having seen the people in the streets, in their shops, in the caf^s, in their home surroundings, what opinion would he form of a nation which was educated in such a manner ? He certainly would conclude that that nation was ignorant, rude, hypocritical, full of prejudices, and almost wild. But it is enough to enter into relations, and to chat with a common man in order to be conviuced that the French nation is, on the contrary, almost such as it regards itself to be : intelligent, clever, affable, free from prejudices, and really civilized. Look at a city workman of about thirty years of age : he will wi'ite a letter, not with such mistakes as are made at school, often without mistakes ; he has an idea of politics, consequently of modern history and geography; he knows more or less history from novels; he has some knowledge of the natural sciences. He frequently draws and applies math- ematical formula to his trade. Where did he acquire all that ? I involuntarily found an answer to it in Marseilles, when, after the schools, I began to stroll down the streets, to frequent the dram-shops, cafes dhantants, museums, workshops, quays, and book-stalls. The very boy who told me that Henry IV. had been killed by Julius Caesar knew very well the history of the " Three Musketeers " and of " Monte Cristo.". I found twenty-eight illustrated editions of these in Marseilles, costing from five to ten centimes. To a population of 250,000 they sell thirty thousand of them, — consequently, if we suppose that ten people read or listen to one copy, we find that all have read them. In addition there are the museum, the public libraries, the theatres. Then the caf^s, two large cafes chantants, where each may- enter for fifty centimes' worth of food or drink, and where there are daily as many as twenty-five thousand people, not counting the smaller caf^s, which hold as many more : in each of these caf^s they give little comedies and scenes, ancJ recite 24 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES verses. Taking the lowest calculation, we get one-fifth of. the population, who get their daily oral instruction just as the Greeks and Eomans were instructed in their amphi- theatres. Whether this education is good or bad is another matter ; but here it is, this unconscious education which is so much more powerful than the one by compulsion ; here is the unconscious school which has undermined the compulsory school and has made its contents to dwindle down almost to nothing. There is left only the despotic form with hardly any contents. I say with hardly any contents, because I exclude the mere mechanical ability of putting letters together and writing down words, — the only knowledge which is carried away after five or six years' study. Here it must be remarked that even the mere mechanical art of reading and writing is frequently acquired outside of school in a much shorter period, and that frequently the pupils do not carry away from school even this ability, or it is lost, finding no application in life, and that there where the law of compulsory school attendance exists there is no need of teaching the second generation to read, write, and figure, because the parents, we should think, would be able to do that at home, and that, too, much easier than at school. What I saw in Marseilles takes place in all the other countries : everywhere the greater part of one's education is acquired, not at school, but in hfe. There where life is instructive, as in London, Paris, and, in general, in all large cities, the masses are educated ; there where hfe is not instructive, as in the country, the people are unedu- cated, in spite of the fact that the schools are the same in both. The knowledge acquired in cities seems to remain ; the knowledge acquired in the country is lost. The direction and spirit of the popular education, both in the cities and in the villages, are absolutely independent from and generally contrary to the spirit which it is intended ON POPULAR EDUCATION 25 to instil into the schools. The education goes on quite independently of the schools. The historical argument against the historical argument is found in considering the history of education, where we do not find that the schools have progressed in proportion to the people's development, but that, on the contrary, they have fallen and have become an empty formality in proportion with the people's advancement ; that the more a nation has progressed in general education, the more has education passed away from school to life, making the contents of the school meaningless. Leaving aside all the other means of education, the development of commercial relations, the improved inter- communication, the greater measure of personal liberty, and the participation of the individual in affairs of state, — leaving aside meetings, museums, public lectures, and so forth, it suffices to look at the mere art of printing and its evolution, in order to understand the difference in the condition of the old school and the new. The uncon- scious education of life and the conscious scholastic educa- tion have always gone side by side, complementing each other ; but in the absence of the art of printing what insignificant amount of education could life afford in com- parison with the school ! Science then belonged to a few elect, who were in possession of the means of education. See, now, what share has fallen to the education afforded by life, when there is not a man who has not a book ; when books are sold at an insignificant price ; when pubhc libraries are open to all ; when a boy, as he comes from school, carries with him, not only his note-books, but also some cheap illustrated novel carefully concealed ; when in our country two primers are sold for three kopeks, and any peasant of the steppe will buy a primer and will ask a transient soldier to show and teach him all the wisdom, which the latter had in former years learned in the course of many years from a sexton ; when a gymnasiast abandons 26 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES the gymnasium and from books alone prepares himself for the entrance examination at the university ; when young people leave the university and, instead of study- ing the professors' notes, work directly on the sources ; when, sincerely speaking, every serious education is acquired only from hfe, and not in school. The last and, in my opinion, the most important argu- ment consists in this : granting even that the Germans have a right to defend the school historically, on the ground of its existence for the period of two hundred years, what reason have we to defend the public school which we do not yet possess ? What historical right have we to say that our schools must be such as the other European schools are ? We have not yet a history of public education. But if we examine closely the univer- sal history of popular education, we shall not only become convinced that we can in no way establish seminaries for teachers according to the German pattern, work over the Germau sound method, the English infant schools, the French lyceums and special schools, and thus catch up with Europe, but also that we Russians are living under exceptionally fortunate conditions as regards the popular education ; that our school must not issue, as it had in mediseval Europe, from the conditions of civil life ; must not serve certain governmental or religious ends ; must not be evolved in the darkness of uncontroUiug public opinion and of an absence of the highest degree of vital educa- tion ; must not with new pain and labour pass through and get out of that vicious circle, through which the European schools passed so long, and which consists in the assumption that the school was to move the uncon- scious education, and the unconscious education was to move the school. The European nations have vanquished this difficulty, but of necessity have lost much in thf struggle. Let us be thankful for the labour which we are called ON POPULAR EDUCATION 27 tc maks use of, and let us not forget that we are called to accomplish a new labour in this field. On the basis of what humanity has already experienced and in considera- tion of the fact that our activity has not yet begun, we are able to bring to bear a greater consciousness upon our labour, and, therefore, we are obliged to do so. In order to borrow the methods of the European schools, we are obliged to distinguish that which in them is based on the eternal laws of reason from that which owes its origin to historical conditions. There is no gen- eral sensible law, no criterion, which justifies the violence which the school exercises against the people ; therefore, every imitation of the European school will be not a step in advance, but a retrogression ao regards our people,— r it will be a treason to its calling. It is intelligible why in France there has been evolved ti school of discipline with the predominance of the exact sciences, — mathematics, geometry, and drawing; why in Germany there has been evolved a graduated educa- tional school with the predominance of singing and analy- sis ; it is intelligible why in England there have developed such a mass of societies founding philanthropic schools for the proletariat, with their strictly moral and, at the same time, practical tendencies ; but what school is to be evolved in Eussia is not known to us and never will be known, if we do not permit it to be worked out freely and in proper season, that is, in conformity with that his- torical epoch in which it is to develop, in conformity with its own history and still more with universal history. If we become convinced that popular education is advancing on the wrong path in Europe, then, by doing nothing for our popular education, we shall be doing more than if we should force upon it all that which seems good to us. So the little educated people want to be better edu- cated, and the educated class wants to educate the masses, but the masses submit to education only under constraint. 28 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES We have looked in philosophy, experience, and history for those principles which would give the educating class such a right, but we have found none ; on the contrary, we have convinced ourselves that human thought is con- stantly striving eSter freeing the people from constraint in matters of education. In looking for a criterion of pedagogics, that is, for a knowledge of what ought to be instructed and how to do it, we found nothing but the most contradictory opinions and institutions, and we have come to the conclusion that the farther humanity advanced, the less possible did such a criterion become, Looking for this criterion in the history of education, we have come to the conclusion that for us Eussians the historically evolved schools can- not serve as patterns, and that, moreover, these schools, with every step in advance, fall more and more behind the common level of education, and that, therefore, their com- pulsory character becomes more and more illegal, and that, finally, education itself in Europe has, hke oozing water, chosen another path for itself, — it has obviated the schools and has poured forth in the vital tools of education. What are we Eussians to do at the present moment ? Shall we all come to some agreement and take as our basis the English, French, German, or North American view of education and any one of their methods ? Or, shall we, by closely examining philosophy and psychology, discover what in general is necessary for the development of a human soul and for making out of the younger gen- eration the best men possible according to our conception ? Or, shall we make use of the experience of history,^ — not in the sense of imitating those forms which history has evolved, but in the sense of comprehending those laws which humanity has worked out through suffering, — shall we say frankly and honestly to ourselves that we do Bot know and C9,nnot kjiow what the future genera- OK fOPtLAtl EbUCAttOK 29 tions may need, but that we feel ourselves obliged to study these wants and that we wish to do so ? that we do not wish to accuse the people of ignorance for not accepting our education, but that we shall accuse our- selves of ignorance and haughtiness if we persist in educating the people according to our ideas ? Let us cease looking upon the people's resistance to our education as upon a hostile element of pedagogics, but, on the contrary, let us see in it an expression of the people's wUl which alone ought to guide our activities. Let us finally profess that law which so plainly tells us, both from the history of pedagogics and from the whole his- tory of education, that for the educating class to know what is good and what bad, the classes which receive the education must have the full power to express their dis- satisfaction, or, at least, to swerve from the education which instinctively does not satisfy them, — that the criterion of pedagogics is only liberty. We have chosen this latter path in our pedagogical activity. At the basis of our activity lies the conviction that we not only do not know, but we cannot know, wherein the education of the people is to consist ; that not only does there not exist a science of education, — pedagogics, — but that the first foundation of it has not yet been laid ; that the definition of pedagogy and of its aims in a philosophical sense is impossible, useless, and injurious. We do not know what education is to be like, and we do not acknowledge the whole philosophy of pedagogy because we do not acknowledge the possibility of a man's knowing what it is he ought to know. Education and culture present themselves to us as historical facts of one set of people acting upon another; therefore, the problem of the science of education, in our opinion, is only the discovery of the laws of this action of one set of people upon another. We not only do not acknowl- 30 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES edge in our generation the knowledge, nor even the right of a knowledge of what is necessary for the perfecting of man, but are also convinced that if humanity were pos- sessed of that knowledge, it would not be in its power to transmit, or not to transmit such knowledge. We are convinced that the cognition of good and evil, independ- ently of man's will, lies in humanity at large and is developed unconsciously, together with history, and that it is impossible to inculcate upon the younger genera- tion our cognition, just as it is impossible to deprive it of this our cognition and of that degree of a higher cogni- tion to which the next step of history will take it. Our putative knowledge of the laws of good and evil, and our activity in regard to the younger generation on the basis of these laws, are for the greater part a counteraction to the development of a new cognition, which is not yet worked out by our generation, but which is being worked out in the younger generation, — it is an impediment, and not an aid to education. We are convinced that education is history, and there- fore has no final end. Education, in its widest sense, including the bringing up, is, in our opinion, that activity of man, which has for its base the need of equality, and the invariable law of educational progress. A mother teaches her child to speak only that they may understand each other; the mother instinctively tries to come down to the child's view of things, to his language, but the law of educational progress does not permit her to descend down to him, but compels him to rise to her knowledge. The same relation exists between the author and the reader, the same between the school and the pupils, the same between the state and society, — the people. The activity of him who gives the educa- tion has one and the same purpose. The problem of the science of education is only the study of the conditions under which a coincidence of these two tendencies for ON POPULAR EDUCATIOK 31 one common end takes place, and the indication of those conditions which retard this coincidence. Thus the science of education, on the one hand, be- comes easier to us in that it no longer puts the ques- tions : what is the final aim of education, and for what must we prepare the younger generation ? and so forth ; on the other, it is immeasurably more difficult. We are compelled to study all the conditions which have aided in the coincidence of the tendencies of him who educates, and of him who is being educated ; we must define what that freedom is, the absence of which impedes the coin- cidence of both the tendencies, and which alone serves as our criterion of the whole science of education ; we must move step by step, away from an endless number of facts, to the solution of the questions of the science of education. We know that our arguments will not convince many. We know that our fundamental convictions that the only method of education is experiment, and its only criterion freedom, will sound to some like trite commonplace, to some like an indistinct abstraction, to others again like a visionary dream. We should not have dared to violate the quiet of the theoretical pedagogues and to express these convictions, which are contrary to all experience, if we had to confine ourselves to the reflections of this article ; but we feel our ability to prove, step after step, and fact after fact, the applicability and legality of our so wild convictions, and to this end alone do we devote the publication of the periodical Ycisnaya Polydna. ON METHODS OF TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS VfiKY many people are at the present time very seri- ously busy finding, borrowing, or inventing the best method for the instruction of reading; very many have invented and found this best method. We frequently meet in literature and in life with the question : Ey what method do you teach ? I must, however, confess that this question is generally heard from people who are very Uttle educated, and who for a long time have been instructing children as a trade, or from people who sympathize with the popular education from their cabinets, and who, to help it along, are ready to write an article, and to take up a contribution for the printing of a primer according to the best method, or from people who are biassed in favour of their one method, or, finally, from people v/ho have never had anything to do with teaching, — from the public who repeat that which the majority of men say. People who seriously busy themselves with it and who are cultured no longer ask such ques- tions. It seems to be an accepted truth with everybody that the problem of the public school is to teach reading, that the knowledge of reading is the first step in educa- tion, and that, therefore, it is necessary to find the best method for its instruction. One will tell you that the 32 ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 33 sound method is very good; a second assures you that Zolotov's method is the best ; a tliird knows a still better method, the Lancasterian, and so forth. Only a lazy man does not make fun of teaching "buki-az — ha,"^ and all are convinced that for the sake of disseminating education among the people all that is necessary is to send for the best method, to contribute three roubles in silver, rent a house, and hire a teacher, or, from the superabundance of their own education, to offer a small particle of it, on Sunday, between mass and visits, to the unfortunate people that are perishing in ignorance, — and the deed is done. Some clever, cultivated, rich people have come together . a happy thought flashes through the head of one of them, and that is, to confer a benefit on the terrible Eussian people. " Let us do it ! " All agree to it, and a society is born, the aim of which is to foster popular education, to print good, cheap books for the masses, to found schools, to encourage teachers, and so forth. By-laws are written up ; ladies take part in it ; they go through all the formalities of such societies, and the society's activity begins at once. To print good books for the masses ! How simple and easy it looks, just like all great ideas. There is just one difficulty : there are no good books for the people, not only in our country, but even not in Europe. In order to print such books they must be vmtten first, but not one of the benefactors will think of undertaking this task. The society commissions somebody, for the collected roubles, to compose, or select and translate the very best (it is so easy to select it !) from the European popular literature, — and the people will be happy, and will march with rapid strides toward education, and the society is very much satisfied. iThe Slavic names of the first two letters are az, buki, hence azbuka = alphabet. 34 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES This society proceeds in just the same way in respect to the other side of the schools' activity. Only the rarest, swayed hy self-sacrifice, apportion their precious leisure to the instruction of the masses. (These people do not take into consideration the circumstance that they have never read a single book on pedagogy, and have never seen any other school than the one in which they have studied themselves.) Others encourage the schools. Again it looks so simple, and again there is an unexpected per- plexity, which is, that there is no other way of promoting education except by learning and completely devoting one- self to this matter. But beneficent societies and jprivate individuals some- how do not notice this perplexity, and continue in this manner to struggle on the arena of popular education, and remain very much satisfied. This phenomenon is, on the one hand, amusing and harmless, because the activity of these societies and of these people does not embrace the masses; on the other, this phenomenon is dangerous in that it casts a denser mist over our still unformed view of popular education. The causes of this phenomenon may be partly the irritable condition of our society, and partly the universal human weakness to make out of every honest idea a plaything for vanity and idleness. The fundamental cause, it seems to us, is in the great mis- apprehension of what the rudiments are, the dissemination of which forms the aim of all the educators of the people, and which has caused such strange discussions in our country. The rudiments, a conception which exists not only in our country, but in all Europe, are acknowledged to be the programme of the elementary school for the people. Lesen und schreiben, lire et ecrire, reading and writing. What are these rudiments ? and what have they in com- mon with the first step in education ? The rudiments are the art of composing words out of certain signs and of ON -TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 36 representing them. What is there in common between the rudiments and education ? The rudiments are a definite skill (Fertigkeit) ; education is a knowledge of facts and their correlations, But maybe this skill of composing words is necessary in order to introduce man into the first step of education, and maybe there is no other road? This we do not see at all; we very fre- quently perceive the diametrically opposite, if, in speaking of education, we shall understand not alone the scholastic, but also the vital education. Among people who stand on a low level of education we notice that the knowledge or ignorance of reading and writing in no way changes the degree of their education. We see people who are well acquainted with all the facts necessary for farming, and with a large number of inter- relations of these facts, who can neither read nor write ; or excellent military commanders, excellent merchants, managers, superintendents of work, master mechanics, artisans, contractors, and people simply educated by hfe, who possess a great store of information and sound reasoning, based on that information, who can neither read nor write. On the other hand, we see those who can read and vrrite, and who on account of that skill have acquired no new information. Everybody who will seri- ously examine the education of the people, not only in Eussia, but also in Europe, will involuntarily come to the conclusion that education is acquired by the people quite independently of the knowledge of reading and writing, and that these rudiments, with the rare exceptions of extraordinary ability, remain in the majority of cases an unapplied skill, even a dangerous skill, — dangerous be- cause nothing in life may remain indifferent. If the rudiments are inapplicable and useless, they must become injurious. But perhaps a certain degree of education, standing above those examples of the rudiment-less education 36 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES which we have adduced, is impossible without the rudi- ments ? Very likely it is so, but we do not know that, and have no reason to suppose that for the education of a future generation. All we know is that . the degree of education which we have, and outside of which we are not able and do not want to imagine any other, is impos- sible. We have an example in the primary school, which, in our opinion, forms the comer-stone of education, and we do not want to know all the degrees of education which exist, not below, but entirely outside, and independently of, our school. We say: All those who do not know the rudiments are equally uneducated, — they are Scythians for us. The \ rudiments are necessary for the beginning of education, i and we persist in leading the masses by that road up to our education. Considering the education which I possess, it would please me very much to agree with that opinion ; I am even convinced that the rudiments are a necessary condition of a certain degree of education, but I cannot be convinced that my education is good, that the road over which science is travelling is the right one, and, above all, I cannot leave out of account three-fourths of the human race, who receive their education without the rudiments. If we by all means must educate the people, let us ask them how they educate themselves, and what their favour- ite instruments for attaining this end are. If we want to find the foundation, the first step of education, why should we look for it perforce in the rudiments, and not much deeper ? Why should we stop at one of the endless num- ber of the instruments of education and see in it the alpha and omega of education, whereas it is only one of the incidental, unimportant circumstances of education ? They have been teaching the rudiments for quite a time in Europe, but still there is no popular literature ; that is, the masses — the class of people exclusively occupied ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 37 with physical labour — nowhere read books. We should think that this phenomenon would deserve attention and elucidation, whereas people imagine that the matter is improved by continuing to teach the rudiments. All the vital questions are extremely easy and simple of solution in theory, and it is only when it comes to applying them that they prove not so easy of solution and break up into thousands of difficult questions. It looks so simple and so easy to educate the masses : teach them the rudiments, if necessary, by force, and give them good books, and the deed is done. But in reality something quite different takes place. The masses do not want to study the rudiments. Well, we can force them. Another impediment: there are no books. We can order them. But the ordered books are bad, and it is impossible to order people to write good books. The main difficulty is that the masses do not want to read these books, and no one has as yet invented a method of compelling them to read these books ; besides, the masses continue getting their education in their own way, and not in the primary schools. Maybe the historical time for the people's participation in the common education has not yet arrived, and it is necessary that they study the rudiments for another hun- dred years. Maybe the people are spoilt (as many think) ; maybe the people must write their own books; maybe the best method has not yet been found ; maybe, too, the education by means of the book and of the rudiments is an aristocratic means less adapted to the working classes than other instruments of education which have been evolved in our day. Maybe the chief advantage of instruction by means of the rudiments, which consists in the possibihty of transmitting science without its auxiliary means, does not in our time exist for the masses. Maybe it is easier for a workman to study botany from plants, zoology from animals, aritbinetic from the abacus, with 38 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES which he has to deal, than from books. Maybe the work- man will find time to listen to a story, to look at a museum or an exhibition, but will not find time to read a book. Maybe, even, the book method of instruction is abso- lutely contrary to his manner of life and composition of character. Frequently we observe attention, interest, and a clear comprehension in the workiugman, if a know- ing person tells or explains to him something ; but it is difficult to imagine that same labourer with a book in his blistered hands, trying to make out the sense of a science popularly expounded to him on two printing sheets. All these are only suppositions of causes, which may be quite erroneous, but the very fact of the absence of a popular hterature, and of the people's resistance to education by means of the rudiments, nevertheless exists in all of Europe. Even thus the educating class in all of Europe looks upon the primary school as the first step to edu- cation. The origin of this apparently unreasonable conception will become very clear when we look closely at the his- torical progress of education. First were founded, not the lower, but the higher schools : at first the monastic, then the secondary, then the primary schools. From this standpoint, Smaragdov's text-book, which on two print- ing sheets presents the whole history of humanity, is just as necessary in the county school, as the rudiments are needed in the primary school. The rudiments are in this organized hierarchy of institutions the last step, or the first from the end, and therefore the lower school is to respond only to the exigencies of the higher schools. But there is also another point of view, from which the popular school appears as an independent institution, which is not obliged to perpetuate the imperfections of the higher institution of learning, but which has its inde- pendent aim of the popular education. The lower we descend on this ladder of education, instituted by the ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 39 state, the more the necessity is felt at each step of mak- ing the education independent and complete. From the gymnasium only one-fifth enter the university ; from the county school orily one-fifth enter the gymnasium ; from the popular school only one-thousandth enter the higher institutions of learning. Consequently, the corre- spondence of the popular school to the higher institution is the last aim to be pursued by the popular school. And yet, only by this correspondence can be explained the view which looks upon the popular schools as upon schools of the rudiments. The discussion in our literature of the usefulness or injuriousness of the rudiments, which it was so easy to ridicule, is in our opinion a very serious discussion, which will elucidate many questions. However, this discussion has existed elsewhere, too. Some say that it is injurious for the masses to be able to read books and periodicals, which speculation and pohtical parties piit into their hands ; they say that the abihty to read takes the labour- ing class out of their element, inoculates them with dis- content with their condition, and breeds vices and a decline of morahty. Others say, or infer, that education cannot be injurious, but must always be useful. The first are more or less conscientious observers, the others are theo- rists. As is always the case in discussions, both are entirely right. The discussion, we think, is due to the fact that the questions are not clearly put. The first quite justly attack the rudiments as a sepa- rately inoculated ability to read and write without any other information (as is actually done by the vast majority of the schools, for that which is learned by rote is forgot- ten, and all that is left is the art of reading) ; the last defend the rudiments, understanding by it the first step in education, and are mistaken only in the wrong concep- tion of the rudiments. If the question were put like this: Is the primary education useful to the people, or 40 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES not ? no one could answer it in the negative. But if we ask : Is it useful, or not, to teach the people to read when they cannot read and have no books for reading ? I hope that every unbiassed man will answer : I do not know, just as I do not know whether it would be useful to teach the whole nation to play the violin, or to make boots. Looking more closely at the result of the rudiments in the form in which they are transmitted to the masses, I think the majority will express themselves against the rudiments, taking into consideration the protracted com- pulsion, the disproportionate development of memory, the false conception of the completeness of science, the loath- ing for a continued education, the false vanity, and the habit of meaningless reading, which are acquired in these schools. In the school at Yasnaya Polyana all the pupils who come to it from the primary schools constantly fall behind the pupils who enter from the school of life ; they not only fall behind, but their backwardness is in propor- tion to the time they have spent in the primary school. What the problem and, therefore, the programme of the popular school consists in, we cannot explain here, and do not even regard such an explanation as possible. The popular school must respond to the exigencies of the masses, — that is all which we can positively assert in regard to this question. What these exigencies are, only a careful study of them and free experiment can teach. The rudiments constitute only one small, insignificant part of these exigencies, in consequence of which the primary schools are probably very agreeable to their founders, but almost useless and frequently hurtful to the masses, and in no way even resemble the schools of primary education For the same reason, the question how to teach the rudiments in the shortest possible time and by what method is a question of httle importance in the matter of popular education. For the same reason, people who out ON TEACHING THE RIfDIMENTS 41 of amusement busy themselves with primary schools will do much better if they will exchange this occupation for a more interesting one, because the business of popular education, which does not consist in the mere rudiments, presents itself not only as very difficult, but of necessity demands immediate, persistent labour and a study of the masses. The primary schools make their appearance in measure as the rudiments are necessary for the masses, and they exist of their own accord to the extent to which they are wanted. These schools exist with us in large number for the reason that the teachers of these schools can impart nothing else of their knowledge but the rudiments, and that the people have the need of knowing a certain amount of these rudiments for practical purposes, — in order to read a sign, write down a figure, read the psalter over a deceased person for money, and so forth. These schools exist like workshops for tailors and joiners ; even the view held by the masses in respect to them and the methods of those who study are the same. The pupil in time somehow manages to learn by himself, and as the master employs the apprentice for his own needs, sending him to fetch brandy, chop wood, clean the gutter, just so there is here a period of apprenticeship. And just like the trade, the rudiments are never used as a means for further educating themselves, but only for practical purposes. A sexton or a soldier is the teacher, and the peasant sends one of his three sons to be an apprentice at the rudiments, as he would send him to a tailor, and the legal exigencies of both are satisfied. But it would be a crime and a mistake to see in this a certain degree of culture, and on this foundation to construct the state school, putting all the fault only on the method of the primary instruction, and to inveigle and force the people into it. But in the school of popular education, as you under- 42 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES stand it, they will tell me the teaching of the rudiments will still form one of the first conditions of education, both because the need of knowing the rudiments lies in the popular conception of education, and because the great majority of the teachers know the rudiments best of all, and thus the question of the method of primary instruc- tion after all remains a difficult question and one demand- ing a solution. To this we will reply that, in the majority of schools, on account of our ' insufficient knowledge of the masses and of pedagogy, education actually begins with primary instruction, but that the process of teaching the printed signs and the art of writing presents itself to us as very insignificant and long known. The sextons teach reading in three months by the " huki-az — ba " method ; an intel- ligent father or brother teaches by the same method in much less time ; according to the Zdlotov and Lautir- Tuethode, they say, reading may be learned faster still ; but, whether they learn to read by one or the other method, nothing is gained if the children do not learn to comprehend what they read, which is the chief problem I of primary instruction ; and yet no one hears anything about this necessary, difficult, and undiscovered method. For this reason the question of how to teach the rudi- ments most conveniently, although demanding a reply, appears exceedingly insignificant to us, and the persist- ency in finding a method, and the waste of energy, which finds a more important application in the more advanced education, seem to us to be a great misunderstanding aris- ing from an improper comprehension of the rudiments and of education. So far as we know, all the existing methods may be classified into three methods with their combinations. 1. The method of " azes," of letter combinations and spelling, and the learning by rote of one book, — Buck- stahirmethode. ON TEACfilKG THE RUDIMENTS 43 2. The method of vowels with the attachment of consonants which are expressed only in connection with a voweL 3. The sound method. Zolotov's method is a clever combination of the second and third, just as all the other methods are only combina- tions of these three fundamental methods. All these methods are equally good; every one has its advantages over the others from some one side, or in regard to a given language, or even in respect to a certain ability of a pupil, and every one has its difficulties. The first, for example, makes the learning of the letters easy, by calling them az, htiki, vyedi, or apple, hook, and so forth, and transfers all the difficulty to spelling, which is partly learned by heart and partly acquired instinctively from reading a whole book by heart with a pointer. The second facilitates the spelling and the consciousness of the vowellessness of the consonants, but complicates the study of the letters, the pronunciation of the semi- vowels, and in the case of the triple and quadruple sylla- bles, especially in our language. This method in Eussian makes matters difficult on account of the complexity and greater variety of shades in our vowels. " ' " and all the vowels formed with it, 'a = ya, 'e = ye, 'u = yu, are im- possible ; ya with h before it will be Vya, and not hja. In order to pronounce hya and hyu, I' and hye, the pupil must learn the syllables by rote, else he will say i'ya h'yu, b, and b'ye. The sound method, one of the most comical monstrosi- ties of the German mind, presents greater advantages in compound syllables, but is impossible in the study of the letters. And, notwithstanding the regulation of the seminaries which do not acknowledge the Buckstabir- methode, the letters are learned by the old method, only, instead of frankly pronouncing as before ef, i, scha, teacher and pupil contort their mouths in order to pronounce 44 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES f-i-sh, and, at that, sJi consists of sch, and is not one letter. Z61otov's method presents great conveniences in combining syllables into words and in gaining the con- sciousness of the vowellessness of the consonants, but offers difficulty in learning the letters and in complicated syllable combinations. It is more convenient than the rest only because it is a combination of two methods, but it is still far from being perfect, because it is — a method. Our former method, which consisted in learning the letters, naming them he, ve, ge, me, le, se, fe, and so forth, and then spelling aloud, by throwing off the useless vowel e and vice versa, also offers its conveniences aiid disad- vantages, and is also a combination of three methods. Experience has convinced us that there is not one bad and not one good method ; that the failure of a method consists in the exclusive adherence to one method, and that the best method is the absence of all method, but the knowledge and use of all methods and the invention of new ones according to the difficulties met with. We have divided the methods into three categories, but this division is not essential. We only did so for clear- ness' sake ; properly speaking, there are no methods, and each includes all the rest. Everybody who has taught another to read has made use for the purpose, though he may not know it, of all the existing methods and of all those that may ever exist. The invention of a new method is only the consciousness of that new side from which the pupil may be approached for his comprehension, and therefore the new method does not exclude the old, and is not only no better than the old, but even becomes worse, because in the majority of cases the essential • method is divined in the beginning. In most cases the invention of the new method has been regarded as the annihilation of the old, although in reality the old method has remained the essential one, and the inventors, by ON TEACHIKG THE kuUlMENTS 45 consciously refuting the old methods, have only compli- cated matters and have fallen behind those who con- sciously had used the old and unconsciously the new and the future methods. Let us adduce as an example the oldest and the newest methods : the method of Cyril and Methodius ^ and the sound method, the ingenious Fischhiu;h, in use in Germany. A sexton, a peasant, who teaches as of old az, huki, will always hit upon explaining to the pupil the vowellessness of the consonant by sayiug that huki is pronounced as 6. I once saw a peasant who was instructing his son and who explained the letters as I, r, and then again continued to teach by the composition and spelling of the words. Even if the teacher does not hit upon it, the pupil will himself comprehend that the essential sound in be is b. That is the sound system. Nearly every old teacher, who makes the pupil spell a word of two or more sylla- bles, will cover one syllable and will say : This is ho, and this go, and this ro, and so forth. This is in part the artifice of Zdlotov's method and of the method of vowels. Every one who makes a pupil study the primer points to the representation of the word God and at the same time pronounces God, and thus he reads the whole book with him, and the process of spelling is freely acquired by the pupil, by uniting the organic with the dismembered ele- ments, by uniting the familiar speech (the prayer, as to the necessity of the knowledge of which there can be no question in the child's mind) with the analysis of that speech into its component parts. Such are all the new methods and hunched s of other artifices which every intelligent old teacher unconsciously employs in order to explain the process of reading to his pupil, giving him all liberty to explain to himself the proc- ess of reading in a manner most convenient to the pupil. iThe proto-apostles of the Slavs, the inventors of the Slavic alpha- bet, of vrhich the Bussiau is but a variation. 46 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Leaving out the fact that I know hundreds of cases of rapid acquisition of the art of reading by the old method buki-az — ha, and hundreds of cases of very slow acqui- sition by the new methods, I only affirm that the old method has this advantage over the new, that it includes all the new methods, even though it be only unconscious, while the new excludes the old, and also this other advantage that the old method is free, while the new is compulsory. What, free ? they will tell me, when with the old methods the spelling was beaten in with rods, and with the new children are addressed as " you " and politely asked to comprehend ? It is right here that the strongest and most injurious violence is practised on the child, when he is asked to comprehend in precisely the same manner that the teacher comprehends it. Anybody who has himself taught must have noticed that b; r, a may be combined in as many different ways as 3, 4, and 8 may be added up. With one pupil 3 and 4^7, and 3 more = 10, and 5 is left ; even so a, or az, and r, or rtsy, and b in front of ra makes bra. With another 8 and 3 = 11, and 4 more = 15 ; even so buM, rtsy must be bra, because they had been spelling bra, vra, gra, and so forth, and if not bra, then bru, and a thousand other ways, out of which b, r, and a will make bra, and this will be one, and, in my opinion, one of the last. One must never have taught and know nothing of men and children, to imagine that, since bra is only the combination of h, r, and a, every child needs only to learn b, r, and a, in order to be able to pronounce it. You tell him : B,r, a is what sound ? He says ra, and he is quite right, — he hears it so ; another says a, a third br, just as he will pronounce shch as sch, and / as hhv} and so forth. You tell him a, e, i, o, u are the main letters, but to him I, r are the chief letters, and he catches entirely different sounds from what you want him to. 1 In the popular speech every / is in Russian changed into khv, etc. ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 47 This is not the worst yet. A teacher from a German seminary, who has been instructed by the best method, teaches by the Mschbuch. Boldly, self-confidently he sits . down in the class-room, — the tools are ready : the blocks with the letters, the board with the squares, and the primer with the representation of a fish. The teacher surveys his pupils, and he already knows everything which they ought to understand ; he knows what their souls consist of, and many other things, which he had been taught in the seminary. He opens the book and points to a fish. "What is this, dear children ? " This, you see, is the Anschauungs- unterricht. The poor children will rejoice at this fish, if the report from other schools or from their elder brothers has not yet reached them, what the sauce is which goes with this fish, how they are morally contorted and vexed for the sake of that fish. However it be", they will say : " This is a fish." " Nof" replies the teacher (what I am telhng here is not a fiction, a satire, but the recital of facts which I saw in all the best schools of Germany and in those schools of England where they have succeeded in borrowing this most beautiful and best of methods). "No," says the teacher. '' What do you see ? " The children are silent. You must not forget that they are obliged to sit orderly, each in his place, without moving — Suhe und Gehorsam. " What do you see ? " " A book," says the most stupid child. All the intelli- gent children have in the meantime thought of a thousand things which they see, and they know by instinct that they will never guess that which the teacher wants them to say and that they ought to say that a fish is not a fish, but something else which they cannot name. " Yes, yes," joyfully says the teacher, " very good, — a book," 48 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES The brighter children get bolder, and the stupid boy does not know himself what he is praised for. " And what is in the book ? " says the teacher. The quickest and brightest boy guesses what it is, and with proud joy says, " Letters." " No, no, not at all," the teacher replies, almost dole- fully, " you must think what you say." Again all the bright boys keep a sullen silence and do not even try to guess, but begin to think what kind of glasses the teacher has, why he does not take them off, but keeps looking over them, and so forth. " Well, what is th^re in the book ? " All are silent. « What is here ? " " A fish," says a bold little lad. " Yes, a fish, but not a living fish ? " " No, not a living fish." " Very well. Is it dead ? " " No." " Very well. What kind of a fish is it ? " " Ein Bild, — a picture." " Yes, very well." All repeat that it is a picture and imagine that all in ended. No, they ought to have said that it is a picture representing a fish. And this is precisely the way by which the teacher gets the pupils to say that it is a pic- ture representing a fish. He imagines that the pupils reason, and does not have enough shrewdness to see that if he is ordered to get the pupils to say that it is a picture representing a fish, or that if he himself wants them to say so, it would be much simpler to make them frankly learn that wise saying by heart. Fortunate are the pupils if the teacher will stop here. I myself heard one make them say that it was not a fish, but a thing — ein Ding, and that thing only was a fish. This, if you please, is the new An$chauungsunterriQht iij ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 49 connection with the rudiments, — it is the art of making the children think. But now this Anschauungsunterricht is ended, and there begins the analysis of the word. The word Fisch, composed of letters, is shown on charts. The best and most intelligent pupils hope to redeem themselves, and at once to grasp the forms and names of the letters, but that's where they are mistaken. " What has the fish in front ? " The intimidated ones keep silent, and finally a bolder boy says : " A head." " Good, very good. Where is the head ? " " In front." '' Very well. And what comes after the head ? " " The fish." " No, think ! " They must say : " The body — Leih." They finally say it, but they lose every hope and confidence in themselves, and all their mental powers are strained to comprehend that which the teacher needs. " The head, the body, and the end of the fish — the tail. Very well ! Say all together : A fish has a head, a body, and a tail. Here is a fish composed of letters, and here is a painted fish." The fish which is composed of letters is suddenly divided into three parts :, into F, into i, and into sch. The teacher, with the self-satisfaction of a sleight-of-hand performer who has showered flowers on the audience, instead of sprinkling wine on them, removes the F, points to it, and says : " This is the head, i is the body, sch is the tail," and he repeats : " Fisch, ffff iiii shshshsh. This is ff/f, this is iiii, shshshsh." The poor children writhe, and hiss, and blow, trying to pronounce the consonants without vowels, which is a physical impossibility. Without being conscious of it, the teacher himself uses a semivowel, something between u in urn and y in pity. At first the pupils are amused by that hissing, but later they observe that they are supposed to 50 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES memorize these ff, %%, shsh, and they say sMf, skish, fif, and absolutely fail to recognize their word Fisch,ffff — - an — shshshsh. The teacher, who knows the best method, will not come to their rescue, but will advise them to remember / from the words Feder, Faust, and sch from Sohurze, Schachtel, and so forth, and will continue to ask them to say shshshsh ; he will not only not come to their rescue, but will absolutely prohibit their learning the letters from the pictorial A B C, or from phrases, such as a stands for apple, h stands for hoy ; he will not permit them to learn syllables and to read what is familiar to them, without knowing syllabication ; in short, to use a G-erman expression, he ignores, — he is obliged not to know any other method but Fisch, and that a fish is a thing, and so forth. There is a method for the rudiments, and there is a method for the primary development of thinking — An- schauungsunterricht (see Denzel's " Entwurf"); both are connected, and the children must pass through these eyes of needles. All measures have been taken so that there should be no other development at school, except along this path. Every motion, every word and question are forbidden. Bie Hdnde seien zusammen. Ruhe und GeJiorsam. And there are people who ridicule huki-az — ia, insisting that hukiraz — ha is a method which kills all the mental faculties, and who recommend the Lautvr- methode in VerbindMng mit Anschauungsunterricht ; that is, who recommend to learn by heart a fish is a thing, and / is a head, i a body, and sch the tail of a fish, and not to learn by rote the psalter and the Book of the Hours. English and French pedagogues proudly pronounce the difficult word Anschauungsunterricht, and say that they are introducing it with the primary instruction. For us this Anschauungsunterricht, of which I shall have to say more in detail, appears like something entirely incompre- hensible. What is this object-teaching? What other ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 51 kind of teaching can there be, if not object-teaching? All five senses take pait in the instruction, therefore there has always been and always will be au Anschauungsiorv- terricht. For the European school, which is trying to get away from mediaeval formalism, there is some sense in the name and idea of object-teaching as opposed to the former mode of instruction, and some excuse for the mistakes, which consist in retaining the old method and in chang- ing only the external manner; but for us, I repeat it, Anschauungsunterricht has no meaning. Up to the present I have, after vain endeavours to find this Anschauungsunterricht and Pestalozzi's method in all Europe, discovered nothing but the statements that geog- raphy is to be taught from surface maps, if they can be had, colours from colours, geometry from drawings, zoology from animals, and so forth, something which each of us has known ever since our birth, which it was not at all necessary to invent because that has long ago been invented by Nature herself, so that anybody who is not brought up under contrary views knows it well. And it is these methods and others similar to them, and the methods of preparing teachers according to given methods, which are in aU seriousness proposed to us, who are beginning our schools in the second half of the nineteenth century, without any historical ballast and blunders weighing us down, and with an entirely differ- ent cognition than that which lay at the foundation of the European schools. Even leaving out of discussion the falseness of these methods and the violence exercised upon the spirit of the pupils, — why should we, with whom the sextons teach to read in six months, borrow the Lautiranschauungsunterrichtsmethode, under which they have to study a year and more ? We have said above that, in our opinion, every method is good and, at the same time, one-sided ; each of them is 52 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES convenient for a certain pupil and for a certain language and nation. For this reason the sound method and every other un-Eussian method will be worse for us than huhi- az — la. If the Lautiranschauungsunterricht has produced such inglorious results in Germany, where several genera- tions have been taught to think according to certain laws, defined by a Kant or a Schleiermacher, where the best teachers are trained, where the Lautirmethode was begun in the seventeenth century, — what would happen with us if a certain method, a certain Lesehuch with moral say- ings should be adopted by law ? What would be the result of an instruction according to any newly introduced method which is not assimilated by the people and by the teachers ? I will tell a few cases near at hand. This autumn a teacher, who had studied in the Yasnaya Polyana school, had opened a school in a village, where out of forty pupils one-half had been instructed according to the azes and syllabications, and one-third could read. After two weeks the peasants expressed their universal dissatisfaction with the school. The chief points of accusation were that the teacher taught in German a, he, and not az, hvM, that he taught fairy-tales and not prayers, and that there was no order at school. Upon meeting the. teacher I informed him of the opinion of the peasants. The teacher, a man with a university training, explained to me with a con- temptuous smile that he taught a, he, instead of, az, huki, in order to facilitate spelling; that they read fairy-tales in order to get used to understanding what was read according to the pupils' intellects ; and that, in conformity with his new method, he considered it unnecessary to punish the children, and that, therefore, there could not be that strict order to which the peasants were accus- tomed, who had seen their children with pointers on the syllables. I visited this school two weeks later. The boys were ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 53 divided into three classes, and the teacher carefully went from one division to another. Some, of the lower division, were standing at the table and memorizing certain parts of a paper chart, on which there were the letters. I began to ask them questions : more than one-half of them knew the letters and named them : az, huTci, and so forth ; others knew even syllabication ; one could read, but was learning anew, pointing with his finger and repeating a, he, ve, imagining that he was getting something entirely new ; others again, of the middle division, were spelhng s, Jc, a — ska, one asking questions and the others answer^ ing them. This they had been doing for more than two weeks, although one day is more than enough to acquire this process of casting off the superfluous letter e. Among these I also found some who knew syllabication in the old fashion and who could read. These, just like the others, were ashamed of their knowledge and recanted it, imagining that there was no salvation except in spelling be, re, a — bra. The third, in fine, were reading. These unfortunate ones were sitting on the floor and, each of them holding a book right before his eyes and pretending that he was reading, were repeating aloud these two verses : " There whel-e ends the vaulted sky, People eat nor wheat nor rye — ■" Having finished these verses, they began anew the same with saddened and anxious faces, now and then squinting at me, as much as to ask me whether they were doing well. It is terrible and incredible to mention : of these boys some could read well, and others could not spell; those who could read kept themselves back from a feeling of friendship ; those who could not, had for the last three weeks been repeating these two verses from the most abominable remodelling of Ershdv's poor fairy-tale, so far as the masses are concerned. 54 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES I began to examine them in sacred history: nobody knew anything, because the teacher, according to the new method, did not make them memorize, but told them stories from the abbreviated sacred history. I examined them in arithmetic : nobody knew anything, although the teacher had, again according to the new method, been showing all the pupils together numbers up to milHons all at once, without making them learn by heart. I examined them in the prayers : not one knew anything ; they said the Lord's Prayer with mistakes, as they had learned it at home. And all of them were excellent boys, full of life, and intelligence, and eagerness for instruction ! The most terrible thing about it is that it was all done according to my method ! Here were aU the devices employed at my school : the study of the letters written by all at once with chalk, and the oral spelling, and the first intelligible reading for the child, and the oral account of sacred history, and mathematics without memorizing. At the same time, in everything could be felt the device, most familiar to the teacher, of learning by rote, which he consciously avoided, and which alone he had mas- tered and against his will applied to entirely different materials : he made them memorize not the prayers, but Ershdv's fairy-tale, and sacred history not from the book, but from his own poor, dead recital ; the same was true of mathematics and spelling. It is impossible to knock it into the head of this unfortunate teacher of university training that all the accusations of the rude peasants are a thousand times just ; that a sexton teaches incompara- bly better than he ; and that if he wants to teach, he can teach reading according to the huki^az — ha, by making them memorize, and that in that way he could be of some practical benefit. But the teacher with the university training had, to use his own words, studied the method of the Yasnaya Poly ana school, which be for some reason wanted to take as a pattern. ON TEACHING THE SUDIMENTS 55 Another example I saw in the county school of one of our capitals. After having listened with trepidation to the hest pupil of the highest class, as he rattled off the waterways of Kussia, and to another, in the middle class, who honoured us with the story of Alexander the Great, my companion, with whom I was visiting the schools, and I were on the point of leaving, when the superintendent invited us to his room to look at his new method of primary instruction, invented by him and in preparation for the press. " I have selected eight of the most indigent boys," he said to us, " and am experimenting on them and veri- fying my method." We entered: eight boys were standing in a group. " Back to your places ! " cried the superintendent, in the voice of the most ancient method. The boys stood in a circle in soldierly fashion. He harangued us for about an hour, telling us that formerly this beautiful sound method had been in use in the whole capital, but that now it was left only in his school, and that he wanted to resuscitate it. The boys were standing all the time. Finally, he took from the table a chart with the representation of c-a-t. "What is 'this ?" he said, pointing to cat. " Cow," replied a boy. " What is this ? — c." The boy said c. " And this is a, and this t, together — cat. Add mp to this, and you will get camp." The children had the greatest diffi- culty in reciting to us these memorized answers. I tried to ask them something new, but nobody knew anything but cat and covx I wanted to know how long they had been studying. The superintendent had been experiment- ing for two years. The boys were between the ages of six and nine, — all of them wide-awake, real boys, and not dummies, but living beings. When I remarked to the superintendent that in Germany the sound method was used differently, he explained to me that in Germany the sound method was unfortunately fall- ing into disuse. I tried to convince him of the opposite, 66 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES but he, in proof of his idea, brought me from another room five German A B C's of the thirties and forties, composed by another than the sound method. We were silent and went away, while the eight boys were left to the superin- tendent to be further experimented upon. This happened in the fall of the year 1861. How well this same superintendent might have taught these eight boys reading, by putting them orderly at tables with ABC books and pointers, and even pulUng their top- locks, just as the old deacon, who had taught him, had pulled his ! How very, very many examples of such teach- ing according to new methods may be found in our day which is so prohfic in schools, not to mention the Sunday schools that swarm with such inconsistencies ! And here are two other examples of an opposite char- acter. In a village school, which was opened last month, I in the very beginning of the instruction noticed a sturdy, snub-nosed fourteen-year-old boy who, whenever the boys repeated the letters, kept mumbling something and smiling self-contentedly. He was not inscribed as a pupil. I spoke to him and found that he knew all the letters, now and then falling into huki, rtsy, and so forth ; as with others, so he, too, was ashamed of it, supposing that it was pro-, hibited and something bad. I asked him syllabication and he knew it ; I made him read, and he read without spelhng out, although he did not beheve he could do it. " Where did you study ? " " In the summer I was with a fellow shepherd ; he knew, and he taught me to read." " Have you an A B C book ? " " Yes." " " Where did you get it ? " " I bought it." " How long have you been studying ? " " During the summer: I studied whenever he showed me in the field." ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS 57 Another pupil of the Yasnaya Poly^na school, who had studied before from a sexton, a boy ten years of age, once brought his brother to me. This boy, seven years old, read well, and had learned to do so from his brother during the evenings, of one winter. I know many such examples, and whoever wants to look for them among the masses will find very many such cases. What use is there, then, in inventing new methods and by all means abandoning the az-buki — ba, and to regard all methods as good except buki- az — ba ? Besides all that, the Russian language and the Cyrillian alphabet surpass all the other European languages and alphabets by their distinctive features, from which must naturally spring the especial mode of teaching reading. The superiority of the Eussian alphabet consists in this fact, that every sound in it is pronounced just as it is, which is not the case in any other language. Ch [which we throughout this work transliterate as tskh] is pro- nounced tskhe, and not she, as in French, and not khe as in German ; a is a, and not i, e, a, as in English ; s is s, and c [ts] is ts, and not cJi and k, as in Italian, not to mention the Slavic languages that do not possess the Cyrillian alphabet. What, then, is the best method for teaching the reading of Eussian ? Neither the newest sound method, nor the oldest of the azes, letter combination, and syllabication, nor the method of the vowels, nor Zolotov's method. The best method for a given teacher is the one which is most familiar to the teacher. All other methods, which the teacher will know or invent, must be of help to the in- struction which is begun by any one method. In order to discover the one method, we need only know according to what method the people have been studying longest ; that method will in its fundamental features be most adapted to the masses. For us it is the method of letters, combi- Batious, syllables, — a very imperfect one, like all njethods, 58 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES and therefore capable of improvement by means of all inventions, v^hich the new methods offer us. Every individual must, iu order to acquire the art of reading in the shortest possible time, be taught quite apart from any other, and therefore there must be a separate method for each. That vsrhich forms an insuperable diffi- culty to one does not in the least keep back another, and vice versa. One pupil has a good memory, and it is easier for him to memorize the syllables than to comprehend the vovs^ellessness of the consonants ; another reflects calmly and will comprehend a most rational sound method; another has a fine instinct, and he grasps the law of word combinations by reading whole words at a time. The best teacher will be he who has at his tongue's end the explanation of what it is that is bothering the pupil. These explanations give the teacher the knowledge of the greatest possible number of methods, the ability of inventing new methods, and, above all, not a bhnd adher- ence to one method, but the conviction that all methods are one-sided, and that the best method would be the one which would answer best to all the possible difficulties incurred by a pupil, that is, not a method, but an art and talent. Every teacher of reading must be well grounded in the one method which has been evolved by the people, and must further verify it by his own experience ; he must endeavour to find out tlie greatest number of methods, employing them as auxiliary means ; must, by regarding every imperfection in the pupil's comprehension, not as a defect of the pupil, but as a defect of his own instruction, endeavour to develop in himself the ability of discovering new methods. Every teacher must know that every method invented is only a step, on which he must stand in order to go farther ; he must know that if he himself wiU not do it, another will assimilate that method and ON TEACHING THE RUDIMENTS Oy will, on its basis, go farther, and that, as the business of teaching is an art, completeness and perfection are not obtainable, while development and perfectibility are endless. A PROJECT OF A GENERAL PLAN FOR THE ESTAB- LISHMENT OF POPULAR SCHOOLS I. The other day I read the Project of a General Plan for the Estabhshment of Popular Schools. That reading pro- duced upon me an effect such as a man must experience when he receives the sudden news that the young grove, which he has known and loved so much, and which he has seen growing up under his eyes, is to be changed into a park, by cutting out here, clearing off and lopping there, by pulling out young shoots by the root and laying out pebble walks in their place. The general idea of the Project is this : Considering it necessary to disseminate popular instruction, and surmis- ing that the education of the masses has not yet begun and that it is hostile toward its future education ; surmis- ing that the statute of the year 1828, prohibiting persons not specially entitled to do so from opening schools and teaching, is still in force ; surmising that the masses will tie ^er consider their own education without compulsion 60 A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 61 from without, or that, having undertaken it, they will not be able to carry it on, — the government imposes on the people a new, the largest of all the existing taxes, the school tax, and entrusts the officials of the ministry with the management of all the newly opened schools, that is, the appointment of teachers and choice of programmes and manuals. The government, in consideration of the new levy, puts itself under obligation before the people of find- ing and appointing fifty thousand teachers and of founding at least fifty thousand schools. However, the government has constantly felt its inadequacy in managing the exist- ing parochial and county schools. All know that there are no teachers, and nobody dissents from that view. This idea, so strange in all the barrenness of its expres- sion to any Russian who knows his country, is in the Project shrouded in all kinds of excuses, expressions of intentions, and grants of privileges, which not one Eus- sian has heretofore ever thought of doubting. However, it is not a new idea. It has been applied in one of the greatest countries of the world, namely, in the North American States. The results of the application of this idea in America have been comparatively very brilliant ; nowhere has public education developed so fast land so universally. That is quite true. But, if America, begin- ning its schools after the European States, has been more successful in its public education than Europe, all that foUows from it is that it has fulfilled its historic mission, and that Eussia, in her turn, must fulfil hers. By trans- planting on her soil the American compulsory system (by means of levies), she would commit the same mistake that America would have committed if, in founding its schools, it should have applied the German or the English system. The success of America is due to the fact that its schools have developed in accordance with the time and the surroundings. Eussia, it seems to me, ought to pro- ceed in the same way ; I am firmly convinced that for 62 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES the Eussian system of public education not to be worse than the other systems (taking into consideration all the conditions of the times it must be better), it must be in- dependent and not like any other system. The law of the school tax has been enacted in Amer- ica by the people itself. If not the whole nation, at least the majority was convinced of the necessity of the pro- posed system of education, and had its full confidence in the government, to which it has entrusted the establish- ment of schools. If the levy has appeared in the nature of a compulsion, only an insignificant minority is affected by it. As is well known, America is the only country in the world which has no peasant class, not only de jure, but even Ae facto, in consequence of which there could not in America exist that difference of education and that differ- ence of opinion concerning education, which exists in our country between the peasant and the non-peasant popula- tion. Besides, America, in establishing its schools, was, I suppose, convinced that it had the essential element for the establishment of schools, — the teacher. It we compare Eussia and America in all their respects, the impropriety of transferring the American system upon Eussian soil will become manifest to us. I now turn to the Project itself. Chapter I. General Considerations. §1. In, order to strengthen the masses in their religious and moral concepts and offer the whole peasantry and the lower classes of the urban population primary , general, and necessary inforrrpation, schools in sufficient number, in pro- portion to the population, are to be established throughout the Empire by rural and urban Communes. What does it mean " establish " ? By what process ? We may be convinced that the people will take no part in the establishment of these schools ; the people will only look upon the school tax as an increased burden. A PEOJECT FOE POPULAE SCHOOLS 63 Who will select the place to build the school on ? Who will appoint the teacher ? Who will invite the children and will get the parents interested to send them ? All those are questions to which I found no answer in the Project. All that will be done by officials of the Min- istry of Public Instruction and by the justices of the peace with the coSperation of the local police ; but in what manner and on the basis of what data ? Are to be established throughout the Empire in sufficient number, in proportion to the population. Leaving out of consideration the impossibility of subjecting the whole population of Eussia to the same treatment as regards popular education, it seems to me, in addition, to be exceedingly inconvenient and dangerous in this manner forcibly to bring education to one common level. There are Governments, counties, and districts where there is a great need of schools (where the need is as great as two and three hundred pupils to every thousand of popula- tion), and where there is a need of schools with more extended programmes. On the other hand, there are locali- ties where the need has not yet risen as high as fifty or even ten in every thousand of the population, and where the compulsory school will either be injurious, or, at the very least, the means set aside for the popular education will be wasted uselessly. I know localities within a distance of twenty versts of each other; in one of these there is a free school, and nobody sends his children there ; in the other, children are glad to walk a distance of three versts, and their par- ents are only too glad to pay fifty kopeks a month. The compulsory establishment of the school, in proportion to the population, produces in the first mentioned locality nothing but suspicion of the school and rage against it, while in the second the average proportion of the whole of Eussia will be insufficient. Consequently the com- pulsory establishment of schools in proportion to the 64 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES population would be partly an injurious and partly a use- less waste of the money set aside for the popular education. §2. Tlie popular schools have a course of primary in- struction as defined hy the Ministry of Public Instruction. It seems to me impossible to define a course for the popular schools. Chapter VI. gives us a fine example of such an impos- sibility. There, for example, writing is not included in the programme, and, according to the sense of a note, writing may be taught only by special permission of the educa- tional authorities. §3. The popular schools are open institutions, that is, they are intended only for day scholars. This article belongs to that order of many similar articles in the law, where a circumspect and serious explanation is given of that which nobody would doubt in the least. The appearance of such negative articles involuntarily makes us think that tbey were written solely in order to swell the volume of the Project, or because there happened to be some members on the com- mittee who had insisted that the popular schools be made boarding-schools. §4. For the purpose of a constant and immediate con- trol of each school, the Communes and municipalities, at whose expense the schools are supported, are entitled to elect curators of either sex ; where such curators shall not he elected, the inspection of the school is incumbent on the justice of the peace. Who will chose these curators ? Who will want to be a curator ? And what do these curators mean ? What is meant by inspection of schools ? All that does not appear from the law. The money will not be in the hands of the curator ; the appointment and discharging of the teachers does not depend on the curator; the change of the school pro- graraive is ppt in the cur^-tor's power ; what, then, I ask, is A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 65 a curator ? People who take delight in the name and who for it will sacrifice their money. Out of respect to the human race, I cannot admit that any one will be willing to assume that strange office, or that the municipalities and Communes will want to elect anybody to such a doubtful honour. §5. In their scholastic relations all the popular schools of the Empire are in charge of the Ministry of Public Instruction, and are governed hy specially appointed directors of scJwols for each of the Governments. §6. 7%e material part of each school is managed by each Commune, at whose expense the school is maintained. §7. No pay for the instruction of the pupils is levied ex- cept in the cases provided for in Arts. %5, B6. Art. 7, with its reference to Arts. 25, 26, belongs to the category of those serio-official articles which have been mentioned before. It means that the peasants who have already paid thirty kopeks a head for the school are fully privileged not to pay a second time for their children. Articles 6 and 7 are far from being definite. What means the educational part, the maintenance of which is left to the director of schools, and what is the material part, which is left to the Commune ? The appointment and dismissal of teachers, the arrangement of the school, the choice of a place for it, the teacher's pay, the choice of books and programmes, — all that depends on the Ministry of Public Instruction. What, then, does the remaining part, which is left in charge of the Commune, consist in ? In the purchase of dampers and latches, in the choice of the left or right side to cut a door through, in the hire of a janitor for the school, in washing the floors, and so forth. Even in this case the Commune is granted only the right to pay for everything out of its own money. What is to be built and how, — all that is attended to by the law, and will be carried out by the educational authorities. According to Art. 5 there is to be a director of schools. 66 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Each director will have from three to five hundred schools under his charge. It will he impossible for him to visit all the schools once a year, consequently the business of the director of schools will be carried on from his office. Chapter II. Tlie Establishment of Schools. I shall omit Articles 8 and 9, which deal with the town schools, which I have not studied and about which I, con- sequently, cannot judge. §10. In the rural districts every parish is oiliged to have at least one popular school. The word " obliged " leaves no doubt as to whether the peasants, in accordance with the meaning of the Project, will be compelled to open schools, or not. The only questions that arise are : (1) What is a parish (the writers of the Project must have had in mind a township) ? and (2) What will be the procedure in case (which will hap- pen most frequently) the peasants will refuse to take any interest whatever in the establishment of the schools, and will pay their school tax only under the pressure of police measures ? Who will select the place, the build- ing, the teacher, and so forth ? §11. The parishes, whose means are not sufficient for the maintenance of schools, may, in lieu of establishing a school, hire a teacher at the Commune's expense for the purpose of giving instruction gratis to the children of said parish in a house set aside for him,, or in the assembly house, or by rotation in the houses of the peasants. §12. The rules laid dow7i in the preceding Art. 11 will also guide the separate settlements, remote from parish churches, when, on account of such remoteness and incon- venient communication, it becomes difficult to send the children to the respective parish school. Articles 11 and 12 are, on the one hand, quite incom- prehensible, and, on the other, belong to the category of elucidatory official articles, mentioned above. When the parishes hire a teacher and rent a hut, what A. PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 67 keeps this from being a school, and why may the parishes only do it ? I used to think that when we have pupils, a teacher, and a place in which to teach, we have a school ; why, then, are a teacher, a schoolroom, and pupils not a school ? But if we are to understand that small, remote Communes have the right to choose their own teachers, without conforming to the law about the maintenance of the teacher, as laid down in the Project, and without writing the word " School " over the hut, — then no one has ever doubted this right, and all have made use of this right, and always make use of it, notwithstanding the prohibition of the law, which is unable to keep a father, uncle, or godfather from teaching one, two, three, or fifteen boys. All it says in this article is that the teacher is to be hired by the Commune, but this is in the majority of cases inconvenient, because all schools which are freely established are generally maintained by contributions from the parents, and not from the whole Commune, which is both more convenient and more just. §§13, 14, and 15. Where no possibility presents itself of arranging a separate school for girls, toys and girls shall he taught in one and the same school, iy one and the same teacher, hut at different hours of the day or on different days of the week. In places where there is no separate school for girls, the Commune may hire a lady teacher to help out the male teacher. Girls up to the age of thirteen years may he admitted to instruction with the hoys of the same age. The girls, of whom mention is made in Art. 1.3, being above the age of thirteen years, are called maidens by the people, — and to suppose that the maidens would be per- mitted by their parents, or would themselves choose, to go to school with small boys, and to prescribe rules for them, in order to secure the popular morality, is the same as to prescribe laws for what is not and never can be. With the present popular view of education even the 68 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES thought of it is out of the question. Even if such a case should arise in the next generation, Art. 14 has provided for it, giving the Commune the unheard-of right to hire, again at their own expense, a lady teacher. The instruc- tion of w^omen in schools has not yet begun, and I dare think that Articles 13, 14, and 15 have not divined all pos- sible cases that may arise during such instruction. It seems to me in general that it is exceedingly diJSficult to vest in legal forms that which is not yet, and has not yet begun. Chapter III. The Maintenance of the Schools. I omit the articles dealing with the town municipalities. Articles 20, 21, 22, and 23 decree a compulsory levy on the parish for the maintenance of the schools and for a Government fund. We must repeat once more that, in spite of the seeming definiteness of these articles, we do not comprehend many very essential things ; namely : Who apportions the neces- sary amount of money for the schools ? Who receives this money, and under what conditions ? Have the Com- munes the right to declare themselves poor on the basis of Articles 10 and 11 ? I am sure that all the Communes without exception will be anxious to invoke this right, and therefore its elucidation is exceedingly important. From the above mentioned articles it appears only that . the writers of the Project propose to burden the rural population with a tax, which is to be used for the estab- lishment of schools and for the formation of a Govern- mental fund. By an extremely faulty calculation, attached to the law, twenty-seven and one-half kopeks from each soul will fall to the share of each peasant. This tax is enormous, and in reality it will be more than increased sixfold, for (p. 18) the calculation there adduced is based on the statistical data furnished by Academician Vese- l(5vski, in a memoir of the Imperial Eussian Geographical Society, and not only is groundless, but must contain some typographical error. It is hard to believe that the A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 69 members of the committee should have known so little the conditions of the country in which they Uve, and the conditions of the popular education, to which they have devoted their labours. The number of children subject to primary instruction, that is, of those between the ages of eight to ten years, forms about Jive per cent, of the whole mass of the population. The number of children subject to primary instruction will be three times the figure mentioned, because, no doubt, it is known to everybody who takes the trouble of visiting a popular school that the normal school age is not from eight to ten years, but rather from seven to thir- teen, or, more correctly, from six to fourteen years. At the present time, with the insufficient dissemination of schools, there are in the Yaseuets township 150 pupils to one thousand souls, in the Golovdnkov township sixty pupils to four hundred souls, and in the Trdsnen township seventy pupils to five hundred souls. With the present undeveloped condition of the schools there are everywhere not five per cent., but twelve per cent, and fifteen per cent. It must be kept in mind that by far not all the children study now, and that the girls form but one- twentieth of all the pupils. Consequently, to one thousand of the male population, proceeds the Project, we must assume about fifty boys who, on account of age, are subject to primary instruction, and in the same number of the female population there will be about fifty girls. The teaching of such a number will not be too burd^ensome for one teacher. We have pointed out above that there will be three times as many pupils, and it is not only burdensome, but simply. impossible to teach fifty boys and girls together. But that is not the worst of the typographical blunder. Every Russian knows that in Eussia there axe six months of winter, with frosts and snow-storms, while in summer the peasant childreu aro doing some field labour, and ia 70 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES winter few have enough warm clothing to venture out any distance ; they run about the street with their father's short fur coat thrown over their heads, and back again to the hut, and upon the oven. In Eussia the great majority of the' population is scattered in settle- ments of from fifty to one hundred souls, at a distance of from two to three versts from each other. How can one in' Eussia get as many as fifty pupils together in one school? As facts have shown to me, one cannot count ou more than ten to fifteen pupils for one school. If there was no .mistake in the calculation, and the Project was really meant to be executed, then, on the basis of the blunder in the calculation concerning the per- centage of the school population, the taxes will have to be increased threefold, because there will be three schools instead of one, of fifty pupils in each. On ac- count of the blunder in the calculation, which brings together fifty pupils into one school, the tax will have to be doubled, that is, by supposing as high as twenty-five pupils to each school, and six schools to each one thou- sand souls, we get six times twenty-seven and one-half kopeks, which, deducting the ten per cent, of the Govern- ment fund, makes at least one rouble and a half to each soul, without counting what is necessary for the estab- lishment and for the repairs of the school, and for the support of the teacher in kind. It is an impossible levy. In a note to Art. 23, which is based on an observation deduced from practice, that the expenses of teaching fre- quently keep the uneducated parents from sending their children to school, it says that the appliances of education and the text-books are not bought by the parents them- selves, but by the person mentioned in the Project as having charge of the expenses for the maintenance of the school. This observation deduced from practice is not true, for, on the contrary, it has always and at all times been A PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 71 observed that the parents prefer to buy their own books, slates, and pencils for their sons, in order that the things may always remain in the house, rather than give the money for the. purchase of these things by the school ; besides, these things are safer and more useful at home than at school. In spite of it being mentioned in Art. 24 that the expenses for the maintenance of the school are allowed hy the village elder and audited hy the village meeting, I affirm that it does not appear from the Project who is entrusted with the expense for the maintenance of the school. Who is to put up a school building, where, when, what kind of a house ? Who buys the school appliances ? What books and pencils, and so forth, and how many are to be bought ? All this is either passed by in the Project, or it is entrusted to the director of schools. The Com- munes have only the right to collect the money and give it away, also to rent ot build a house, also to cut off half a desyatina of land for the teacher, also to travel to town for the purpose of buying dampers, and also, which is most flattering of all, to audit the accounts over which they have no control. All that is done, as it says in the Project, in order to awaken in the Communes a greater readiness to provide the means for the support of the school. It is ordered to give the Communes full liberty both in the apportionment and collection of the surU necessary for the maintenance of the school and in the material care of acquiring everything necessary for the schools. It seems to me that in this matter there is a lack- of sincerity in the Project; it would have been simpler to say that the Communes are granted no rights what- ever in the matter of the school government, but that, on the contrary, a new burden is imposed upon them, which is to acquire certain necessary things and look after the school accounts. 12 PEDAGOGICAL AfiTtCLES Art. 25 imposes the obligation of finding proper quarters for the school and for the teacher, and for pro- viding heat for them. The obligation is very dimly defined, very burdensome, and, on account of its indefi- niteness, liable to give rise to abuses on the side of the school authorities. Art. 26 refers to towns. In Art. 27 it is carefully explained that especial payment may be made by persons who have not con- tributed at large. . §28. Towns and village parishes, which, on account of their sparse population and poverty of inhabitants, are really unable to support schools and even to hire a teacher, may receive aid, at the discretion of the Minister of Public Instruction, from the general reserve school fund. As has been pointed out above, all the Communes without exception will, if they understand the meaning of the Project, be anxious to fall under the provision of Art. 28, and they will quite justly remark that the majority of the inhabitants are poor. (Poverty, espe- cially as regards money, is a well-known common condi- tion of the Eussian peasantry.) Who is to define what Commune falls under the provision of Art. 28 ? Which first, and which later ? On what basis and by whom will similar questions be decided ? The Project tells us nothing concerning it, and yet, it is our opinion, these questions will uni- • versally arise. Art. 29 again repeats that the Commune has the right to cut a door on the right or left side, to make pine or oak seats, and even not to be embarrassed in the manner of their acquisition ; that is, they have the full right to buy them, or to build them from their own timber. Art. 30 is the only one which, being a promise to find means for cheapening the text-books, meets with our full sympathy. A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 73 Articles 31, 32, and 33 do not properly refer to the es- tablishment of village schools, but deal with the formation of the Grovernment fund. We cannot agree with the wisdom of a measure which alienates from the Communes a certain part of their moneys and transfers it to the Gov- ernment, which is again to use it for these Communes. It seems to us that this money could be more justly and more usefully applied to each Commune from which any amount is taken. Chapter IV. The Personnel of the Popular Schools. In Art. 34 it says that in every school there must be a teacher and a religious teacher, which is quite just. In addition to these, the Commune has the right to elect curators of either sex. The following articles explain that the curators have no meaning whatever and no rights whatever, and that in order to be elected they need have no qualifications. Art. 37 explains that the curators enter upon their duties immediately after the election, informing the director of schools of the Government of having entered upon said duties. In addition to this. Art. 38 declares that the curators are not subject to, but only confer with the educational authorities ; they, therefore, do not write reports, but communications, which is both exceedingly flattering and definite. On the other hand, in Art. 36, where it says that the curators supervise the teachers in the correct fulfilment of their duties, and see to it that the teachers receive their pay promptly, that everything necessary is supplied to the school in proper time, and that the external order is preserved in the school, nothing is said as to what a cura- tor can and must do in case of the teacher's improper execution of his duties. He may only communicate the fact to the director ; he may do so justly or unjustly, with the knowledge of the matter, or, as may be sup- posed, more frequently, without the knowledge pf the 74 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES matter. It is not to be supposed that the interference of an entirely superfluous outsider could be of any use. Articles 39, 40, 41, and 46 define the relations of the teacher of religion to the school. Art. 42 says directly, without leaving the slightest doubt about the matter, that the management of the schools in each Governmfent, in spite of the imaginary complete independence of the Communes and in spite of the incomprehensible invention of curators, is left to one person, — the director of schools, since the discharge and the appointment of a teacher form, according to our opinion, the only essential management of a school. We shall have occasion, later on, to speak at greater length of the inconvenience connected with the centralization of such an enormous power in the person of one man. Art. 43 promises the training of teachers, although, as a promise, this article does not even enter into the com- position of the Project ; I cannot withhold the remark that the attempts at training any teachers whatever, both in our Pedagogical Institute, as also in the German sem- inaries and French and English normal schools, have so far led to no results, and have only convinced us of the impossibility of training teachers, especially for the popu- lar schools, just as it is impossible to train artists and poets. Teachers are educated only in proportion to the general demands of education and with the raising of the general level of education. Articles 44 and 45 explain that the belonging to a cer- tain class is no impediment to a man's carrying on the duties of a teacher, and that people belonging to the cleri- cal profession and those who are not of the gentry may be teachers ; here it also says that if a clergyman undertakes to be a teacher, he must teach by all means ! That is all very true. In a note to Art. 45 it says that the curator or justice of the peace recommends teachers for vacancies to the director of schools. I surmise that a brother or A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 75 uncle of the curator or justice of the peace may recom- mend a teacher to the director. Chapter V. Tne Bights of Persons Connected with the Popular Schools. In Art. 47 it says that curators are not granted the privilege of wearing cockades and short swords. (I do not omit a single article, and the reader who will consult the Project will convince himself that I am quoting it correctly.) Articles 48, 49, 50, and 51 define the material position of the teacher. This position is superb, and we must confess that if the Project is to be put in force, we shall, in this respect, at once outdo Europe. The village teacher is to get 150 roubles in silver a year, lodgings with heating, which, in our locality, means About fifty roubles. In addition to that, he is to receive, in grain or flour (by a provision of the Project the Com- munes are granted a great freedom in this matter), two puds ^ a month, which, according to our prices, will amount to about twelve roubles a year ; he is to get, besides, half a desyatma'^ of land fit for a vegetable garden, which means another ten roubles, and thus the whole amounts to 222 roubles. (All this is to come from the Commune which, by the calculation adduced above, is hardly able to get together an average of twenty pupUs.) In addition to this, the Commune is to pay the teacher of religion fifty roubles, for school appliances fifty roubles, and twenty-five roubles interest on the Government fund ; it has to build and maintain the school, hire a janitor, which, at the least figure, means eighty roubles more, — and thus the Com- mune has to pay 427 roubles. In Art. 50 it says that the Commune has the right to hire also a lady teacher. 1 A pud is equal to almost thirty -six pounds. 2 A desyatfna is equal to about three acres. 76 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES A teacher who has served twenty years receives two- thirds of his yearly salary, and is, besides, exempt from taxation and military service, which will again be bur- dened upon the Commune to the extent of ten roubles a year. The position of the teacher is brilliant indeed, but I shall allow myself to question the willingness of the Communes to remunerate them so hberally, if they were to pay the teachers according to their deserts, or if the writers of the Project were compelled to draw the means from other sources. (The privileges granted the teachers, according to Articles 52, 56, and 57, namely, the right to be counted as being in government service, and the right of earning a medal or an Alexander ribbon, and to be elected as assistant director of schools, are not a burden to the Commune, but these, I venture to say, will not have that allurement for the teachers that the rights have which they are to enjoy at the expense o'f the Commune.) The question of the increase of the salary of the popu- lar school-teachers is a question which has for a long time been agitating the European governments, and which finds its solution only step by step ; but with us this question is solved at once by a few lines of the Project. This very simplicity and facility of solution seem suspicious to me. The question involuntarily arises why did they fix it at 150 roubles, and not at 178 roubles and sixteen and one- third kopeks, for by paying 178 roubles and sixteen and one-third kopeks we should get better teachers still. Then again, why not put it at 178 roubles, when the source from which we are deriving the money is in our power, absolutely without any control ? Why only half a desyatina of good soil for a vegetable garden, and not eight and two-thirds desyatinas for a field ? In a note it says : Clericals who at the same time occupy the positions of teacher of religion and of a regular teacher, are entitled only to a full teacher's salary, and receive only one-half A tROJilCt Foil POPULAR SCHOOLS 11 of the amount set aside for the teacher of religion. These figures, no doubt, are all carefully chosen, since twenty- five roubles are so cautiously apportioned to the teacher of religion. These figures must have been arrived at from positive data. These data must be absolutely known, the more so, since it appears from the data which many of us have collected in our personal experience, that the school-tax which, according to that calculation, is imposed upon the Communes, is immeasurably high, exorbitant; that, in our opinion, not one Commune will agree to pay- one-fifth of that tax for school, and that in Eussia there is not to be found even one hundredth part of teachers deserving such remuneration. Chapter VI. The Course of Instruction in the Popular Schools. The first paragraph of Art. 58 defines the programme of the course in religion. Both the instruction and the consideration of this subject are left exclusively in the hands of the clerical profession. (2) The native tongue ; the reading of hooks in Russian and in Slavic type ; explanatory reading of books adapted to primary instruction. (3) Arithmetic : the four opera- tions with integral numbers, abstract and concrete, and an idea of fractions. Note. In addition to these subjects, at the request of Communes, there m,ay be introduced the in- struction of church singing, and with the consent of the educational authorities also other subjects. "We have expressed our conviction that the definition of a course of instruction for the popular schools is quite impossible, especially in the sense ia which the Project is trying to make it, — in the sense of setting limits to the subjects of instruction. In this sense was conceived the circular published by the Minister of Public Instruction ia reference to Sunday schools ; in the same sense was composed the note according to which everything not defined by the programme in the preceding three lines 78 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES may be taught only with the consent of the educational authorities ; in the same providential sense are composed Articles 59, 60, and 61, by which the very method of instruction and the manuals to be used in the instruction of that impossible and narrow programme are to be deter- mined upon by the Ministry of Pubhc Instruction. I do not mention that this is unjust ; that it is inju- rious to the development of education ; that it excludes the possibihty of all lively interest of the teacher in his work ; that it gives rise to endless abuses (the writer of a programme or of a text-book need only make one mis- take, and that mistake becomes obhgatory for the whole of Russia). I say only that every programme for the popular school is absolutely impossible, and every such a programme is only words, words, words. I can compre- hend a programme which defines the obligation which teachers, or the power establishing the school, take upon themselves; I can understand how one may say to the Commune and to the parents : I am the teacher ; I open the school, and I undertake to teach your children this or that, and you have no right to ask of me that which I have not promised you ; but to open a school and to promise that one will not teach this or that is both impru- dent and absolutely impossible. And it is precisely such a negative programme that the Project proposes for all of Eussia and for the popular primary schools. In a higher institution, I presume, it is possible for the instruc- tor, without deviation, to stick to one given course. In lecturing on the Eoman civil law, a professor can bind himself not to speak of zoology or chemistry, but in a popular school the historical, natural, and mathematical sciences mingle, and at any minute questions arise in all the branches of these sciences. The most essential difference between the higher and the lower school lies in the degree of subdivisibihty of the subjects of instruction. In the lowest school it A PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 79 does not exist at all. Here all the subjects are united in one, and after this they gradually branch out. Let us look at Articles 2 and 3 of the programme. What is meant by native tongue? Does it include syntax and etymology? There are some teachers who regard both as the best means for teaching language. What is meant by the reading of books, and by explana- tory reading ? He who has learned his ABC book can read, and he who reads and understands the Moscow Gaz- ette also only reads. How are the books to be explained, say the chrestomathy published by the society for the publication of cheap books ? To take through with ex- planations all the articles of this book, would be tanta- mount to going through nearly the whole course of human knowledge, — theology, and philosophy, and history, and the natural sciences ; and to read through the book by syllables and for the purpose of explanation to repeat each phrase by other incomprehensible words is also explanatory reading. Writing is entirely omitted in the Project ; but even if it were allowed, and most precisely defined in the programme, one might understand by writ- ing the mere copying of letters, or the knowledge of the art of the language, . which may be acquired only by a whole course of subjects and exercises. The programme defines everything and nothing, nor can it define anything. In mathematics. What is meant by the four opera- tions on abstract and concrete numbers ? I, for example, in my teaching, do not use concrete numbers, leaving the so-called concrete numbers for multiplication and division. Arithmetic in general I begin with progression, which every teacher does, for numeration is nothing but decimal progression. It says : an idea of fractions. But why only an idea ? In my instruction I begin the decimal fractions at once with numeration. Equations, that is, algebra, I begin with the first operations. Consequently, I transcend the programme. Plane geometry is not in- 80 PEDAGOGICAL AETICLES dicated in the programme, and yet problems from plane geometry are the most natural and the most intelligible appHcations of the first rules. With one teacher geometry and algebra will enter into the teaching of the four opera- tions ; with another teacher the four operations will form only a mechanical exercise in writing with chalk on a blackboard, and for either the programme will be only words, words, words. So much the less is it possible to give the teacher instruction and guidance. For the suc- cessful progress of the teaching, the teacher must have the means for his own instruction and full liberty in the choice of his methods. It is convenient for one to teach by the huki-az — ha method, and for another by the he-a, and for a third by the l-a method, each being master of his. For the teacher to assimilate another method, it is not enough to know it and to prescribe it to him, — he must believe that this method is the best, and he must love it. This refers both to the methods of the instruction itself, as also to the treatment of the pupils. Circular instructions and prescriptions to the teachers will only embarrass them. More than once have I seen teachers instructing according to the sound method, just as according, to the buM-az — ba method, memorizing letters, combinations, and syllables, and calling buM " by," and dobro " dy," but this was only done in the presence of the authorities, because such was the order. As to the aim, which the committee may have had in view in writing out the programme, — the aim of warding off the possibility of any baneful influence of evil-minded teachers, — it must be said that no programme will keep a teacher from exerting a baneful influence upon his pupils. With such a programme the presence of a captain of gendarmes would become necessary in every school, for nobody could rely on the statements of the pupils, nei- ther for nor against the teacher. The fact is that such fears are not iu the lea^t allaj^ed by the programme, an4 A PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 81 that such fears are quite groundless. No matter how much a Commune is removed from the control over its schools, a father cannot be kept from being interested in that which is being taught to his son ; and however com- ■^ulsory a school may be, a mass of pupils cannot be kept from judging their teacher and giving him just the weight he deserves. I am fairly convinced, both by ratiocination and by experience, that a school is always secure against baneful influences by the control of the parents and by the sentiment of justice in the pupils. In Art. 62 it says that the Communes may establish libraries ; that is, nobody is forbidden to buy books, neither singly, nor in partnership, if they are so minded. Chapter VII. Of the Students in the Popular Schools, and of the Distribution of the Time of Study. §63. Children may enter the popular schools with their eighth year. No preliminary knowled,ge is required of those who enter school. Why eight years and not six years and three and one- half months ? This question demands just such positive proofs as that other question why teachers are to receive 150 roubles, and not 178 roubles and sixteen and one- third kopeks; and this the more, since I know by per- sonal experience that at least one-fourth of the children going to school are below eight years of age, and that during this age, of from six to eight years, the children learn to read more rapidly, more easily, and better. All the children I know of, who are instructed at home, also begin much earlier than at eight years. That is the freest time for a peasant child, — a period during which he is not yet employed at domestic labour, and unreserv- edly devotes himself to the school until his eighth year. Why, then, did the writers of the Project take such a dislike to that age ? It is absolutely necessary to know the ground on which children before the age of eight are excluded from the schools. 82 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES In the second part of the article there is a statement that no preliminary knowledge is required in those who enter. We cannot comprehend what that is for. Are those who enter obliged to wear canvas blouses in the summer, and the well-known uniform in winter ? If everything which is not needed is to be defined, this, too, ought to be stated. In Art. 64 it says : No definite period of instruction in the popular school is established ; every pupil is declared to have finished his course of instruction whenever he has sufficiently acqxdred that v)hich is taught in the school. We vividly imagine the joy and happiness of some Akhramyey when he is declared to have finished a course. §65. In the village popular schools instruction shall begin from the time the field labours are ended, and shall last until the beginning of work in the following year, con- forming to the local conditions of peasant life. Here the authors of the Project, apparently trying wisely to submit to the exigencies of actuality, again are in error, despite the shade of practicalness which this article has. What are the beginning and the end of rural labours ? So long as there is a law iipon it, this ought to be defined. The teacher, who in everything will comply with the law, will execute it promptly. And in this case, if the 1st of April is to be the last day, he will not teach a day too much. Let alone that it is difficult to define the period, in many localities a number of pupils will stay through the summer, and there will nearly everywhere be about a third of them. The peasants are everywhere firmly convinced, on account of the method of memorizing in vogue with them, that what has been learned will soon be forgotten ; and so only those who are in need of their children unwillingly take them out for the sum- mer, but even then they beg to have their children recite at least once a week. If it comes at all to writing a A PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 83 Project, to conforming to the needs of the people, this ought to be written down too. Art. 66 directs the attention to the fact that instruction is given during week-days, and not on holidays, with which one cannot help agreeing, as in the case of all such decrees, written down no one knows why, and expressive of absolutely nothing. But Art. 67 again makes us stagger. There it says that the pupils shall have but one session, and shall study not more than four hours, with a recess. It would be interesting to see the progress made by at least fifty pupils (and maybe even one hundred, as is intended by the calculation) studying only during the winter, and not more than four hours a day, with a recess ! I have the boldness to consider myself a good teacher, but if I were given seventy pupils under such conditions I should say in advance that half of them would be unable to read in two years. As soon as the Project shall be confirmed, not one teacher, in spite of the half desya- tina of garden land, will add one hour of work contrary to the regulation, lest, by not complying with the philan- thropic foresight of the Project, he should exhaust the youthful minds of the peasant children. In a sufficiently . large number of schools, which I know, the children study from eight to nine hours a day, and remain overnight at school so as to be able in the evening once more to recite to the teacher, and neither the parents nor the teachers observe any evil consequences from it. According to Art. 69 there is to be an annual public examination. This is not the place to prove that exam- inations are injurious, and more than injurious, — that they are impossible. I have mentioned this in the article " The School at Yasnaya Polyana." In reference to Art. 69 I will limit myself to the question : " For what and for whom are these examinations ? " The bad and baneful side of the examinations in a 84 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES popular school must be evident to anybody : they lead to official deceit, forgery, useless mustering of childreD, and the consequent interruption of the customary occupations. The usefulness of these examinations is totally incom- prehensible to me. It is injurious by means of examina- tions to awaken a spirit of rivalry in children eight years old, and it is impossible by means of an examination of two hours' duration to determine the knowledge of eight- year-old pupils and to judge of the merits of a teacher. According to Art. 70 the pupils received stamped documents, called diplomas. As to what these documents are to be used for, nothing is said in the Project. No rights and no privileges are connected with them, and so I suppose that the deceptive idea that it is very flattering to have a stamped document will long be current among the people or will serve as an incitement for attending • school. Even though at first the masses may be deceived as to the meaning of these papers, they will soon come to see their error. Art. 71 grants the same right of stamped documents to people who have been instructed outside the school, and who, in my opinion, will still less be flattered by such a privilege. Art. 72, with a note to it, on the contrary, deserves our full confidence, and, more than all the others, corre- sponds to the aim and spirit of the Project. It runs as follows : At the end of each scholastic year, the teacher reports to the director of the Government, on the enclosed blank, as to the number of pupils in the popular school, and as to the number of those who have been subjected to exam- ination for the purpose of receiving a diploma. Note. This information contains statistical data, neces- sary for the final report to the Ministry of Public Instruc- tion, and therefore its form must always agree with the questions, as defined by that report. The director of schools shall furnish the schools with printed blanks of A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 85 such information, the expenses for printing to he credited to the sum allowed him for office appliances. How well everything is thought out ! How everything has been provided for, — even the printing of the blanks, even the sum from which the expense is to be met ! One simply feels the stern regularity and immutability of form and even of contents of the future reports, such as the government wants to get : not reports of what is to be in reality, not even of what is, — for the chief part of the education in private schools will sli|) away from these reports, — but of what ought to be according to the imprac- ticable decrees of the government. With this article ends the whole Project of the state schools. Then follows : Chapter VIII. Private Popular Schools. Three articles of this chapter grant all persons the right to open private schools, define the conditions under which they may be opened, limit the programmes of such schools to the mere rudiments in the narrower sense, and establish the control of the clergy over them. One may be sure that in the Nord and in Other foreign papers the granting of such a privilege will be received and esteemed as a new step toward progress which we are taking. The critic of the Project, who is unacquainted with Russian life, will take down the law of 1828, accord- ing to which the opening of schools and private instruc- tion is prohibited, and, comparing the older restrictive measures with the new Project, in which one is only asked to give information of the opening of a school, will say that in matters of public education the Project gives incomparably greater freedom than was the case before. But for us, who are living a Eussian life, the matter appears different. The law of the year 1828 was only a law, and it never occurred to any one to comply with it ; all, both society and the executors of the law, acknowledged its impracti- cability and the impossibility of carrying it out. There 86 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES have existed and still exist thousands of schools without permission, and not one superintendent or director of a gymnasium has ever raised his hand to close these schools, because they do not comply with the articles of the law of 1828. By tacit consensus of opinion, society and the executors of the law accepted the law of 1828 as non- existing, and, in reality, in the teaching and opening of schools men were guided by a complete time-honoured liberty of action. The law passed by entirely unnoticed. I opened a school in 1849, and only in March of 1862 did I learn, upon the occasion of the promulgation of the Project, that I had no right to open such a school. Out of a thousand teachers and founders of schools scarcely one knows of the existence of the law of 1828. It is known only to the officials of the Ministry of Public Instruction. For this reason it seems to me that Articles 73, 74 and 75 of the Project offer new rights only as regards sup- posedly existing restrictions, but when compared with the existing order of things, they only impose new restrictive and impracticable conditions. Nobody will be willing to establish schools, if he is not to have the right of appoint- ing and dismissing teachers, himself choosing text-books, and of getting up his own programme. The majority of teachers and founders of schools — soldiers, sextons, can- tonists 1 — will be afraid to report the establishment of their schools ; many will not know of this requirement, and, if they want to do so, will know how to elude it in legal form. As P have said in the preceding article, it is im- possible to define the limits between a home education and the school. The innkeeper has hired a teacher for his two children, and three others come to his house ; the landed proprietor teaches four of the children of his manorial servants and two peasant children with his own ; labourers come to me on Sundays, and to some of these 1 Soldiers raised from boyhood iu soldier-colonies. A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 87 I read, while others study the rudiments, or look at draw- ings and models. Are these schools, or not ? And yet, what a field for abuses ! I am a justice of the peace and am convinced that education is harmful for the masses, and so I fine an old man for having taught his godchild reading, and take away from him the ABC book and the psalter, on the ground that he ought to have informed me of the establishment of the school. There are rela- tions of man to man, which cannot be defined by laws, such as the domestic relations, the relations of him who educates to him who is being educated, and so forth. Chapter IX. On the Government of Schools. Here it says that the government of the schools is entrusted to the director of schools, one to each provinca In the Project there is frequent mention of the subdivi- sion of the schools as regards their government into an educational part and some other kind of a part. I posi- tively cannot comprehend this division, and I can see no other part in a school than the educational, from which springs the material part, naturally subject to it and in no way to be separated from it. According to the Project, everything is left in charge of the one director. The director, to judge from the indistinct expression of Art. 87 {who has gained cAyerience in matters of education during the period of his service as a teacher), is to be se- lected from among the teachers of a gymnasium or from the professors. The director must personally supervise the instruction, and must even show how to act and teach, — there being but one director to three hundred or five hundred schools in the Government. In order to have the right to offer any kind of advice to a teacher, one must for at least a week study up the condition of each school, but, as everybody knows, there are only 365 days in the year. These officials will cost the govern- ment about two hundred thousand roubles for the whole of Eussia. 88 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES In Art. 79 it says that the director is to avoid corre- spondence, but shall superintend in person. In the following articles the director is given instruc- tions as to what he is to demand of the teachers. In Art. 86 the director is furnished with travelling expenses. It is the evident desire of the authors of the Project that the supervision of the director should not be formal, but real. But the very position of this official precludes the possibility of actual observation. An alum- nus of the university, a former teacher at a gymnasium, or a professor at a university, that is, a man who has never had anything to do with the masses and with the popular schools, is obliged, living in the city and attend- ing to his office duties, to the appointment of teachers, to rewards, reports, and so forth, to guide the schools which he can visit only once a year, if at all as often as that. I know directors of gymnasia, who are almost in the same situation, who with the greatest possible zeal and love busy themselves with the parochial schools, and who at every step, at revisions, at examinations, at ap- pointments and exchanges of teachers, make blunder after blunder only because their circle of activity is a hundred times wider than it should or could be. One man may manage an army corps and, making one inspec- tion, may know whether the corps is in good or bad order, but to manage a dozen schools is more than one man can do. Everybody who knows the popular schools must know how difficult and how impossible it is by inspection or by an examination to ascertain the degree of success and the direction of a certain school. How often a conscien- tious teacher, with a feeling of his dignity and not allow- ing himself to show off his pupils, will appear in a worse light than a soldier-teacher who has been ruining his pupils for a year and who is working only in view of the final parade ! And how cunning these unprincipled men A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 89 are, and how frequently they succeed in deceiving good and honest superiors ! There is hardly use in speaking of the terrible injury which such a higher authority does to the pupils. But even if my readers should not agree with me on that score, the creation of the office of the director will be useless and harmful for this reason alone, if for no other, that one director to a Government will appoint and discharge teachers and will offer rewards only by hearsay, by supposition, or arbitrarily, because it is impossible for one man to know what is going on in five hundred schools. Then follows a sample of a report on the number of pupils, a calculation of the sum necessary for the main- tenance of the popular schools, and the personnel of the Governmental Office of Popular Schools. Then there comes an explanatory note. From the explanatory note it appears that the activity of the committee was divided into two parts : (1) the finding of measures for the development of the popular instruction at the present time until the final adjustment of the rural population ; (2) the plan of the Project itself, which we have been discussing. The preliminary meas- ures have been realized, so far as I know, by a circular of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as regards the order of the opening of schools and the obligation of making announce- ment about them. In reference to the appointment and dismissal of teachers by the director of the Government, to the supervision entrusted to the local clergy, and to the order that the text-books in use should be approved by the Ministry of Public Instruction and by the Holy Synod, I do not know, although I am specially interested in schools, whether that is a request, or a law. It is very likely that I am committing a crime when I use unap- proved books in my school, and that the Communes are also criminal in changing and appointing teachers without the director. If such a law has been in force, or is to 90 PEDAGOGICAL AKTIGLES be in force, it is not enough to fall back on the first article of the Code of Laws, which declares that the igno- rance of the laws does not excuse any one ; such new and unexpected laws ought to be read in all the churches and in all the parishes. We are equally ignorant whether the Ministry of Public Instruction has adopted the propo- sition of the committee of training teachers in the quick- est time possible, and where and how many of them are undergoing such training. I have mentioned before that the measure prescribed in the circular of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not practicable. Let us now turn to some of the thoughts expressed in the explanatory note, which have startled us most. It would seem that there is no good cause for not being sincere in such a serious matter of state. I have in mind the part, meaning, and influence, which, in matters of education, is given, according to the Project, to our Eussian clergy. I vividly present to myself the authors of the Project, who, when writing the note : and entrust- ing the parochial clergy with the supervision of the educa- tion so that it he carried oh in the spirit of Orthodox Christian morality, etc., — I vividly present to myself the smile of submission and of the consciousness of their certain superiority and, at the same time, of the falseness of this measure, which must have played on the lips of the authors of the Project as they listened to the reading of this article and ordered it written down in the minutes. Just such a smile is produced by it on all experienced men who claim to know life. " What is to be done ? This is natural," say some. Other, inexperienced, intelligent people interested in the matter are provoked and become enraged at the reading of this article. From whom do they wish to conceal the sad truth ? No doubt from the masses. But the masses know it better than we. Is it possible that, having lived so many centuries in the closest relations with the clergy. A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 91 they have not learned to know and value them properly ? The people appreciate the clergy and give them such a part and influence upon their education as the clergy deserve. In the Project there are many such insincere, diplomatic articles. As a matter of fact they will all be eluded, and it would make no difference if they had never been written ; but these articles, as, for example, the one we have just mentioned, on account of their falseness and obscurity, open an enormous field for abuses which can- not be foreseen. I know some clergymen who say that to teach reading by the he method and not by hiki is a sin ; that to translate the Slavic prayers into Russian and to explain them is a sin ; that sacred history should be taught only as set down in the ABC book, and so forth. n. I MYSELF feel that my manner of discussing the Proj- ect is not sufficiently serious and that it looks as though I were making fun of the Project and as though I had set out to deny everything contained in it. Such a relation to the Project has arisen involuntarily as the result of the oppositeness of my practical view on matters, growing out of my close relations with the people, and from the abso- lute estrangement from reality, which is evident in the conception and draft of the Project. We occupy such opposite, distantly remote points of view that, in spite of the respect and even terror roused in me by the Project, I somehow cannot bring myself to believe in its reahty, and, in spite of the efforts which I am making over myself, I am unable to remain quite serious in respect to it. I can find no retorts in the sphere of ideas in which the committee acted. The essence of my objections is directed, not against the mistakes and omissions of the Project, but against that very sphere of action from which it has emanated, and consists only in the denial of the apphcability and possibility of such a Project. I shall endeavour to transfer myself to that sphere of ideas and actions, from which the Project has emanated. It is clear to me why in the preftent period of universal reforms in Eussia the question of establishing a system of popular education should naturally rise in govern- mental circles. The government, which has always taken the initiative in all reforms and innovations, must have naturally arrived at the conviction that precisely at this 92 A PKOJECT FOft POPULAIl SCHOOLS 93 time it was iacumbent upon it to establish a system of popular education. Having arrived at such a conviction, it naturally had to entrust the establishment of this sys- tem to certain officials of various ministries. Nothing more fundamental and more liberal could have been invented, or might have been expected, than the idea that representatives of all the ministries should take part in the authorship of this Project. (It may, however, be remarked that it is strange that to this committee, whose labours are a^ thousand times more important than those of the serf committee, no experts were invited, as had been done in the case of the dehberations of the question of the emancipation of the serfs. But this remark has no force because, in our opinion, the Project would have been little changed from what it is, even if so-called experts had been invited.) It was, of course, out of the question to let the people who are concerned in the Project, them- selves, 'by means of their representatives, create that system. People, very respectable though they be, who have served as officials, who have never studied the masses, nor the questions of popular education, who are no special- ists in the business with which they were occupied, con- tinuing their former occupations, having no time to devote dozens of years to the study of the question in hand, began to assemble on certain days of the week and to discuss the greatest question of creation, — popular educa- tion in Bussia. It must also be remarked that the most essential question of the subordination of the schools to the Ministry of Public Instruction had been settled in the committee of the ministers, and that, therefore, the mem- bers of the committee were confined to the narrowest possible limits. I take in advance all the members of the committee to have been highly cultured and moral men, pervaded by love for the masses and by a desire to benefit their country, and 94 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES yet, in spite of it, I cannot assume that anything else Qould have resulted under th§, conditions under which they were working. Nothing but the Project which we are discussing could have resulted. In the whole Proj- ect we observe not so much a study of the national needs and a study of education itself and the determination of new laws based on such a study, as a struggle with something unknown, baneful, and deadening. The whole Project, as the readers have seen, is filled with articles stating that poyular schools are open establishments ; that priests may teach only if they have the time for teaching ; that no privileges are granted a curator ; that teachers are not subject to preferments of rank ; that there is no conven- tional form of school buildings ; that private individuals may teach; that libraries may he established; that directors of schools shall visit the schools ; that men belong- ing to any class may become teachers; that salaries are paid but once ; that teachers are not to be prohibited from passing over to other occupations (Art. 22 of the explana- tory note) ; that teachers rieed not wear any uniform,, etc., etc. The reading of this Project makes one living in the country marvel why such articles are written, and the Project is fuU of such articles, as may be seen from our analysis. Working under such conditions of ignorance of the matter and of ignorance of the people and their needs, and, above all, under the restrictions which one feels throughout the whole Project, one can only marvel that it has not turned out much worse. The question was put like this: There are no means and will be none ; the popular education is to be subject to the Ministry of Public Instruction ; the clergy must have the power of guiding and directing the spirit of the education ; the management of the schools and the schools themselves are to be uniform throughout Russia, — now, make the system the best possible. To invent a Eussian A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 95 system of education, such as would spring from the needs of the people, is a matter of impossibility for a committee or for anybody else in the world, — one has to wait for it to grow out of the people. To divine the measures which may facilitate, and not hamper such a development, takes much time, labour, study, and freedom of view ; none of these did the committee possess. To solve the question it was necessary to turn to the European systems. I suppose that officials had been sent to the various countries for the purpose of studying up their systems. (I even saw such investigators aimlessly wandering from place to place and concerned only about the thought of writing up a memoir to be presented to the ministry.) On the basis of such memoirs, I suppose, all the foreign systems had been discussed in the committee. We cannot be grateful enough to the committee for having selected the least bad of all the inapplicable systems, the American. Having solved the main financial question on the basis of this system, the committee passed over to the adminis- trative questions, being guided only by the predetermina- tion of the committee of the ministers as to subordinating the schools to the Ministry of Public Instruction, and making use, for the information of the facts of the case, of such material as was at hand in St. Petersburg : of the memoir of the Geographical Society for the dissemination of the schools, and of the official reports of the religious department and of the directors for the determination of the number of schools, — and the Project was written up. From the standpoint of the government, schools will be opened in Eussia in proportion to the population, the moment the Project is made effective. In the majority of cases the well-to-do peasants will gladly pay twenty- seven and one-half kopeks for each soul, and in the poor settlements the schools wUl be opened gratis (from the government fund). The peasants, having such excellent schools, will not let their children be instructed by soldiers, 96 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES but will gladly bring them to the school. For every thousand inhabitants (all this from the government point of view) there will be a beautiful house, which, although not constructed in a prescribed way, will bear the iascrip- tion " School " and will be provided with benches and tablfes and a reliable teacher appointed by the government. The children of the whole parish will be gathered here. • The parents will be proud of the 'diplomas which their children will receive; such a diploma will be regarded as the best recommendation for a lad, — and they will be more willing to give him a maiden in marriage and to give him work, if he has a diploma. Three or four years later not only boys, but girls also will attend school. One teacher, by dividing up the hours of the day, will teach one hundred pupils. The instruction will be successful, in the first place, because by granting a reward the best method will be found, selected, and approved by the Ministry of Public Instruction, and this method will be obligatory for all schools (and after awhile the teachers will all be trained in this one, best method) ; in the second place, because the text-books will also be the best, being approved by the Ministry, like those of Bertet and Oboddvski. The teacher will be well provided for, and he will be attached to and united with the people, in the midst of whom he will live. The teacher, as in Germany, will with the priest form the aristocracy of the village, and wUl be the first friend and adviser of the peasants, i'or every vacancy among the teachers there will be dozens of candidates, from among whom the expert and cultured director will choose the worthiest. The teacher of religion, for an appropriate remuneration, will confirm the children in the truths of the Orthodox faith. Since nearly all the young generation will be drawn to the school, all possibility of a further spread of the schism will stop. A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 97 The means of the school will always be sufficient, not only for the teachers' pay, which is secured by means of a twenty-seven-kopek levy, but also for school appliances and for the buildings, the construction of which is left to the discernment of the Commune, so that the Communes will not stint the means, but, on the contrary, will con- tend in rivalry with each other. Not only will the Communes not spare the means, but each school will have its curators, and these persons, in sympathy with the popular education, — presumably rich people, — will come to the aid of the school, both by furnishing material means and by governing it. The slightest irregularity of the teacher or misunderstanding on the side of the parents wiU be removed by the curators or justices of the peace, who will gladly devote part of their leisure to the holy work of popular education, which rouses the sympathy of all the enlightened men of Eussia. The time of instruction will not be a burden to the moral powers of the pupils ; the whole summer will be devoted to field labour. The course of instruction will contain the most essential knowledge and will cooperate in strengthening in the masses their religious and moral concepts. Evil-minded, coarse, uncultured people, being obliged to report the opening of their schools, wiU by that very act fall under the control of the educational author- ities, and thus vrill be deprived of the possibility of doing any harm. The government schools will naturally be so good that the competition of the private schools will prove as impossible as it has proved in America, the more so since the government schools will be free. The provincial authority over the schools will be concentrated in one cultivated, expert, independent person, — the director of schools. This person, materially secure and not bound by any bureaucratic exigencies, will all the time be making the round of the schools, examining, and personally watching over the progress of instruction. 98 PEDAGOGICAL AKTICLES It looks all so nice ! One seems to see in his mind's eye large school buildings erected all over Eiissia, with iron roofs, presented by curators or by Communes; one sees, at the hour appointed by the ministry, the pupils gathering from the various villages, carrying knapsacks over their shoulders; one sees a cultured teacher, who has studied the best method, and a lady curator, filled with love for the work and present during classes and watching the instruction ; one sees the director arriving in a carriage drawn by fine horses, for a third or fourth time that year, greeting the teacher and the pupils, nearly all of whom he knows, and giving the teacher practical advice; one sees the happiness and contentment of the parents, who are present at the examinations and who in trepidation are waiting for the rewards and the diplomas of their children ; and one sees all over Eussia the dark- ness of ignorance quickly dispelled, and the rude, ignorant people becoming all changed, growing in culture and happiness. But there will be nothing of the kind. Eeality has its laws and its demands. In reality, so far as I know the people, the application of the Project will lead to the following results : It will be announced through the rural police or through the township offices that the peasants are to levy a tax of twenty-seven and one-half kopeks per head against such and such a date. They will be informed that this money is for the purpose of a schooL Then there will be an- nounced another levy for the building of the school ; if it will be said that the^ amount of the levy depends upon them,* the peasants will set it at three kopeks, so they will be compelled to make a stated levy. The peasants will, naturally, not comprehend this, and will not believe it. The majority will decide that there is an ukase from the Tsar to increase the tax, and that is all. The money will be collected with difficulty, through threats and use A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS 99 of force. The captain of the rural police will determine the place where the school is to be built and will demand that the Communes choose their own supervisors of the buildmg. The peasants will, naturally, see in this a new tax, and will carry out the command only under compul- sion. They will not know what to build or how to build it, and will only carry out the command of the authorities. They will be told that they may elect a curator for their school; they will not comprehend this under any circumstances, not because they are so stupid and igno- rant, but because they will fail to understand how it is they are not to have the right of watching in person over the instruction of their children, while they are to elect for that purpose a person that, in reality, does not possess that right either. The tax of twenty-seven and one-half kopeks, the levy for the building, the obligation to have it erected, — all that will breed in the people such a hos- tility to the idea and to the word " school," with which they naturally will connect the idea of taxation, that they will not wish to elect anybody, fearing lest they should be mulcted for the curator's salary. The captain and the justice vrill come down upon them, and they will in terror and trepidation choose the first man who happens to call himself a curator. The curator will be the same justice of the peace, or, nearly always, it will be the first landed proprietor of the village, who will be elected, and thus the curatorship will become his amusement and pastime, that is, the most serious business in the world will become his plaything or will serve him as a means for satisfying his vanity. The justice of the peace, as matters now stand, is not physically able to attend even to his direct duties ; and it is an exceedingly difficult matter, demand- ing great knowledge and conscientious labour, to be the representative of a Commune, in relation to the control exercised by this Commune over the school. The majority oi the curators will visit the school two or three times a 100 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES month, will probably make a present of a home-made blackboard, on Sunday will invite the teacher to the house (and that is the best thing of all), and in case of a vacancy will recommend their godchild, the priest's son expelled from the theological school, or their former office lad. Having built the school and paid the money, the Com- munes wUl conclude that they are through with the taxes, — but that is where they will be mistaken. The captain will announce to them that they are to cut off half a desyatina of the hemp-field for the teacher's use. Again there will be meetings, again the words " school " and " forcible ahenation " will mingle in one inseparable idea. The peasants will go through their fields, trying to cut off the desired strip, and they will call each other names, and quarrel, and sia, as they call it, and will come together a second and a third time, and somehow, fulfilliag the command of the authorities, will manage to deprive themselves of a piece of valuable garden land. But that is not all: there has to be another meeting in order to apportion the teacher's allowance of grain throughout the parish. (The contributions in kind are the most disliked of all by the peasants.) Finally the school is built, and the maintenance of the teacher is assured. If the landed proprietor or the justice of the peace has not recommended his office lad, or godchild, the director of schools has to appoint his own teacher. The choice will be either very easy or very hard for the director of schools, for thousands of teachers, expelled from the seminaries, or discharged scribes, will every day be stand- ing in his antechamber, treating his secretary to wine, and in every possible way trying to gain his favour. The director, a former teacher of a gymnasium, will, if he is an absolutely conscientious and cautious man, be guided in his choice of teachers only by the degree of their edu- cation, that is, he will prefer one who has finished a A PROJECT FOE POPULAR SCHOOLS 101 course to one who has not, and will thus constantly be making blunders. But the majority of directors, who do not look so severely upon their duties, will be guided by philanthropic recommendations and their good hearts : why not give a piece of bread to a poor man ? — and thus they will commit the same blunders as the first. I see no juster means for the director's choice than the casting of lots. One way or other, the teacher will be appointed. The Communes are informed that they may send their chil- dren without any farther expenses to the very school which has come so hard to them. The majority of peas- ants will everywhere give the same reply to such a propo- sition : " The devil take that school, — we are sick of it. We have lived so many years without a school, and we shall manage to get along without it ; if I want my boy to learn something, I shall send him to the sexton. I know something about that instruction, and God knows what this will be : it may be they will ' teach my boy something, and then they will take him entirely away from me." Let us suppose that such an opinion will not be universal, that it will disappear in time, and that, seeing the progress of the children who have entered before, others will wish to send theirs ; in that case, which I do not at all admit, only those who live in the village where the school building is will send their chil- dren there. No gratis instruction will entice the pupils in the winter from villages one verst distant from the school. That would be physically impossible. There will be an average of about fifteen pupils to a school. The remaining children of the parish will study with private people in the villages, or they will not study at all, while they will be counted in as attending school and will be so reported. The success of the schools will be just the same as, if not worse than, the success obtained with private teachers, 102 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES sextons, and soldiers. The teachers will be men of the same calibre, seminarists, for there are as yet no others, bxit with this difference : in the first case they are bound by no repressive conditions and are under the control of the parents who demand results corresponding to the money paid out by them, while in the government school, where they have to submit to methods, manuals, limita- tions of hours each day, and the interference of curators and directors, the results will certainly be worse. The director wiU receive an enormous salary, will be travelling, and now and then bothering good, conscientious teachers, appointing poor teachers, and dismissing good ones, for it is impossible to know the conditions of the schools for a whole Government; as he must supervise them, he wiU at stated times make reports, which will be as unwittingly false as those are which are made now. Private schools will exist just as they exist now, with- out giving information of their existence, and nobody will know anything of them, although in them will take place the chief movement of the popular education. All that is not the worst, nor the most baneful thing. In all the branches of the Eussian administration we are accustomed to the incompatibility of of&cial legislation with actual conditions. It would seem, then, that there might be here the same incompatibility in matters of the popular education. What is faulty and. inapplicable in the Project will be eluded, and much will be carried into effect and will be useful. With the Project a beginning of a system of popular education has at least been made, and whether good or bad, small or large, there will be at least one school to every thousand of the Eussian population. This would be quite true if the establishment of the schools, in the administrative and financial respect, were fully and frankly taken up by the government, and if A PROJECT FOR POPULAR SCHOOLS . 103 that institution were just as fully and frankly transferred to the Commune, whereas in the Project before us the Commune is made to pay, and the government takes upon itself the organization of the schools. It is from this that naturally will spring that enormous moral evil, though it may not be apparent to all, which for a long time will undermine the development of education in the Eussian people. The need of education is just beginning freely to take germ in the masses. After the manifesto of Feb- ruary 19 th, the people everywhere expressed their convic- tion that they now need a greater degree of education and that, in order to acquire this education, they are ready to make certain sacrifices. This conviction has found its expression in the fact that everywhere free schools have been arising in enormous numbers. The masses have been advancing on the path on which the government would like to see them go. Suddenly, by exerting an oppression on the free schools and by imposing an obligatory school tax upon all, the government not only does not acknowledge the previous educational movement, but, as it were, denies it : the gov- ernment seems to be imposing the obhgation of another, unfamiliar education on the masses, removing them from participation in their ovra. affair, and demanding from them not guidance and dehberation, but only submission. Not only has my own experience shown to me in particular cases, but history and common sense indicate to us, the possible results of such interference: the masses will regard themselves as the martyrs of violence. The old sexton's schools will appear to them as sanctuaries, while the new governmeut schools will seem to them to be sin- ful innovations, and they will in rage turn away from the, very business which they had begun themselves in love, simply because the government has been in a hurry and has not given them a chance to think out the matter to its conclusion, has not given them a chance to select their 104 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES own road, but has forcibly led them along a path which they do not yet regard as the best. The realization of the Project will, in addition to its essential imperfections, breed one immeasurable evil: a schism of education, a taciturn negative resistance to the school, and a fanaticism of ignorance or of the old education. EDUCATION AND CULTURE There are many words which have no clear definition and are easily taken one for the other, but yet are neces- sary for the transmission of thought. Such words are " education," " culture," and even " instruction." Pedagogues sometimes do not acknowledge any distinc- tion between culture and education, and yet are not able to express their thoughts otherwise than by using the words culture, education, instruction, or teaching. There must certainly be separate conceptions corresponding to these words. There may be some reasons why we do not wish to use these conceptions in their precise and real sense; but these conceptions exist and have a right to exist separately. In Germany there exists a clear subdivision of the con- cepts as Erziehung (education) and UnterricM (instruc- tion). It is assumed that education includes instruction, that instruction is one of the chief means of education, and that every instruction has in it an educational element, erzieUiges Element. But the concept of culture, Bildung, is mistaken either for education, or for instruc- tion. The most general German definition wiU be like this: education is the formation of the best men in conformity with the ideal of human perfection, worked out by a certain period. Instruction which introduces a moral development is a means, though not an e:!fclnsive 105 106 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES means, toward its attainment; among the other means, outside of instruction, is the placing of the subject under education into certain conditions favourable to the ends of education, — discipline and compulsion, Zucht. The spirit of man, say the Germans, must be broken in as the body is broken in by gymnastics. Der Geist muss gezuchtigt werden. Culture, Bildung, in Germany, in society, and some- times even in pedagogical literature, as already mentioned, is either mistaken for instruction and education, or is represented as a social phenomenon with which pedagogy has nothing to do. In the Trench language I do not even know a word corresponding to the concept of culture: education, instruction, civilization are entirely different concepts. Even thus there is no word in English which corresponds to the concept of ohrazovanie (culture).^ The German practical pedagogues sometimes do not acknowledge the subdivisions into education and culture : both are welded into one inseparable whole. In talking once vidth the famous Diesterweg, I led him up to the question of culture, education, and instruction. Diester- weg spoke with malicious irony of people who made such subdivisions, for according to him all these ran together. And yet we spoke of education, culture, and instruction, and we clearly understood each other. He himself said that culture had an educational element which was included in every instruction. What do these words mean ? How are they under- stood, and how should they be understood ? iThe Russian word for "culture," ohrazovanie, means also "for- mation," being derived from a word meaning "image" or "form." Tolstdy is mistaken in not finding an equivalent word for it in Eng- lish, for " culture " very nearly covers it. However, in this essay what is translated by " education " more nearly corresponds to "bringing up," while what is translated by "culture" frequently corresponds to the English connotations of "education," as which it is translated elsewhere in these essays. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 107 I will nob repeat the discussions and conversations I have had with pedagogues in respect to this subject, nor will I copy from books those contradictory opinions which are current in literature regarding this matter, — that would be a waste of time, and everybody who has read my first pedagogical article may verify the truth of my words, — but will only try to explain here the origin of these conceptions and the causes of their obscurity. According to the conceptions of the pedagogues, educa- tion includes instruction. The so-called science of pedagogy is interested only in education, and looks upon a man receiving his culture as upon a being entirely subject to the educator. Only through him does the man in the formative period of culture receive cultural or educational impressions, whether these impressions be books, stories, memorizing, artistic or bodily exercises. The whole external world is allowed to act upon the pupil only to the extent to which the educator finds it convenient. The educator tries to surround his pupil with an impenetrable wall against the influences of the world, and allows only so much to pass through his scientific scholastioo-educational funnel as he deems to be useful. I am not speaking of what has been done by so-called unprogressive men, — I am not fighting windmills, — I am speaking of the com- prehension and application of education by so-called excellent, progressive educators. Everywhere the influ- ence of life is removed from the cares of the pedagogues ; everywhere the school is surrounded with a Chinese wall of book knowledge, through which only so much of the vital cultural influence is admitted as may please the educators. The influence of life is not recognized. Thus the science called pedagogy looks upon the matter, for it assumes the right to know what is necessary for the formation of the best man, and it considers it possible 108 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES to remove every extra-educational iafluence from its charge; even thus they proceed in the practice of edu- cation. On the basis of such a view, education and culture are naturally confused, for it is assumed that if there were not education, there would not be culture. Of late, when people have begun dimly to conceive the necessity of a freedom of culture, the best pedagogues have come to the conclusion that instruction is the best means of edu- cation, but that the instruction is to be compulsory, obligatory, and thus have begun to confuse all three conceptions of education, culture, and instruction. According to the conceptions of the theoretical peda- gogue, education is the action of one man upon another, and includes three acts : '(1) the moral or forcible influ- ence of the educator, — mode of hfe, punishment ; (2) teaching and instruction, and (3) the direction of vital influences upon the person under education. The mistake and confusion of ideas, in our opinion, arises from the fact that pedagogy takes for its subject education, and not culture, and does not perceive the impossibility for the educator of foreseeing, weighing, and defining all the influences of life. Every pedagogue admits that life introduces its influence before school and after school, and, in spite of all efforts to remove it, even into school. This influence is so strong that the whole influence of the school, education is for the greater part annihilated ; but the pedagogue sees in this only an insufficient develop- ment of the science and art of pedagogy, and insists upon, regarding as his problem the education of men according to a certain pattern, and not their culture, that is, the study of the paths on which men become cultured, and the coSperation to this liberal culture. I admit that Unterricht, teaching, instruction, is part of Erzieliung, education, but culture includes botn. Educatioji is not the subject of pedagogy, but ooe of the ECUCATIOH Al^D CULftJftE 109 phenomena to which pedagogy cannot help paying atten- tion ; the subject of pedagogy ought to be and can be only culture. Culture, in its widest meaning, in our opin- ion, forms the sum total of all those influences which develop a man, give him a wider world conception, and furnish him with new information. Children's games, sufferiog, punishments of parents, books, work, compul- sory and free instruction, the arts, the sciences, life, — everythiag gives culture. Culture in general is to be understood as the conse- quence of all those influences which life exerts on man (ia the sense of the culture of a man we say " a cultured man "), or, as the influence itself of all vital conditions upon man (in the sense of the culture of a German, a Eussian peasant, a gentleman, we say, "This man has received a good or a bad culture [traiaing]," and so forth). It is only with the last that we have to deal. Education is the action of one man upon another for the purpose of making the person under education acquire certain moral habits (we say, " They have educated him [brought him up] a hypocrite, a robber, or a good man." The Spartans educated brave men, the French educate one-sided and self-satisfied men). Instruction is the transmission of one man's information to another (one may instruct in the game of chess, in history, in the shoemaker's art). Teach- ing, a shade of instruction, is the action of one man upon another for the purpose of making the pupil acquire cer- tain physical habits (one teaches how to sing, do carpen- try, dance, row, declaim). Instruction and teaching are the means of culture, when they are free, and means of education, when the teaching is forced upon the pupil, and when the instruction is exclusive, that is, when only those subjects are taught which the educator regards as necessary. The truth presents itself clearly and instinc- tively to everybody. However much we may try to weld what is disconnected, and to subdivide what is insepa- 110 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES rable, and to subordinate thought to the existing order of things, — truth is apparent. Education is a compulsory, forcible action of one per- son upon another for the purpose of forming a man such as will appear to us to be good; but culture is the free relation of people, having for its basis the need of one man to acquire knowledge, and of the other to impart that which he has acquired. Instruction, Unterricht, is a means of both culture and education. The difference between education and culture lies only in the compul- sion, which education deems itself in the right to exert. Education is culture under restraint. Culture is free. Education, French education, German Urziehv/ng, are conceptions which are current in Europe ; but culture is a concept which exists only in Eussia and partly in Ger- many, where there is an almost exact correspondence in the word Bildung. But in France and in England this idea and the word do not exist at all. Civilization is enlightenment, instruction is a European conception, untranslatable into Russian, which denotes a wealth of scholastic scientific information, or the transmission of such information, but is not culture, which includes the scientific knowledge, and the arts, and the physical devel- opment. I spoke in my first article on the right of compulsion in matters of education, and have endeavoured to prove that, firstly, compulsion is impossible ; secondly, that it brings no results or only sad results ; thirdly, that com- pulsion can have no other basis but arbitrary will. (A Circassian teaches to steal, a Mohammedan to kill the infidels.) Education as a subject of science does not ex- ist. Education is the tendency toward moral despotism raised to a principle. Education is, I shall not say an expression of the bad side of human natirre, but a phe- nomenon which proves the undeveloped condition of EDUCATIOK AND CULTURE 111 human thought, and, therefore, it cannot be put at the base of intelligent human activity, — of science. Education is the tendency of one man to make another just like himself. (The tendency of a poor man to take the wealth away from the rich man, the feeling of envy in an old man at the sight of fresh and vigorous youth, — the feeling of envy, raised to a principle and theory.) I am convinced that the educator undertakes with such zeal the education of the child, because at the base of this tendency lies his envy of the child's purity, and his desire to make him like himself, that is, to spoil him. I know a usurious innkeeper, who has been making money by all kinds of rascahties, and who, in response to my persuasion and flattery to have him send his fine twelve-year-old boy to my school at Y^snaya Polyana, makes his red mug bloom out into a self-satisfied smile and constantly makes one and the same reply : " That is so, your Serenity, but it is more important for me first to saturate him with my own spirit." And so he takes him about with him and boasts of the fact that his son has learned to cheat the peasants who sell his father wheat. Who does not know the fathers, educated as yunkers and in mihtary schools, who regard as good only that culture which is saturated with the spirit in which the fathers were educated ? Do not professors in the univer- sities and monks in the seminaries saturate their students with their own spirit in just such a way ? I do not want to prove that which I have already proved and which is very easy to prove, — that education as a premeditated formation of men according to certain patterns is sterile, nnlawful, and impossible. Here I will confine myself to just one question. There are no rights of education. I do not acknowledge such, nor have they been acknowledged nor will they ever be by the young generation under education, which always and everywhere 112 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES is set against compulsion in education. How are yon, going to prsve this right ? I know nothing and assume nothing, but you acknowledge and assume a new and for us non-existing right for one man to make of others just such men as he pleases. Prove this right by any other argument than by the fact that the abuse of power has always existed. Not you are the plaintiffs, but we, — while you are the defendants. I have several times been answered orally and in print in reply to the ideas expressed in Ydsnaya Polydna, just as one soothes an unruly child. I was told : " Of course, to educate in the same manner as they educated in the mediaeval monasteries is bad, but the gymnasia, the universities, are something quite different." Others told me : " No doubt it is so, but taking into consideration, and so forth, such and such conditions, we must come to the conclusion that it could not be otherwise." Such a mode of retorting seems to me to betray not seriousness, but weakness of mind. The question is put as follows : Has one man the right to educate another ? It will not do to answer, " No, but — " One must say directly, " Yes," or " No." If " yes," then a Jewish sync. ■ gogue, a sexton's school, have just as much legal right to exist as all our universities. If " no," then your univer- sity, as an educational institution, is just as illegal if it is imperfect, and all acknowledge it to be so. I see no middle way, not merely theoretically, but even in practice. I am equally provoked at the gymnasium with its Latin and at a professor of the university with his radicalism and materialism. Neither the gymnasiast nor the student have any freedom of choice. From my own observations even, the results of all these kinds of education are equally freaky to me. Is it not obvious that the courses of instruc- tion in our higher institutions of learning will in the twenty-first century appear as strange and useless to our descendants, as the mediseval schppls appear to us pow ? EDUCATION AND CULTURE 113 It is so easy to come to this simple conclusion that if in the history of human knowledge theie have been no abso- lute truths, but mistakes have constantly given w^ay to other mistakes, there is no reason for compelling the younger generation to acquire information which is sure to prove faulty. I have been told : " If it has always been that way, then what are you worrying about ? It cannot be other- wise." I do not see that. If people have always killed each other, it does not follow that it ought always to be that way, and that it is necessary to raise murder to a principle, especially when the causes of these murders have been discovered, and the possibility of avoiding them has been pointed out. The main thing is, why do you, who acknowledge the universal human right to educate, condemn bad education ? A father condemns it, when he sends his son to the gym- nasium ; religion condemns it, looking at the universities ; the government, society condemn it. Either you grant everyhody the right, or you grant it to nobody. I see no middle. Science must decide the question whether we have the right to educate, or not. Why not tell the truth ? The university does not hke the clerical educa- tion, saying that there is nothing worse than the semina/- ries ; the clericals do not hke the university culture, saying that there is nothing worse than the universities, and that they are only schools of pride and atheism ; parents con- demn the universities, and the universities condemn the military schools ; the government condemns the universi- ties, and vice versa. Who is right and who wrong ? Healthy thought in the living, not the dead, people cannot, in view of these ques- tions, busy itself with making pictures for object study ; it must perforce get an answer to these questions. It makes no difference whether this thought will be called pedagogy or not. There are two answers : either we must 114 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES acknowledge the right to be vested m those to whom we stand nearer, or whom we love most, or fear, even as the majority do (I am a priest, and so I consider the seminary better than anything else ; I am a soldier, so I prefer the mihtary school; if I am a student, I recognize only the universities : thus we all do, only that we strengthen our bias by more or less ingenious arguments, not notic- ing that all our opponents do the same) ; or the right to educate is not to be vested in anybody. I chose this latter way, and I have tried to prove why. I say that the universities, not only the Eussian uni- versities, but those in the whole of Europe, since they are not entirely free, have no other basis than that of arbitra- riness, aud are as monstrous as the monastic schools. I beg my future critics not to shade down my deductions : either I am talking nonsense, or else the whole pedagogy is at fault, — there is no middle way. Thus, so long as no proof will be given of the right to educate, I shall not recognize it. Still, though I do not recognize the right to educate, I cannot help recognizing the phenomenon itself, the fact of the education, and I must explain it. Whence comes education and that strange view of our society, that inexplicable contradiction in consequence of which we say that this mother is bad, she has no right to educate her daughter, let us take her away from her mother, this institution is bad, let us destroy it, this insti- tution is good, let us support it ? By dint of what does education exist ? If such an abnormal condition as the use of force in culture — education — has existed for ages, the- causes of this phenomenon must be rooted in human nature. I see these causes : (1) in the family, (2) in religion, (3) in the state, and (4) in society (in the narrower sense, which in our country includes the official circles and the gentry). The first cause is due to the fact that the parents, who- ever they be, wish to make their children such as they EBUCATION AND CULTURE 115 are themselves, or, at least, such as they should like to be. This tendency is so natural that one cannot be pro- voked at it. So long as the right of each individual to free development has not yet entered into the conscious- ness of all the parents, nothing else can be expected. Besides, the parents will, more than anybody else, be dependent on what will become of their sons ; conse- queutly their tendency to educate them in their fashion may be called natural, if not just. The second cause which produces the phenomenon of education is religion. As long as a man — Mohamme- dan, Jew, or Christian ^ believes firmly that a man who does not recognize his teaching cannot be saved, and for ever loses his soul, he cannot help wishing, even though by force, to convert and educate every child in his tenets. I repeat : religion is the only lawful and sensible basis of education. The third and most essential cause of education is con- tained in the need which the government has of educating such people as it can employ for certain purposes. On the basis of this need are founded the military schools, the schools of law, engineering, and others. If there were no servants of the government, there would be no government ; if there were no government, there would be no State. Consequently, this cause, too, finds its unquestionable justification. The fourth cause, finally, lies in the need of society, of that society which with us is represented by the gentry, the officialdom, and partly by the merchant class. This society needs helpers, abettors, and accomplices. It is remarkable, — I beg the reader for clearness' sake to pay special attention to the following circumstance, — it is remarkable that in science and hterature we con- tinually meet with attacks made upon the compulsion of domestic education (they say the parents corrupt their children, — whereas it seems so natural for the parjpnts to 116 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES wish to make their children like themselves), and upon religious education (it seems it was but a year ago that all Europe groaned for a Jew boy who had been brought up by a Christian, whereas there is nothing more lawful than the desire to give the boy, who has fallen into my hands, the means of eternal salvation in the one religion in which I believe), and attacks upon the education of officials and officers ; but how is a government, which is necessary for all of us, not to educate its servants for its own sake and for ours ? Yet one does not hear any attacks directed against the education of society. Privi- , leged society, with its university, is always right, and yet it educates the students in conceptions contrary to those of the masses, and has no other justification than pride. Why is that so ? I think it is so, because we do not hear the voice of him who attacks us; we do not hear it, because it does not speak in print and down from the professor's chair. But it is the mighty voice of the people, which one must listen to carefully in order to hear it. Take any public institution of our time and of our society, — from the popular school and the home for poor children to the female boarding-school, to the gymnasia and the universities, — in all of these institutions you will find one incomprehensible phenomenon which does not startle anybody. The parents, beginning with the peas- ants and burghers, and ending with the merchants and the gentry, complain that their children are educated in ideas foreign to their circle. The inerchants and gentle- folk of the old style say : " We do not want universities and gymnasia which will make atheists and freethinkers .of our children." The peasants and merchants do not want any schools, homes, or boarding-schools, because they do not want their children to become " white-hands" and scribes, instead of ploughmen. All this time all the educators, without exception, from the popular schools to the higher institutions cf learning. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 117 are concerned only about bringing up the children under their charge in such a way as not to resemble their parents. Some educators naively declare themselves to be, some, without declaring it, consider themselves to be, samples of what their pupils ought to be, and their pupils' parents they regard as samples of that rudeness, ignorance, and vice which they are not to be. The lady teacher, a freaky creature, contorted by life, who places the whole perfection of human nature in the art of bowing, putting on a collar, and in speaking Trench, will inform you confidentiaily that she is a martyr to her duties ; that all her educational efforts are lost in vain on account of the impossibility of completely removing the children from the influence of their parents; that her charges, who had already begun to forget Kussian and to speak poor French, who had begun to forget their friend- ships with the cooks and their associations with the kitchen, and their running about barefoot, and who, thank God, had learned all about Alexander the Great and about Guadeloupe, upon meeting their home folk, — alas ! — forget all that and acquire anew their trivial habits. This teacher will, without being embarrassed by the presence of her pupils, speak in derision of their mothers or in general of all women who belong to their circle, considering it her special merit, by means of ironical remarks upon the former circle of the pupils, to change their view and ideas. I do not mention those artificial material surroundings which must entirely change the whole view of the pupils. At home all the comforts of life, the water, the cakes, good food, the well-prepared dinner, the cleanliness and comfort of the house, — all that depended on the labours and cares of the mother and of the whole family. The more labour and care, the more comforts; the less labour and care, the less comfort. It is a simple thing, but, I dare think, it is more instructive than French and 118 PEDAGOaiCAL ARTICLES Alexander the Great. In the public education this con- stant vital reward for labour is removed to such an extent that, no matter whether the pupil will think of it or not, her dinner will be neither better nor worse, her pillow-slips will be neither cleaner nor more soiled, the floors will be waxed neither better nor worse ; she has not even her own little cell, her corner, which she may fix up as she pleases, or not ; nor has she a chance to make something for herself out of ribbons and odd pieces. "Well, who would strike a prostrate person," nine- tenths of my readers will say, " so what sense is there in talking about the boarding-schools ? " and so forth. No. they are not prostrate, they are up and about, leaning safely on the right of education. The boarding-schools are no way more monstrous than the gymnasia and the universities. At the base of all of them lies one and the same principle, which is, the right, delegated to one man, or to a small group of men, to make of other people any- thing they please. The boarding-schools are not pros- trate, — thousands of them exist, and will exist, because they have the same right to furnish culture as the edu- cational gymnasia and universities. The only difference is, if any, that we do not for some reason recognize the family's right to educate as they please, — we tear the child away from her corrupt mother and place her in a home, where a corrupt lady teacher will straighten her out. We do not recognize the right of a religion to educate ; we exclaim against the seminaries and monastic schools ; we do not recognize the state's right to educate ; we are dissatisfied with the military schools, with the schools of law, and so forth ; but we lack the courage to deny the legahty of the institutions in which society, that is, not the masses, hut the higher society, claim the right to educate as they please, — the boarding-schools for girls. EDTTCATION AND CULTURE 119 and the universities. The universities ? Yes, the univer- sities. I will take the liberty of analyzing also this temple of wisdom. From my point of view it has not advanced one step beyond the boarding-school ; more than that, in it lies the root of evil, — the despotism of society, against which no hand has yet been raised. Just as the boarding-school has decided that there is no salvation without the instrument called a piano, and without the French language, even so one wiseacre, or a company of such wiseacres (I do not care if by this com- pany wUl be understood the representatives of European science, from which we supposedly have borrowed the or- ganization of our universities, — in any case this company of wiseacres will be very insignificant in comparison with that mass of students for whom the university is organ- ized in the future), have established a university for the study of positively all sciences in their highest, their very highest development, and, you must not forget it, have established such institutions in Moscow, St. Peters- burg, Kaz^n, Kiev, Dorpat, Kharkov, and to-morrow will establish some more in Saratov and in NikoMev ; wherever they please, they will establish an institution for the study of all the sciences in their highest development. I doubt if these wiseacres have thought out the organization of such an institution. The boarding-school teacher has an easier task : she has a model — herself. But here the models are too varied and too complex. But let us suppose that such an organ- ization is thought out ; let us suppose, which is less prob- able, that we possess people for these institutions. Let us look at the activity of such an institution and at its results. I have already spoken of the impossibiUty of proving the programme of any institution of learning, much less of a university, as of one which prepares not for any other institution, but directly for life. I will only repeat — in which all unbiassed people must necessarily 120 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES agree with me — that there is no possibility of pro%'ing the necessity of subdividing the department of study. Both the boarding-school teacher and the university regard it as the first condition of admitting people to the participation in ' the culture that they be detached from the circle to which they originally, belonged. The univer- sity, as a general rule, admits only students who have passed a seven years' apprenticeship at a gymnasium, and who have lived in large cities. A small proportion of special students pass the same gymnasium course with the aid of private teachers, instead of the gymnasium. Before entering the gymnasium, a pupil has to pass through a course of instruction at a county and popular school. I will try, by leaving aside all learned references to history and all ingenious comparisons with the state of affairs in European countries, to speak simply of what is taking place under our eyes in Eussia. I hope that all will agree with me that the purpose of our educational institutions consists chiefly in the dissem- ination of culture among all classes, and not in the con- servation of culture in some one class which has taken exclusive possession of it, that is, that we are not so much concerned about the culture of the son of some nabob or dignitary (these will find their culture in a European, if not in a Eussian, institution), as that we should give culture to the son of an innkeeper, of a mer- chant of the third guild, of a burgher, of a priest, of a former manorial servant, and so forth. I leave out the peasant, for that would be an entirely unrealizable dream. In short, the aim of the university is the dissemination of culture among the greatest possible number of men. Let us take, for example, the son of a small town merchant or a small yeoman. At first the boy is sent to school to learn the rudiments. This instruction, as is well known, consists in the memorizing of incomprehen- EDUCATION AND CULTURE 121 sible Slavic words, which lasts, as is well known, three or four years. The information taken away from such instruction proves inapplicable to life ; the moral habits, taken away from there, consist in disrespect for his elders and teachers, sometimes in the theft of books, and so forth, and, above all, in idleness and indolence. It seems to me that it is superfluous to prove that ■a school in which it takes three years to learn that which could be acquired in three months is a school of idleness and indolence. A child who is compelled to sit motion- less at his book for the period of six hours, studying the whole day that which he ought to learn in half an hour, is artificially trained in the most complete and most baneful idleness. Upon the children's returning from such a school, nine- tenths of the parents, especially the mothers, find them partially spoilt, physically enfeebled, and alienated; but the necessity of making successful men of the world of them urges the parents to send them on, to the county school. In this institution the acquisition of habits of idleness, deceit, hypocrisy, and the physical deterioration continue with greater vigour. In the county school one sometimes sees healthy faces, in the gymnasium rarely, in the university hardly ever. In the county school the subjects of instruction are even less applicable to life than in the first. Here begin Alexander the Great and Guadeloupe, and what purports to be an explanation of the phenomena of Nature, which give the pupil nothing but false pride and contempt for his parents, in which he is supported by the example of his teachers. Who does not know those pupils who have an utter contempt for the whole mass of uneducated people on the ground that they have heard from the teacher that the earth is round, 1 and that the air consists of hydrogen and oxygen ! After the county school, that foolish mother, whom the writers of novels have so pleasantly ridiculed, worpe? 122 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES still more about her physically and morally changed child. There follows the course in the gymnasium, with the same artifices of examinations and compulsion, which evolve hypocrisy, deceit, and idleness, and the son of a merchant or of a petty yeoman, who does not know where to find a workman or clerk, studies by rote French or Latin grammar, the history of Luther, and, in a lan- guage not familiarly his own, makes vain endeavours to write a composition on the advantages of a representative mode of government. In addition to all this totally inapphcable wisdom, he learns to make debts, to cheat, to extort money from his parents, to commit debauches, and so forth, acquiring sciences which will receive their final development in the university. Here, in the gym- nasium, we see the final alienation from home. Enlightened teachers endeavour to raise him above his natural surroundings, and for this purpose have him read Byeliuski, Macaulay, Lewes, and so forth, not because he may have an exclusive bent for something in particu- lar, but in order to develop him, as they call it. And the gymnasiast, on the basis of dim conceptions and of words corresponding to them, — progress, liberalism, ma- terialism, historical evolution, etc., — looks with contempt and hostility at his past. The aim of the instructors is attained, but the parents, especially the mother, with still greater misgivings and sadness look at their emaciated, self-confident and self-satisfied Vdnya, speaking a strange language, thinking with a strange mind, smoking cigar- ettes, and drinking wine. " The deed is done, and there are others Hke him," think his parents; "no doubt that is the way it ought to be," and Vanya is sent to the university. The parents dare not tell themselves that they were mistaken. In the university, as was said before, you wil] rarely see a healthy, fresh face, and you will not see one who looks with respect, or even without respect, if only EDUCATION AND CULTURE 123 calmly, at the circle from which he has emanated, and in which he will have to live ; he looks at it with contempt, loathing, and supercilious compassion. Thus he looks at the people of his circle and at his relatives, and even thus he looks at the activity which ought to be his according to his social standing. Only three careers exclusively present themselves to him surrounded by a golden aureole : the learned, the literary, and the official. Among the subjects of instruction there is not one which is applicable to life, and they are taught in pre- cisely the same manner in which the psalter and Obo- ddvski's geography are studied. I exclude only the experimental subjects, such as chemistry, physiology, anatomy, and even astronomy, where the students are compelled to work ; all the other subjects, such as philosophy, history, law, philology, are learned by rote, with the only purpose in view that of being able to answer questions at the examinations, whatever the examinations be, for promotion or final, — it makes no difference which. I see the haughty contempt of the professors as they read these lines. They will not even honour me with an expression of their auger, and will not descend from the height of their grandeur in order to prove to a writer of stories that he does not understand anything in this important and mysterious business. I know that, but that does not by any means stop me from pointing out the deductions of reason and of observation. I cannot with the professors recognize the mystery of culture, invisibly performed on the students, independ- ently from the form and the contents of the lectures of the professors. I recognize nothing of the kind, just as I do not recognize the mysterious, unexplained cultural influence of the classical education, which they no longei deem it necessary to discuss. No matter how many universally recognized wiseacres -and respectable people 124 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES may affirm that for the development of a man nothing is more useful than the study of Latin grammar, and Greek and Latin verses in the original, vsrhen it is possible to read them in translation, I will not believe it, just as I cannot believe that it is good for a man's develop- ment to stand three hours on one foot. That has to be proved by something more than experience. By experience everything imaginable may be proved. The reader of the psalter proves by experience that the best method for teaching reading is to make one study the psalter; the shoemaker says that the best -way to learn his art is to make the boys for two years fetch water, chop wood, and so forth. In this manner you may prove anything you please. I say all this so that the defenders of thfe university may not tell me of the his- torical meaning, of the mysterious cultural influence, of the common bond of the governmental educational insti- tutions, that they may not adduce to me as an example the universities of Oxford and Heidelberg, but that they may allow me to discuss the matter according to good common sense, and that they themselves may do so. AU I know is that when I enter the university at the age of from sixteen to eighteen years, the circle of my knowledge is already defined for me, as it was in the department which I entered, and it is defined quite arbitrarily. I come to any one of the lectures prescribed for me by the, department, and I am supposed not only to hear all the professor is lecturing about, but even to commit it to memory, if not word for word, at least sen- tence for sentence. If I do not learn it all, the professor will not give me the necessary diploma at the final or at the biennial examinations. I do not speak of the abuses which are repeated a hundred times. In order to receive this diploma, I must have certain habits which the professor approves of : I must either always be sitting »o the first bench and take down notes, or I must have EDUCATION AND CULTURE 125 a frightened or a merry look at the examination, or I must share the professor's opinions, or I must regularly attend his evenings at home (these are not my supposi- tions, but the opinions of the students, which one may hear at any university). While listening to the pro- fessor's lecture, I may differ from his view, I may, on the basis of my readings in regard to this subject, find that the professor's lectures are bad, — I still must listen to them or, at least, memorize them. In the universities there exists a dogma which is not promulgated by the professors: it is the dogma of the professor's papal infallibility. Moreover, the culture is imparted to the student by the professor precisely as is done with all priests, secretly, in the cell, and with a demand for reverential respect from the uninitiated and fiom the students. As soon as a professor is appointed, he begins to lecture, and though he be naturally dull, and duller during the performance of his duties, though he may have fallen entirely behind science, though he have an unworthy character, — he continues to read as long as he lives, and the students have no means of expressing their satisfaction or discontent. Moreover, that which the professor lectures upon remains a secret to all but the students. It may be this is due to my ignorance, but I do not know of any manuals composed from the lectures of a professor. If there have existed such courses, the proportion of them will be about one in the hundred. What is that ? A professor lectures on a science in a higher cultural institution, — let us say the history of Eussian law, or civil law, — consequently he knows this science in its highest development, consequently he has been able to combine all the different views held in respect to this science, or to select one of them, the most modern, and to prove why it is so ; why, then, does he deprive us, and all of Europe, of the fruits of his wisdom, and why does he impart them only to the students who 126 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES attend his lectures ? Does he not know that there are good publishers who pay good sums for good books, that there exists a literary criticism, which appreciates literary productions, and that it would be far more convenient for the students to read his book at home, lying on the bed, than to write out his lectures ? If the science is changed and made fuller each year, then there may appear each year new supplementary articles. Literature and society would be grateful to him. Why do not the professors print their courses ? I should like to ascribe this to an indifference to liter- ary success, but, to my misfortune, I see that these same high priests of science do not refuse to write a light politi- cal article, one that often does not touch upon their sub- ject. I am afraid that the mystery of our university instruction is due to the fact that ninety out of every one hundred courses would not, if they were printed, stand our undeveloped literary criticism. Why is it absolutely necessary to lecture ? Why can't the students be given a good book, their own or somebody else's, one or two, or ten good books ? The condition of university instruction, that the pro- fessor must lecture and that his lectures must be abso- lutely something of his own, belongs to the dogmas of university practice, in which I do not believe, and which it is impossible to prove. "The oral transmission im- presses the minds better, and so forth," I shall be told ; all that is not true. I know myself and many others, who are not an exception but form the common rule, and who understand nothing when told orally, but who com- prehend well only when they quietly read a book at home. The oral transmission would only then have a meaning if the students had a right to oppose, and the lecture were a conversation, and not a lesson. Only then we, the public, would have no right to demand of the professors that they should publish those manuals from EDUCATION AND CULTURE 127 which they for thirty years in succession have been teaching our children and brothers. But as matters now are, the reading of lectures is only an amusing ceremony which has no meaning, particularly amusing on account of the solemnity with which it is performed. I am not on the lookout for means to mend the uni- versities ; I do not say that, by giving the students the privilege of retorting at the lectures, it would be possible to invest the university instruction with some meaning. So far as I know the professors and students, I think that in such a case the students would act like schoolboys and would be given to liberal commonplaces, while the professors would not be able coolly to carry on the dis- cussion, without having recourse to force, and matters would only be worse. But from that^ I think, it does not at all follow that the students must by all means be silent and that the professors have the right to say what they please ; from this only follows that the whole struc- ture of the university is placed on a false foundation. 1 can understand a university, corresponding to its name and its fundamental idfea, — as a collection of men for the purpose of their mutual ,:ulture. Such universities, unknown to us, spring up and exist in various comers of Eussia ; in the universities themselves, in the student circles, people come together, read, discuss, until at last the rule establishes itself when to meet and how to dis- cuss. That is a real university. But our universities, in spite of all the empty prattle about the seeming liberalism of their structure, are institutions which by their organi- zation in no way differ from female boarding-schools and military academies. As the military schools train officers, as the schools of law train officials, so the universities train officials and men of university culture. (This is, as all know, a special rank, a calling, almost a caste.) The late university occurrences find an explanation in the simplest manner possible: the students were per- 128 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES mitted to let the collars of their shirts protrude, and to wear their uniforms unbuttoned, and they were no longer to be punished for non-attendance at lectures, whereupon the whole structure came very near to its fall. To mend matters, there is this means : incarcerate them again for non-attendance at lectures, and enforce again the wearing of uniforms. It would be better still, following the ex- ample set by the English institutions, to punish them for unsatisfactory progress and for misbehaviour, and, above all, to limit the number of students to the number of men required. This would be consistent, and, under such an arrangement, the universities will give us just the men it gave us before. The universities, as establishments for the education of members of society, in the sense of the higher official circles, are reasonable; but the moment men wanted to make of them institutions for the culture of the whole Eussian society, they proved worthless. I positively can- not understand on what ground uniforms and discipline are recognized as necessary in the military schools, while in the universities, where the instruction is just the same, with examinations, compulsion, and programmes, and without the student's right to retort and keep away from lectures, — why in the universities they speak of freedom and imagine that they can get along without the means employed at the military schools. Let not the example of the German universities confuse us ! We cannot take an example from the German universities : with them every custom, every law is sacred, and with us, happily or unhappily, it is the other way. The whole trouble, both in the matters of university instruction and of culture in general, is caused mainly by people who do not reflect, but who submit to the ideas of the age, and who thus imagine that it is possible to serve two masters at once. Those are the same men who reply to my thoughts expressed before as follows : '■ It is EDUCATION AND CULTURE 129 trae, the time has passed when children are heaten for their studies and when things are learned by rote, — that is all very true ; but you must admit that it is some- times impossible to get along without the rod, and that the children must be compelled to memorize. You are right, but why go to extremes ? " and so forth, and so forth. You would think that these people reflect charmingly, but it is even they who have become the enemies of truth and freedom. They seem to be agreeing with you in order, having taken possession of your thought, to change and cut and lop it according to their fashion. They do not admit at all that freedom is necessary ; they only say so because they are afraid not to bow before the idol of our age. They only, like officials, praise the gov- ernor to his face, as long as he has the power in his hands. How many thousand times I prefer my friend the priest, who says directly that there is no reason for reflection as long as people are liable to die unfortunate, without knowing the divine law, and that, therefore, all means must be employed in order to teach the child the divine law, — to save him. He says that compulsion is necessary, that teaching is teaching, and not playing. With him I can debate, but with the gentlemen who serve both despotism and liberty, never. It is these very gentlemen who breed that peculiar condition of the universities under which we now live, and in which one needs that special art of diplomacy, when, according to Figaro, it is not known who is cheat- ing and who is cheated. The students deceive their parents and instructors ; the instructors deceive the par- ents, the students, and the government, and so forth, in all possible combinations and permutations. We are told that it must be so ; we are told : " You, the uniniti- ated, don't stick your nose into our business, for here a special art and special information are needed, — this is a historical evolution." And yet the affair seems so simple. 130 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Some want to teach and others want to learn. Let them teach as much as they can, and let them learn as much as they will. I remember, during the very heat of Kostomarov's university project, I defended the project in the presence of a professor. With what inimitable, profound serious- ness, almost in a whisper, impressively and confidentially, the professor said to me : " Do you know what that proj- ect is ? It is not the project of a new university, it is the project of doing away with universities," and he looked with an expression of terror at me. " What of it ? That would be a good thing," I said, " because the uni- versities are bad." The professor would not discuss any further with me, although he had not been able to prove to me that universities were good, just as nobody else is able to prove it. All men are human, even professors. Not one labourer will say that we must destroy the factory where he earns a piece of bread, and he will say so not from conviction, but unconsciously. Those gentlemen who are concerned about a greater freedom of the universities resemble a man who, having brought up some young nightingales and concluding that they need freedom, lets them out of the cage and gives them freedom at the end of cords attached to their feet, and then wonders why the nightin- gales are not doing any better on the cord, but only break their legs and die. No one has ever thought of estabhshing universities based on the needs of the people. That was impossible be- cause the needs of the people have remained unknown. The universities were founded to answer certain needs, partly of the government and partly of higher society, and for the universities was established all that preparatory lad- der of educational institutions which has nothing in common with the needs of the people. The government needed officials, doctors, jurists, teachers, and the univer- EDUCATION AND CULTURE 131 sities were founded in order to train these. Now higher society needs liberals of a certain pattern, and the univer- sities train these. The only blunder is that the masses do not need these liberals at all. It is generally said that the defects of the universities are due to the defects in the lower institutions. I affirm the opposite: the defects of the popular, especially the county, schools, are mainly due to the false exigencies of the universities. Let us now take a glance at the practice in the univer- sities. Out of fifty students who compose the audience, ten men in the first two rows of seats have note-books and are taking down notes ; of these ten, six keep notes in order to find favour with the professor, from a feeling of subserviency worked out by the lower school and by the gymnasium ; the other four take notes from a sincere desire to write down the whole course, which they aban- don at the fourth lecture, until only one-fifteenth or one- twentieth of the whole number continue to write down the lectures. it is very difficult not to miss a lecture. The student consults the manual, and it naturally occurs to him that it is useless to write out the lectures when the same result may be obtained from a manual or from the notes of somebody else. In mathematics, and for all that in any other subject, as every teacher must know, not one student is able all the time to follow the deductions and conclusions of the teacher, however precise, clear, and interesting the teacher may try to be. Very frequently there happens a moment of dulness or absent-mindedness with the student : he ought to ask a question, why, for what purpose, what preceded it ; the connection is lost, but the professor goes on. The chief care of the students (I am now speaking only of the very best) is to get notes or a manual, from which it would be possible to prepare for the examinations. 132 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES The majority go to lectures either because they have nothing else to do, or because they have not yet grown tired of them, or to please the professor, or, in rare cases, because it is the right thing to do, when one professor in a hundred becomes popular and it is a kind of mental dandyism with the students to attend his lectures. From the point of view of the students, the lectures nearly always are an empty formality, necessary only for the sake of the examinations. The majority of students do not study their subjects during the whole time they are given, but instead busy themselves with other subjects, the programme of which is determined by the. circle with which the students fall id. The lectures are looked upon in the same way in which soldiers look upon military exercises, while an examination is to them a parade, a dull necessity. The programme which circles have laid down of late is not varied ; it generally consists of the following : of the reading and re-reading of old articles by Byelinski and of new ones by Chernysh^vski, Antondvich, Pisarev, and so forth; then, of the reading of new books which are enjoying great popularity in Europe, without any connec- tion or any relation to the subjects which they study, such as Lewes, Buckle, and so on. But their chief occu- pation is the reading of prohibited books and the copying of these, such as Feuerbach, Moleschott, Btichner, and especially G^rtsen and Ogar^v. Books are copied, not according to their worth, but in proportion to their degree of prohibition. I have seen in students' rooms heaps of copied books, incomparably more voluminous than would be the whole four years' course of instruction, and among these copy-books fat books of the most abominable of Pushkin's poems and of the most insipid and most colour- less of Ryly^ev's poems. Other occupations are meetings at which are discussed the most varied and most impor- tant subjects, such as the independence of Little Russia, EDUCATION AND CULTUEE 133 the dissemination of the rudiments among the masses, the playing of some prank in common on a professor or on the inspector, which is called demanding explanations, the union of the two circles, the aristocratic and the ple- beian, and so forth. All that is sometimes ridiculous, but often dear, touching, and poetical, such as idle youth frequently is. The thing is, that in these occupations lose themselves young men, sons of petty landowners or of merchants of the third guild, whom the parents have sent away to make helpers of them, one, to make his small estate pro- ductive, the other, to help him carry on his business more regularly and more profitably. In these circles the fol- lowing opinions prevail about the professors : one is very stupid, though a worker ; another has fallen behind in his science, though an able man ; a third is not quite honest and allows only those to pass who fulfil certain demands of his ; a fourth is the laughing-stock of the human race, who, for thirty years in succession, has been reading his notes which are written in an abominable language, — and happy is the university which, to fifty professors, has at least one who is respected and beloved by the students. Formerly, when there were annual examinations, there took place each year, not exactly a study of the subject, but at least a cramming from notes before the examina- tions. Now such cramming takes place twice : in passing from the second to the third year, and at the final exam- ination. The lot which was then cast four times during university life is now cast twice. As long as there exist examinations under the present procedure, whether pass examinations or finals, there must necessarily exist the senseless cramming, and the lottery, and the personal likes and dislikes, and the arbi- trariness of the professor, and the cheating of the students. I do not kuow what the fgunders of the universities felt 134 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES about the examinations, but as common sense tells me, and as I have experienced it more than once, and as many, many people have agreed with me, — examinations cannot serve as a measure of knowledge, but only as a field for rank arbitrariness on the side of the professors, and of rank deception on the side of the students. I had to pass examinations three times in my life : the first year I was not promoted from the first course to the second by the professor of Russian history, who had shortly before that had a quarrel with my family, although I had not missed one lecture and knew Eussian history ; also for number one ^ in German, given me by the same pro- fessor, although I knew German incomparably better than all the students of our course. In the following year I received five in Eussian history, because, having had a dispute with a fellow student as to who had a better memory, we had learned one question each by heart, and I received at the examination the very question I had memorized, which, as I well remember, was the biography of Mazeppa. That was in the year 1845. In 1848 I went to my candidate's examination in the St. Petersburg University^ knowing literally nothing, and having prepared myself but one week before the examinations. I did not sleep for nights, and received candidate's marks in civil and criminal law, having prepared each subject not longer than a week. In this year 1862, I know students who have graduated by preparing their subjects just one week before the examinations. I know also of cases, for this year, where seniors have falsified tickets ; I know of one professor who gave a student three instead of five because the student allowed himself to smile. The professor remarked to him: "We may smile, but you must not," and put down three. I hope that nobody will regard the adduced cases as exceptions. Any one who knows the universities knows 1 One is the lowest, aud Ave the highest mark. EDUCATION AND CULTURE 135 that the cases adduced form the rule, and not the excep- tion, and that it cannot be otherwise. If there is anybody who doubts it, we will mention millions of cases. There will be found protesters against the Ministry of Public Instruction who will sign their names, as there have been protesters against the Ministry of Internal Affairs and of Justice. What happened in 1848, and in 1862, will also happen in 1872, as long as the organization remains the same. The abolishment of the uniforms and of annual examinations does not further this freedom one hair's breadth ; these are only new patches on an old garment, which only tear the old cloth. No man putteth new wine into old bottles. I flatter myself with the hope that even the defenders of the university will say : " That is so, or partly true. But you forget that there are students who follow the lectures with love and who do not need examinations at all, and, what is most important, you forget the cultural influence of the universities." ^o, I forget neither the one nor the other : about the first, the independently working students, I will say that for them there is no need of universities with their organi- zation, — they need only appliances, a library, — not lectures to listen to, but conversations with men who can guide them. But even for that minority the universities will not furnish information corresponding to their circle, if they do not wish to become litterateurs or professors ; the main thing is that even this minority is subject to the influence which is called cultural, but which I call the corrupting influence of the universities. The second retort about the cultural influence of the universities belongs to the number of those which are based on faith and first must be proved. Who has proved, and how has it been proved, that the universities have that cultural influence, and whence springs that jnysterious cultural influence ? There is no communion with the 186 f-feDA^OGtcAL AtlflCLfiS professors, — there is not that confidence and love which spring from it ; there is, in the majority of cases, nothing but fear and suspicion. The students will learn nothing new from the professors which they could not as well find out from books. The cultural influence, then, lies in the communion of the young men occupied with the same subjects, I suppose. Doubtless so ; but they are for the most part occupied, not with science, as you presume, but with cramming for examinations, cheating the professors, acting the liberals, and all such things as will take posses- sion of young men who are torn away from their surround- ings, their family, and who are artificially connected by the spirit of fellowship, raised to a principle and carried to a point of self-contentment, of self-sufficiency. I am not speaking of the exceptions, of the students living with their families, for they are less subject to the cultural, that is, the corrupting influence of students' life ; nor do I speak of those rare exceptions, where men have since childhood been devoted to science, who, being con- stantly at work, are also only partially subjected to ^hat influence. Indeed, people are being trained for life, for work ; every work demands not only familiarity with it, but also order, regularity, and, above all, the ability to live and get along with men. See how the son of a peasant learns to become a farmer, how the sexton's son, reading in the choir, learns to be a sexton, how the son of a Kirgiz cattle-keeper becomes a herder : he enters very early into direct relations with life, with Nature, and with men ; he learns early, while working, to be productive, and he learns, being secure on the material side of hfe, that is, secure as regards a piece of bread, his wearing apparel, his lodging. Now look at a student, who is torn away from home, from the family, cast into a strange city, full of temptations for his youth, without means of support (because the parents provide only the necessary means, while all go out to pass their time well), in a circle of companions who by their EDUCATION AND CULTURE 137 society only intensify his defects, without guides, without an aim, having pushed off from the old and having not yet landed at the new. Such, with rare exceptions, is the position of a student. From this resiilts that which alone can result : of&cials, fit only for the government ; or professional officials, or literary officials, fit for society ; or people aimlessly torn away from their former surroundings, with a spoiled youth, and finding no place for themselves in life, so-called people -mthuniversity culture, — advanced, that is, irritable, sickly liberals. The university is our first and our chief educational institution. It is the first to arrogate to itself the right of education, and it is the first, so far as the results, which it obtains, indicate, to prove the illegality and impossibility of education. Only from the social point of view is it possible to justify the truits of the university. The uni- versity trains not such men as humanity needs, but such as corrupt society needs. The course is ended. I presuppose my imaginary alumnus as one of the best in every respect. He comes back to his home : all are strangers to him, — his father, his mother, his relatives. He shares neither their faith, nor their desires, and he prays not to their God, but to other idols. His parents are deceived, and the son fre- quently wishes to unite with them into one family, but he no longer can do that. What I say is not an empty phrase, not a fancy. I know very many students who, after return- ing to their families, were at odds with their famihes in nearly all their convictions, about marriage, about honour, about commerce. But the deed is done, and the parents console themselves with the thought that such is now the age ; that the present education is such that their son will make a career for himself somewhere else, if not in his former surroundings ; that he will find his hvelihood and means to help them; and tha-t he will be happy in his own way. 138 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Unfortunately, in nine cases out of ten, the parents are again mistaken. Having graduated, their son does not know where to lay down his head. A strange thing it is ! The information which he has acquired is of no use to anybody, — no one gives anything for it. Their only application is in literature and in pedagogy, that is, in the science dealing with the education of just such useless men as he is. Now, this is strange : culture is so rare in Eussia, so it ought to be expensive and highly esteemed. In reality, the very opposite takes place. We tieed machinists, for we have few of them, and we send to all of Europe for machinists and pay them good wages ; why, then, do people with a university education say (and there are but few cultured people among us) that they are heeded, whereas we not only do not appreciate them, but they even can find no place for themselves ? Why does a man who has finished his apprenticeship with a carpenter, stone-mason, or stucco-worker, get at once from fifteen to seventeen roubles, if he is a workman, and twenty-five roubles a month, if he is a master mechanic, a boss, while a student is glad if he gets ten (I except literature and officialdom, but speak only of what a student can get in a practical activity) ? Why do landed proprietors, who have land left that must be made productive, pay froiii three hundred to five hundred roubles to peasant farmers, when they will not pay even two hundred roubles to agricultural students and natural science graduates ? And why do peasant, and not student bosses control thousands of workmen at the railroads ? Why is it that if a student gets a place with a good salary, he gets it not for what knowledge he has acquired in the university, but for what he has learned later ? Why do law students become officers and mathe- maticians and natural science students officials? Why does a ploughman, after living a year in suffifiiency, bring home from fifty to sixty roubles, while a student leaves EbUOATIOSr AND CULTURE 139 after a year's existence, a debt of one hundred roubles ? Why do the masses pay a popular school-teacher eight, nine, ten roubles a month, whether he be a sexton, or a student? Why does a merchant employ as a clerk, take as a son-in-law into his house, not a student, but a peasant lad? Because, I shall be told, society does not yet know hov to appreciate education ; because a student teacher will not cheat workmen and enslave them by advance payments ; because a student merchant will not give wrong measures and weights; because the fruits of cul- ture are not so palpable as the fruits of routine and ignorance. This may be so, I shall reply, only experience has taught me the opposite. A student does not know how to manage an affair, neither honestly, nor dishonestly, or if he does know how, he manages it in conformity with his nature, with that general structure of his moral habits, which hfe, independently of school, has evolved in him. I know an equal number of honest students and of other people, and vice versa. But let us even suppose that the university training develops the feeling of justice in man, and that, in consequence of this, uneducated people prefer uneducated men to students and value them higher than students. Let us suppose that that is so. Why, then, can we, so-called cultured people and^ men of means, the gentry, the litterateurs, the professors, make no other use of the students than in government service ? I leave out the government service on the ground that the remunera- tion in that service cannot be taken as a measure of deserts or of knowledge. Everybody knows that a student, an ex-officer, a landed proprietor who has squandered his estate, a foreigner, and so forth, travels to the capital, the moment he for some reason muSt earn a livelihood, and, according to his con- nections and the influence brought to bear, receives a 140 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES place in the administration, or, if he does not receive it, he regards himself as insulted. It is for that reason that I do not speak of the remuneration in the service ; but I ask why does that same professor, who has imparted that culture to the students, give fifteen roubles a month to his janitor, or twenty roubles to a carpenter, while to the student who comes to him he says that he is very sorry, that he cannot give him a place, that all he can do is to try for him among the officials, or he offers him a ten- rouble place as copyist or proof-reader of the work which he happens to be publishing ; that is, he offers him a place in which there is to be applied the knowledge which he has taken away from the county school, — the ability to write ? There are no places where the knowledge of Eoman law, Greek literature, and integral calculus may be applied, and there can be none. Thus, in the majority of cases, the son returning from the university to his father does not justify the hopes of the parents, and, in order that he may not become a burden to the family, he is obliged to accept a place in which all the knowledge he needs is the ability to write, and in which he enters into competition with all the Eussians who know the rudiments. The only advantage he has is his rank, which does him good only in service, where connections and other conditions are more effect- ive ; another advantage is his liberalism, which is not applicable to anythi'ng. It seems to me that the percent- age of men who occupy places with good remuneration outside the government service is exceedingly small. Trustworthy statistical data about the activity of graduates would be an important material for the science of culture, and, I am convinced, would mathematically prove the truth which I am trying to elucidate from a priori reason- ing and from data at hand, — the truth that people with a university education are of little use, and that they direct their chief activity to literature and pedagogy ; that EDUCATION AKD CtTLTtJftfi 141 is, to repeating that eternal circle of culture and to creat- ing just such useless people for actual life. But I have not foreseen one retort, or rather one source of retorts, which naturally will arise with the majority of my readers : Why does this, same highest culture, which turns out to be so fruitful in Europe, become so inapplica- ble with us ? The European societies are more cultured than ours, why, then, cannot Kussian society travel along the same path which the European societies have trav- ersed ? This retort would be iusuperable, if it were proved, first, that the path over which the European nations have travelled, is the best ; secondly, that all humanity travel over the same path; and thirdly, that culture is being grafted upon our people. The whole East has been educated by entirely dififerent paths than the European humanity. If it were proved that a young animal, a wolf or dog, had been brought up on meat and had in this manner received its full development, should I have the right to conclude that, in order to bring up a young horse or a rabbit, I must feed it on meat, in which way alone I can procure its full development ? Could I finally con- clude from these opposite experiments that, in order to bring up a bear cub, I must feed it on meat or oats ? Experience would show me that a bear needs both. Even though I may think that it is more natural for meat to form flesh, and though my previous experiments confirm my supposition, I cannot continue giving the colt meat to eat, if he throws it up every time, and if his organism, will not assimilate the food. The same takes place with the European culture, both in form and contents, when it is transferred to our soil. The organism of the Eussian people does not assimilate it ; and yet, there must be some other food which will support its organism, for it lives. This food does not seem food for us, just as grass is no food for a carnivo- 142 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES rous animal; in the meantime the historico-physiological process is taking place, and that food, unacknowledged though it be by us, is assimilated by the people, and the immense animal is getting stronger and growing up. Making a rdsum6 of all said above, we arrive at the following conclusions : (1) Culture and education are two distinct conceptions. (2) Culture is free, and, therefore, legal and just ; edu- cation is compulsory, and, therefore, illegal and unjust ; it cannot be justified by reason, and, consequently, cannot form the subject of pedagogy. (3) Education, as a phenomenon, has its origin: (a) in the family, (6) in faith, (c) in the government, (d) in society. (4) The domestic, religious, and governmental bases of education are natural and find their justification in necessity ; but the social education has no other founda- tion than the pride of human reason, and thus bears the most baneful fruits, such as the universities and university culture. Now, having in part explained our view on education and culture, and having defined the limits of both, we may reply to the questions put by Mr. Gly^bov in the periodical Education (No. 5, of 1862), — the first questions that naturally must arise during a serious reflection on the matter of culture. (1) What shall a school he if it is not to take part in the business of education ? (2) What is meant by non-interference of the school in matters of education ? And (3) Is it possible to separate education from in- struction, especially from primary instruction, when the educational element is brought to bear on the youthful minds even in the higher schools ? (We have already pointed out that the form of the higher institutions of learning, where the educational EDUCATION AND CltLTURE 143 element is present, by no means serves us as a model. We deny the plan of the higher institutions of learning as much as that of the lower, and we see in it the begin- ning of all evil.) In order to answer the questions put to us, we will only transpose them : (1) What is meant by non-interfer- ence of the school in education ? (2) Is such a non- interference possible ? (3) What must the school be, if it is not to interfere in education ? To avoid misunderstandings, I must first explain what I mean by the word " school," which I used in the same sense in my first article. By the word " school " I under- stand not the house in which the instruction is given, not the teachers, not the pupUs, not a certain tendency of instruction, but, in the general sense, the conscious activity of hiyii who gives culture upon those who receive it, that is, one part of culture, in whatever way this activity may find its expression: the teaching of the regulations to a recruit is a school ; public lectures are a school ; a course in a Mohammedan institution of learning is a school ; the collections of a museum and free access to them for those who wish to see them are a school. I reply to the first question. The non-interference of the school in matters of culture means the non-interference of the school in the culture [formation] of beliefs, the convictions, and the character of him who receives that culture. This non-interference is obtained by granting the person under culture the full freedom to avail himself of the teaching which answers his need, which 'he wants, and to avail himself of it to the extent to which he needs and wants it, and to avoid the teaching which he does not need and which he does not want. Pubhc lectures, museums are the best examples of schools without interference in education. Universities are examples of schools with interference in matters of education. In these institutions the students are confined 144 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES to certain limits by a definite course, a programme, a code of selected studies, by the exigencies of the examinations, and by the grant of rights, based chiefly on these exami- nations, or, more correctly, by the deprivation of rights ia ease of non-compliance with certain prescribed conditions. (A senior taking his examinations threatened with one of the most terrible punishments, — with the loss of his ten or twelve years of labour in the gymnasium and in the university, and with the loss of all the advantages in view of which he bore privations for the period of twelve years.) In these institutions everything is so arranged that the student, being threatened with punishments, is obliged in receiving his culture to adopt that educational element and to assimilate those behefs, those convictions, and that character, which the founders of the institution ■ want. The compulsory educational element, which consists in the exclusive choice of one circle of sciences and in the threat of punishment, is as strong and as patent to the serious observer, as in that other institution with corporal punishment, which superficial observers oppose to the universities. Public lectures, whose number is on the continuous increase in Europe and in America, on the contrary, not only do not confine one to a certain circle of knowledge, not only do not demand attention under threat of punish- ment, but expect from the students certain sacrifices, by which they prove, in contradistinction to the first, the complete* freedom of choice and of the basis on which they are reared. That is what is meant by interference and non-interference of school in education. If I am told that such non-interference, which is possible for the higher institutions and for grown-up people, is not possible for the lower schools and for minors, because we have no example for it in the shape of public lectures for children, aod so forth, I will answer EDUCATION AND CULTURE 145 that if we are not going to understand the word " school " in the narrowest sense, but will accept it with the above-mentioned definition, we shall find for the lower stages of knowledge and for the lower ages many influences of liberal culture without interference in edu- cation, corresponding to the higher institutions and to the public lectures. Such is the acquisition of the art of reading from a friend or a brother; such are popular games of children, of the cultural value of which we intend writing a special article ; such are public spectacles, panoramas, and so forth ; such are pictures and books ; such are fairy-tales and songs; such are work and, last, the experiments of the school at Yasnaya Polyana. The answer to the first question gives a partial answer to the second : is such a non-interference possible ? We cannot prove this possibility theoretically. The one thing which confirms such a possibility is the observation which proves that people entirely uneducated, that is, who are subject only to the free cultural influences, the men of the people are fresher, more vigorous, more powerful, more independent, juster, humaner, and, above all, more useful than men no matter how educated. But it may be that even this statement need be proved to many. I shall have to say a great deal about these proofs at a later time. Here I will adduce one fact. Why does the race of educated people not perfect itself zoologically ? A race of thoroughbred animals keeps improving ; the race of educated people grows worse and weaker. Take at haphazard one hundred children of several educated gen- erations and one hundred uneducated chihiren of the people, and compare them in anything you please: in strength, in agility, in mind, in the ability to acquire knowledge, even in morahty, — and in all respects you are startled by the vast superiority on the side of the children of uneducated generations, and this superiority will be the greater, the lower the age, and vice versa. It 146 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES is terrible to say this, on account of the conclusions to which it leads us, but it is true. A final proof of the possibility of non-interference in the lower schools, for people, to whom personal experience and an inner feeling tell nothing in favour of such an opinion, can be. obtained only by means of a conscientious study of all those free influences by means of which the masses get their culture, by an all-round discussion of the question, and by a long series of experiments and reports upon it. What, then, must the school be if it is. not to interfere in matters of education ? A school is, as said above, the conscious activity of him who gives culture upon those who receive it. How is he to act in order not to transgress the hmits of culture, that is, of freedom ? 1 reply : the school must have one aim, — the trans- mission of information, of knowledge, without attempting to pass over into the moral territory of convictions, beliefs, and character ; its aim is to be nothing but science, and not the results of its influence upon human personality. The school must not try to foresee the consequences pro- duced by science, but, in transmitting it, must leave full freedom for its application. The school must not regard any one science, nor a whole code of sciences, as necessary, but must transmit that information which it possesses, leaving the students the right to acquire it or not. The structure and the programme of the school must be based not on theoretical speculations, not on the con- viction held in regard to the necessity of such and such sciences, but on the mere possibiUties, that is, the knowl- edge of the teachers. I will explain it by an example. I want to establish an institution of learning. I form no programme which is based on my theoretical concep- tions, and on the basis of this programme look about for teachers, but I propose to all people who feel that they are called to furnish information to lecture or teach such EDUCATION AND CULTURE 147 subjects as they know best. Of course, my former expe- rience will guide me in the selection of these lessons, that is, we shall not try to offer subjects such as nobody wants to listen to, — in a Eussiau village we will not teach Spanish, or astrology, or geography, just as a merchant will not open shops of surgical instruments or of crino- lines in this village. We may foresee a demand for what we offer ; but our final judge will be only experience, and we do not think we have the right to open a single shop, in which we are to sell tar with this condition, that to every ten pounds of tar every purchaser must buy a pound of ginger or of pomatum. We do not trouble ourselves about the use to which our wares will be put by the purchasers, believing that they know what they want, and that we have enough to do to discover their needs and to provide for them. It is quite possible that there will turn up one teacher of zoology, one teacher of mediaeval history, one of religion, and one of the art of printing. If these teachers will know how to make their lessons interesting, these lessons will be useful, in spite of their seeming incompatibility and accidentalness. I do not believe in the possibility of a theoretically established, harmonious code of sciences, but that every science, being the subject of free instrac- tion. harmonizes vnth all the others into one code of knowledge for each man. I shall be told that in such an accidentalness of pro- gramme there may enter useless, even injurious, sciences into the course, and that many sciences could not be given because the students would not be sufficiently prepared for them. To this I will reply that, in the first place, there are no injurious and no useless sciences for anybody, and that we have, as an assurance of that, the common sense and the needs of the students, who, the instruction being free, will not admit useless and injurious sciences, if there 148 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES were such ; that, in the second place, prepared pupils are wanted only for a poor teacher, but that for a good teacher it is easier to begin algebra or analytical geometry with a pupil who does not know arithmetic than with a pupil who knows it poorly, and that it is easier to lecture on mediaeval history to students who have not studied ancient history. I do not beUeve that a professor, who in a university lectures on differential and integral calculus, or on the history of the Eussian civil law, and who can- not teach arithmetic, or Eussian history in a primary school, — I do not believe that he can be a good professor. I see no use and no merit in good instruction in one part of a subject, and even no possibility of giving it. Above all, I am convinced that the supply will always correspond to the demand, and that at each stage of science there will be found a sufficient number of both students and teachers. But how, I shall be told, can a person who teaches cul- ture help wishing to produce a certain educational influ- ence by means of his instruction 1 This tendency is most natural ; it is a natural exigency in the transmission of knowledge from him who offers culture to him who receives it. This tendency only imparts strength to the instructor to occupy himself with his subject, — it gives him that degree of enthusiasm which is necessary for him. It is impossible to deny this tendency, and it has never occurred to me to deny it ; its existence so much more cogently proves to me the necessity of freedom in the matter of instruction. A man who loves and teaches history cannot be pro- hibited from endeavouring to impart to his students that historical conception which he himself possesses, which he regards as useful and absolutely necessary for a man's development; a teacher cannot be prohibited from impart- ing that method in the study of mathematics or natural science which he considers the best; on the contrary, EDUCATION AND CULTUBE 149 this prevision of the educational purpose encourages the teacher. The thing is that the educational element of science shall not be imparted by compulsion. I cannot carefully enough direct the reader's attention to this circumstance. The educational element, let us say in mathematics or in history, is only then imparted to the students when the teacher is passionately fond of his subject and when he knows it well; only then his love is communicated to the students and has an educational influence upon them. In the contrary case, that is, when it has been decided somewhere that such and such a subject has an educa- tional value, and one is instructed to teach, and the others to listen to it, the teaching accomplishes the very opposite results, that is, it not only does not educate scientifically, but also makes the science loathsome. It is said that science has in itself an educational element (erziehliges Elemenf) ; that is true and' not true, and in this very statement lies the fundamental error of the existing paradoxical view on education. Science is science and has nothing in itself. The educational ele- ment lies in the teaching of the sciences, in the teacher's love for his science, and in the love with which it is imparted, — in the teacher's relation to his students. If you wish to educate the student hy science, love your science and know it, aTid the students will love hath you and the science, and you will educate them ; hut if you yourself do not love it, the science loill have no educational influence, no matter how much you may compel them to learn it. Here again there is the one measure, the one salvation, the same freedom for the students to listen or not to listen to the teacher, to imbibe or not to imbibe his educational influence, that is, for them to decide whether he knows and loves his science. Well, what, then, will the school be with the non- interference in education ? 150 PEDAGOGICAL AKTICLE8 An all-sided and most varied conscious activity directed by one naan on another, for the purpose of transmitting knowledge, without compelling the student by direct force or diplomatically to avail himself of that which we want him to avail himself of. The school will, perhaps, not be a school as we understand it, — with benches, black- boards, a teacher's or professor's platform, — it may be a paiiorama, a theatre, a library, a museum, a conversation ; the code of the sciences, the programme, will probably everywhere be different. (I know only my experiment : the school at Yasnaya Poly^na, with its subdivision of subjects, which I have described, in the course of half a year completely changed, partly at the request of the pupils and their parents, partly on account of the insuffi- cient information held by the teachers, and assumed other forms.) " What are we to do then ? Shall there, really, be no county schools, no gymnasia, no chairs of the history of Eoman law ? What will become of humanity ? " I hear. There certainly shall be none, if the pupils do not need them, and you are not able to make them good. " But children do not always know what they need ; children are mistaken," and so forth, t hear. I will not enter into this discussion. This discussion would lead us to the question : Is man's nature right before the tribunal of man ? and so forth. I do not know that it is, and do not take that stand ; all I say is that if we can know what to teach, you must not keep me from teaching Eussian children by force Erench, mediaeval gen- ealogy, and the art of stealing. I can prove everything as you do. "So there will be no gymnasia and no Latin? Then, what am I going to do ? " I again hear. Don't be afraid ! There will be Latin and rhetoric, and they will exist another hundred years, simply because the medicine is bought, so we must drink it (as a patient said). EDUCATION AND CULTURE 151 I doubt whether the thought, which I have expressed, perhaps, indistinctly, awkwardly, inconclusively, will be- come the common possession in another hundred years ; it is not likely that within a hundred years will die those ready-made institutions, schools, gymnasia, uni- versities, and that within that time will grow up freely formed institutions, having for their basis the freedom of the learning generation. PROGRESS AND THE DEFI- NITION OF EDUCATION A Reply to Mr. Markov, Russian Messenger, 1862, No. 5 The chief points of Mr. Markov's disagreement with my view of education are formulated in the following manner : " (1) We recognize the right of one generation to inter- fere in the education of another. (2) We recognize the right of the higher classes to interfere in the popular edu- cation. (3) We do not agree with the Ydsnaya Polydna definition of education. (4) We think that the schools cannot be exempted from the historical conditions, and that they ought not to be. (5) We think that the mod- ern schools more nearly correspond to the modern needs than those of the Middle Ages. (6) We consider our education not injurious, but useful. (7) We think that the full liberty of education, as Count Tolstoy understands it, is injurious and impossible. (8) Finally, we think that the methods of the school at Yasnaya Polyana contradict the convictions of the editor of Ydsnaya Polydna." {Rus- sian Messenger, 1862, No. 5, p. 186.) Before answering each of these points, we shall endeav- our to find the fundamental cause of disagreement in our view and that held by Mr. Markov, which latter has called 162 PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 153 forth an expression of universal sympathy from the peda- gogical and from the lay public. This cause lies in the incompleteness of our view as expressed (and so we shall try and make it more complete now), and, on the side of Mr. Mdrkov and the public in general, in the incorrect and hmited comprehension of our propositions, which we shall try to make clearer. It is evident that our disagreement is due to a different comprehension and, consequently, definition of education itself. Mr. Markov says: "We do not agree with the Ydsnaya Folydna definition of education." But Mr. Markov does not overthrow our definition, he merely makes a definition of his own. The main question is whose definition of education is correct, ours, or Mr. Markov's. We said : " Education in its widest sense, including the bringing up, is, in our opinion, that activity of man which has for its base the need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress," and we confess that the words to which Mr. Markov asks the reader to pay special attention need an explanation for the majority of people and for Mr. Markov. But, before giving this explanation, we deem it necessary to digress a little in order to show why it is that Mr. Markov and the public in general did not wish to under- stand this definition and paid no attention whatever to it. Since the day of Hegel and the famous aphorism, " What is historical is reasonable," there has reigned in the literary and oral debates, especially in our country, a very singular mental hocus-pocus called the historical view. You say, for example, that man has a right to be free and to be judged only on the basis of the laws which he himself regards as just, but the historical view replies that history evolves a certain historical moment, wlaich conditions a certain historical legislation and the people's historical relation to it. You say that you beheve in God, and the historical view replies that history has evolved 154 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES certain religious conceptions and the relations of human- ity to it. You say that the Iliad is the greatest epical production, and the historical view replies that the Iliad is only the expression of a nation's historical consciousness at a certain historical moment. On this foundation the historical view does not contend with you whether liberty is necessary for man, whether there is a God or not, whether the Iliad is good or bad ; it does nothing to obtain that liberty for you, after which you have been striving, to persuade or dissuade you of the existence of God, or of the beauties of the Iliad, — it only points out to you that place which your inner need, the love of truth or beauty, occupies in history ; it only rec- ognizes, not through direct consciousness, but through historical ratiocinations. Say that you love something and believe in something, and the historical view tells you, "Love and believe, and your love and faith will find a place for themselves in our historical view." Ages will pass, and we shall find the place which we shall occupy in history ; but you must know in advance that that which you love is not uncon ■ ditionally beautiful, and that that which you believe in is not unconditionally true ; but amuse yourselves, children, — for your love and faith will find a place and a proper application for themselves. Add the word historical to any conception you please, and that conception at once loses its vital, actual meaning and receives an artificial and barren meaning in some kind of an artificially formed historical world conception. Mr. Mdrkov says : " The general aim is the result of the whole of life, — the final deduction from the activity of varied forces. It can be seen only at the end, and for the present there is no need of it. Consequently pedagogy is right in that it has no final end ; it is right in that it strives after its temporal and local ends, which are most significant in life." (E. M., No. 5, p. 153.) PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 155 In his opinion it is useless to look for a criterioii of pedagogy. It is enough to know that we are living under historical conditions, and all is well. Mr. Markov has perfectly assimilated the historical view to himself ; he, like the majority of thinking Bus- sians at the present time, possesses the art of applying the concept of the historical to every phenomenon of life ; he knows how to say many learned and ingenious things in the historical sense, and for all occasions is full master of the historical pun. In our first article we said that education has for its hase the need of equality and the invariable law of educa- tional progress. Although expressed without any further proofs, this proposition explained the cause of the phe- nomenon. It was possible for one not to agree with it and ask for proofs ; hut it is only the historical view which feels no need of discovering the causes of such a phenomenon as is education. Mr. Mdrkov says : " It is desirable that the reader dwell with especial attention upon these words. To me they seem nothing but a fruitless piece of casuistry which only bedims the meaning of things well known to all. What do we want with the need of equality, instinct? What do we want more especiallj with that fahtm, that unknown law of motion, which prohibits you from one thing, and orders you to do something else ? Who has recognized it or proved it ? If we were to deny, as Count Tolstdy does, the educational influence of the grown-up generation on the younger generation, in what would we look for that wonderful law? A mother loves her child, wants to satisfy his wants, and con- sciously, without the least mystical necessity, feels the need of adapting herself to his incipient reason, to speak the simplest language to him. She does not at all strive after equality with her child, which would be in the highest degree unnatural, but, on the contrary, intention- 156 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES ally tries to transmit to him the whole supply of her knowledge. In this natural transmission of the mental acquisitions of one generation to the next lies the progress of education, which needs no other special laws. Every age casts its handful upon the common heap, and the longer we live, the higher rises this heap, and the higher we rise with it. This is known to the point of triteness, and I see no justification in the attempts to shake such a logically and historically manifest truth." Here we have the best sample of the historical view. You are looking for an explanation of the most significant phenomenon of life ; you surmise that you have found a general law which serves as the foundation of the phe- nomenon ; you imagine yoii have found the ideal toward which humanity is tending, and the criterion of his activity, — and you are told that there is a heap which grows with every age, and that that is known to the point of triteness. Is it right that it should grow ? Why does it grow ? To these questions we receive no answer ; on the contrary, they wonder why you bother about the solution of such questions. In another passage Mr. Markov, paraphrasing our words, says : " Each generation hinders the new in its development: the further we go, the greater the resist- ance, the worse it gets. What a strange progress ! If, without relying on history, we were obhged to believe the Ydsnaya Polydna theory, we should, probably, have to come to believe that the world has been dreadfully aihng from millennial resistances, and that its death is now not beyond the mountains, but behind its shoulders." (Hid. p. 152.) "A fine progress!" No, a very bad one, — that is exactly what I have been talking about. I do not hold to the religion of progress : outside of faith, nothing proves the necessity of progress. "Is it possible the world has been ailing all the tinje ? " It is precisely this PEOGHESS AND EDtTCATlON 157 that I tried to prove, with this difference, that not all humanity is aihng, but that part of it which is subjected to the activity of the education which Mr. Markov defends. But here Mr. Markov's historical view appears in all its splendour. " Ydsnaya Polydna is disturbed by the circumstance that at different times people teach different things and in a different manner. Scholasticism taught one thing, Luther another, Eousseau in his own way, Pestalozsd again in his way. It sees in this the impossibility of establishing a criterion of pedagogy, and on that basis denies pedagogy. It seems to me that Ydsnaya Polydna has pointed out the necessary criterion, by adducing the above-mentioned examples. The criterion is that one must teach in conformity with the demands of the time. It is simple and in absolute harmony vnth history and with logic. Luther could be the teacher of a whole cen- tury because he himself was the creature of his age, and thought its thoughts, and acted to its liking. Otherwise his enormous influence would have been impossible or supernatural ; if he did not resemble his contemporaries, he would have disappeared fruitlessly, like an incompre- hensible, useless phenomenon, — a stranger among his people, whose language even he did not understand. " The same is true of Eousseau and of anybody else. Eousseau formulated in his theories the overboiling hatred of his age against formalism and artificiality, its thirst for simple, heartfelt relations. It was an inevitable reaction against the Versailles mode of hf e ; if Eousseau alone had felt it, there would not have appeared the age of Eoman- ticism, there would not have appeared the masses to regenerate humanity, the declaration of rights, the Karl Moors, and all such things. To rebuke Luther and Eous- seau for having unloaded their theories on men, while arming themselves against the historical fetters, would 158 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES be the same as rebuking a whole age for the illegality of its mood. You cannot unload theories on a whole age. " But one will hardly get rid of his theories. I cannot understand what Count Tolstoy would have of peda- gogy. He is all the time troubled about the final end, about the imperturbable criterion. There are none, says he, and so none are needed. Why not consider the life of each individual, say, his own life ? He, of course, does not know the final end of his existence, nor the common philosophical criterion for the activity of all the periods of his life. And yet he lives and acts ; and he hves and acts only because in his childhood he had one purpose and one criterion, and others in youth, and now others again, and so on. He, no doubt, was a lively boy, — we know what criterion boys have, — and a religious youth, and a poet with hberal tendencies, and a practical man of the world ; every such a natural mood made him look differently at the world, expect something different, and be guided by something else. In this constant change of view hes the wealth of human evolution, his philosophic and his every-day experi- ence. Where Count Tolstoy sees a reproach to humanity and pedagogy and a self-contradiction, I see necessity, naturalness, and even advantage." {Ibid., pp. 159-160.) How much said, you would think ! How clever, how instructive, what a calm historical view of everything! You yourself stand on some imaginary height, and below you act Eousseau, and Schiller, and Luther, and the French Eevolution. From your historical height you approve or disapprove their historical acts and clas- sify them according to historical patterns. More than that. Each human personality is crawling about some- where there, subject to the immutable historical laws, which we know ; but there is no final end, and there can be none, — there is only the historical view .' PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 159 But we are asking for something different. We are endeavouring to find that common mental law which has guided man's activity in education, and which, therefore, could be a criterion for the correct human activity in education, whereas the historical view to all our questions answers only by saying that Eousseau and Luther were the products of their time. We are searching for the eternal principle which found its expression in them ; and we are told about the form in which it found its expres- sion, and they classify them and determine their orders. We are told that the criterion is that one must teach in co7iformity with the demands of the time, and we are told that that is very simple. I understand teaching according to the dogmas of the Christian or of the Mohammedan religion, but teaching according to the demands of the time is something of which I fail to comprehend a single word. What are these demands ? Who will determine them ? Where will they be expressed ? It may be very amusing to discuss up and down the historical conditions which compelled Eousseau to express himself in the par- ticular form in which he did express himself, but it is impossible to discover those historical conditions in which a future Eousseau will express himself. I can under- stand why Eousseau should have written with malice against the artificiality of life ; but I positively fail to see why Eousseau appeared, and why he discovered the great truths. I have no business with Eousseau and his sur- roundings; I am interested only in the thoughts which he expressed, and I can verify and comprehend his thoughts only by thinking, and not by reflecting on his place in history. It was my problem to express and determine the cri- terion in pedagogy, whereas the historical view, not following me on that path, replies to me that Eousseau and Luther were in their place (as though they could be in somebody else's place), and that there are different 160 PEDAGO&ICAL ARTICLES schools (as though we did not know that), and that each carries a kernel to that mysterious historical heap. The historical view can breed many pleasant conversations, when there is nothing else to do, and can explain that which everybody knows ; but it is not able to say a word on which to build reality. If it does utter somethiag, it says a commonplace such as that one must teach accord- ing to the demands of the time. Tell us, what are these demands in Syzrdn, in Geneva, along the Syr-Darya ? Where can we iind the expression of these demands and of the demand of the time, — of what time? When it comes to talking about what is historical, I will say that the historical moment is only in the present. One assumes the demands of the year 1825 for the demands of the present; another knows what the demands will be in August, 1892 ; a third regards the demands of the Middle Ages as our present demands. I repeat that if the phrase to teach according to the demands of the time, not one word of which has any meaning for us, is written with due reflection, we ask you, point those demands out to us ; we say frankly, with all our heart, that we should like to know those demands^ for we do not know them. We could adduce many more samples of Mr. Markov's historical view with references to the Trivium and the Quadriviiim of Cassiodorus, of Thomas Aquinas, of Shakespeare, of Hamlet, and with other similar interest- ing and pleasant discussions. But all these passages give no better answer to our questions, and so we shall conrme ourselves to the elucidation of the causes which make the historical view invalid for the solution of philosophi- cal questions. The cause lies in this : people with the historical view have come to the conclusion that abstract thought, which they abusively call metaphysics, is fruitless the moment it is contrary to historical conditions, that is, to speak PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 161 more simply, to existing convictions; that this thought is even useless because they have discovered a general law by which humanity advances without the participa- tion of the thought which is contrary to reigning convic- tions. This supposed law of humanity is called progress. The whole reason of our disagreement with Mr. Mdrkov, and of his complete contempt for our proofs, which he does not take the trouble to answer, lies in the fact that Mr. Mdrkov believes in progress, and I have no such faith. What is this conception of progress and the faith based upon it ? The fundamental idea of progress and its expression will be like this : " Humanity is continually changing in form ; it lives through the past, retaining the labours begun by that past and its recollections." In the meta- phorical sense we call this change of human relations " motion," and the past change we call " back," and the future change we call " forward." In general, in a meta- phorical sense we say that humanity moves forward. Though not clearly expressed, this statement is, in a metaphorical sense, quite correct. But back of this un- doubted statement, those who believe in progress and the historical evolution make another unproved assertion tliat humanity in former days enjoyed less well-being, and the farther we go back the less, and the farther for- ward the more. From this the conclusion is drawn that for a fruitful activity it is necessary to act only in con- formity with historical conditions ; and that by the law of progress, every historical action will lead to an increase of the general well-being, that is, that all will be well, while all attempts to arrest or even oppose the movement of history are fruitless. The process of progress has taken place in all human- ity from time immemorial, says the historian who believes in progress, and he proves this assertion by comparing, 162 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES let us say, the England of the year 1685 with the Eng- land of our time. Even if it were possible to prove, by comparing Russia, France, and Italy of our time with ancient Rome, Greece, Carthage, and so forth, that the prosperity of the modern nations is greater than that of antiquity, I am still struck by one incomprehensible phenomenon : they deduce a general law for all humanity from the comparison of one small part of European humanity in the present and the past. Progress is a common law of humanity, they say, except for Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, except for one thousand millions of people. We have noticed the law of progress in the dukedom of HohenzoUern-Sigmaringen, with its three thousand in- habitants. We know China, with its two hundred mil- lions of inhabitants, which overthrows our whole theory of progress, and we do not for a moment doubt that prog- ress is the common law of all humanity, and that we, the believers in that progress, are right, and those who do not believe in it are wrong, and so we go with cannon and guns to impress the idea of progress upon the Chinese. Common sense, however, tells me that if the greater part of humanity, the whole so-called East, does not confirm the law of progress, but, on the contrary, overthrows it, that law does not exist for all humanity, but only as an article of faith for a certain part of it. I, like all people who are free from the superstition of progress, observe only that humanity hves, that the mem- ories of the past as much increase as they disappear ; the labours of the past frequently serve as a basis for the labours of the present, and just as frequently as an im- pediment ; that the well-being of people now increases in one place, in one stratum, and in one sense, and now diminishes ; that, no matter how desirable it would be, I cannot find any comi^on law in the life of humanity; and that it is as easy to subordinate history to the idea PBOGKESS AND EDUCATION 163 of progress as to any other idea or to any imaginable his- torical fancy. I will say even more: I see no necessity of finding common laws for history, independently of the impossi- bility of finding them. The common eternal law is written in the soul of each man. The law of progress, or perfectibility, is written in the soul of each man, and is transferred to history only through error. As long as it remains personal, this law is fruitful and accessible to all ; when it is transferred to history, it becomes an idle, empty prattle, leading to the justification of every insip- idity and to fatalism. Progress in general in all human- ity is an unproved fact, and does not exist for all the Eastern nations ; therefore, it is as unfounded to say that progress is the law of humanity as it is to say that all people are blond except the dark-complexioned ones. But we may not yet have defined progress as most understand it. We try to give it a most general and reasonable definition. Maybe progress is a law discov- ered only by the European nations, but one that is so good that the whole of humanity ought to be subjected to it. In this sense progress is a path over which a cer- tain part of humanity is travelling, and which this part of humanity recognizes as leading it to well-being. In this sense Buckle understands the progress of the civiliza- tion of the European nations, including in this general conception of progress the social and the economic prog- ress, the progress of the sciences, the industrial and the fine arts, and especially the invention of powder, printing, and roads of communication. Such a definition of progress is lucid and intelligible ; but there involuntarily arises the question, first, who has decided that this progress leads to well-being ? In order to believe that it does, I need that not exceptional people, who belong to an exceptional class, — historians, thinkers, and journalists, — should recognize it as so, but that the 164 PEDAGOGICAL AETICLES whole mass of the people, subject to the action of progress, should recognize that progress leads it to well-being. We, on the contrary, constantly see a phenomenon which con- tradicts it. The second question consists in this : What shall be recognized as well-being ? Is it the improvement of means of communication, the dissemination of the art of printing, the illumination of the streets by means of gas, the increase of homes for the poor, and so forth ? or the virgin wealth of Nature, the woods, the game, the fish, strong physical development, purity of morals, and so forth ? Humanity lives at the same time by so many varied sides of its existence that it is impossible for any given man to define the degree of well-being for any given period. One man sees only the progress of art; another, the progress of virtue ; a third, the progress of material com- fort ; a fourth, the progress of physical force ; the fifth, the progress of the social order ; the sixth, the progress of science ; a seventh, the progress of love, equality, and liberty ; the eighth, the progress of illumination by gas, and of sewing-machines. A man who will look at all sides of humanity's life without bias will always find that the progress on the one side is purchased at the expense of a retrogression on the other side of human life. Have not the most conscientious political actors, who believed in the progress of equality and liberty, convinced themselves each day that in ancient Greece and Eome there was more hberty than in the England of to-day with its Chinese and Indian wars ; than in modern France with its two Bonapartes ; than in the very newest America with its sanguinary war for the rights of slavery ? Have not the most conscientious men, believing in the progress of art, convinced themselves that there are no Phidiases, no Raphaels, no Homers in our day ? Have not the most rabid economic progressists convinced PROGRESS AKD EDUCATIOK 165 themselves that it is necessary to prohibit the working people from procreating children in order to be able to feed the existing population ? Thus, in reply to the two questions which I have put, I say that, first, it is possible only then to recognize a progress which leads to well-being when the whole nation, subjected to the action of progress, will recognize this action as good and useful, whereas now we constantly see the opposite in nine-tenths of the population, in the so-called common, labouring people ; and, secondly, when it shall be proved that progress leads to the improvement of all the sides of human Mfe, or that all the consequences of its influence taken together by their good and useful qualities overbalance its bad and injurious results. The people, that is, the mass of the nation, nine-tenths of all people, are always inimical toward progress and constantly not only do not recognize its usefulness, but positively and consciously recognize its harmfulness for them. We cannot beheve the deductions of the historians, such as Macaulay (the one whom Mr. Mdrkov adduces to prove the power of the English education), who pre- sume that they have weighed all sides of human Hfe, and who, on the basis of this weighing, have decided that progress has done more good than evil, because these deductions are not based on anything. These deductions manifestly prove to every conscientious and unbiassed judge, in spite of the opposite aim of the writer, that progress has done more evil than good to the people, that is, to the majority, not to mention the State. I ask the serious reader to read the whole third chapter of the first part of Macaulay's history. The deductions are made boldly and with decision, but it is positively unintelligible to a sound-minded man who is not dulled by the faith in progress, which they are based upon. The important facts are only these ; 166 PEDAGOGICAL AKTICLE8 (1) The population has increased, and that to such an extent that Malthus's theory becomes a necessity. (2) There was no army, and now it has become immense ; the same is true of the fleet. (3) The number of petty agriculturists has diminished. (4) The cities have drawn to them the greater part of the population. (5) The land has been stripped of forests. (6) Wages have be- come half as large again, but the prices have increased on everything and the comforts of life have become fewer. (7) The taxes for the poor have been increased tenfold ; there are more newspapers ; the illumination of the streets is better ; wives and children are beaten less, and English ladies have begun to write without orthograph- ical mistakes. I ask the reader to read this third chapter with the most conscientious attention, and to remember the simple facts that the army once increased can never be dimin- ished; that the century-old forests, once destroyed, can never be restored; that a population, corrupted by com- forts, can never return to its primitive simplicity and moderation. I ask the reader who has no faith in prog- ress, or who for the time being has given up this faith, to read everything which has been written in proof of the good of progress, and to ask himself, with entire disregard of his faith, whether there are any proofs that progress has done people more good than evil. It is impossible to prove this to an unbiassed man; but for the biassed man any paradox is possible, even the paradox of progress, clothed in historical facts. What a strange and incomprehensible phenomenon ! There is no common law of humanity's progress, as the immovable Eastern nations prove to us. It is impossible to prove that the European nations are constantly moving in the direction of the improvement of their well-being, and nobody has ever proved it; and, finally, the most remarkable thing is that nine-tenths of that very Euro- PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 167 pean humanity, who are subject to the process of the progress, consciously hate progress and use all the means at their command to resist it, while we recognize the progress of civilization as an unquestioned good. How- ever incomprehensible this phenomenon may appear, it will become quite clear to us if we look at it without prejudice. Only one small part of society believes in progress, preaches it, and tries to prove its benefit. The other, the greater part of society, resists progress and does not believe in its benefit. From this I conclude that for a small part of society progress is a benefit; but for the majority it is an evil. I conclude this from the reflection that all men consciously or unconsciously strive after the good, and evade the evil. Having made this deduction, I shall verify it by reference to facts. Who are that small part who believe in progress ? They are the so-called cultured society, the leisure classes, to use Buckle's expression. Who are the majority who do not believe in progress ? They are the so-called people, the busy classes. The interests of society and of the masses are always opposed to each other. The more advantageous to one set, the more disadvantageous to the other. My supposition is confirmed in the matter of progress, and I conclude that . progress is the more advantageous for society the more disadvantageous it is for the masses. This ratiocination, in addition, gives me a complete ex- planation of that strange phenomenon why, despite the fact that progress is not a common law of humanity, despite the fact that progress does not lead to an in- creased well-being of the whole European humanity, despite the fact that nine-tenths of the masses are op- posed to it, progress is lauded all the time and is ever more disseminated. Those who believe in progress are sincere in their 168 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES belief, because that faith is advantageous to them, and so they preach their faith with passion and fury. I invol- untarily recall the Chinese war, in which three great Powers quite sincerely introduced the belief in progress into China by means of powder and cannon-balls. But am I not mistaken ? Let us see in what may be the advantage of progress for society, and its disadvantage for 'the masses. Speaking here of facts, I feel the neces- sity of leaving Europe in peace and speaking of Eussia, with which I am familiar. Who with us is a believer, who an unbeliever ? The believers in progress are : the educated gentry, the educated merchant and official classes, — the leisure classes, according to Buckle's ex- pression. The unbelievers of progress and its enemies are : the master mechanics, the factory workmen, the peasants, the agriculturists, and the trades-people, men directly occupied with physical labour, — the busy classes. Eeflecting upon this distinction, we find that the more a man works the more conservative he is, and the less he works the more he is a progressist. There are no greater progressists than contractors, writers, the gentry, students, officials without places, and manufacturers. There is no greater opponent to progress than the agricultural peasant. " Man takes possession of the forces of Nature ; thought, with the speed of thought, flies from one end of the universe to another. Time is vanquished." All that is beautiful and touching, but let us see for whom that is advantageous. We have in mind the progress of the electric telegraphs. It is apparent that the advantage and application of the telegraph is only for the higher, so-called cultured class. The masses, nine-tenths of the people, hear only the buzzing of the wires and are impor- tuned by the severe laws not to injure the telegraphs. Over the wires flies the thought that the demand on such and such an article of commerce has increased and PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 169 that, therefore, the price must be advanced upon it, or the thought that " I, a Eussian landed proprietress, living in Florence, have now, thank God, stronger nerves, and embrace my beloved husband and ask him to send me forty thousand francs in the quickest possible time." Without making any exact statistics of telegrams, one may be firmly convinced that all the telegrams belong only to the kind, samples of which I have given here. A peasant of Ydsnaya Poly ana, of the Government of Tula, or any other Eussian peasant (it must not be for- gotten that these peasants form the great mass of the people about whose well-being progress is concerned), has never sent or received, and for a long time to come will never send or receive, a single telegram. All the tele- grams which fly over his head cannot add one note to his well-being, because everything he needs he gets from his own field and from his forest, and he is equally indifferent to the cheapness or dearness of sugar or cotton, and to the dethronement of King Otho, and to the speeches made by Palmerston and by Napoleon III., and to the sentiment of the lady writing from Florence. All these thoughts, which with the rapidity of lightning cross the universe, do not increase the productiveness of his field, do not weaken the vigilance in the forests of the landed pro- prietor and of the Crown, do not add any strength in his work either to him or to his family, do not give him one additional labourer. All these great thoughts can only impair, "his well-being, instead of fortifying or improving it, and can be interesting to him only in a negative sense. For the orthodox in progress the telegraphic wires have brought enormous advantages. I am not disputing the advantages; I only try to prove that I must not think and persuade others that that which is advan- tageous to me is the greatest good for the whole world. This must be proved, or, at least, we must wait for all people to recognize as good that which is advantageou? 170 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES to US. We do not see that at all in the so-called enslave- ment of space and time. We see, on the contrary, that the advocates of progress in this respect judge precisely as did the old landed proprietors, who assured everybody that for the peasants, for the state, and for humanity at large there was nothing more advantageous than serfdom and manorial labour ; the only difference is that the faith of the landed proprietors is old and unmasked, while the faith of the progressists is still fresh and in full force. The art of printing is another favourite and trite theme of the progressists. Its dissemination, and the dissemina- tion of the rudiments which comes with it, has always been regarded as an undoubted good for the whole nation. Why is that so ? The art of printing, reading, and that which is called culture, are the deep-rooted superstitions of the religion of progress, and so I will ask the reader in this matter most frankly to renounce all such faith and to ask himself : Why is it so, and why is that culture, which we, the minority, regard as a benefit, and as we, consequently, do the art of printing and of reading, which latter we wish to disseminate so, — why are that art of printing, that reading, and that culture a benefit to the majority, — • to the masses ? We have said before, in several articles of ours, why that culture, which we possess, by its essence cannot be a good for the masses. We shall now speak exclusively of the art of printing. It is evident to me that the distribution of periodic- als and books, the uninterrupted and immense progress of the art • of printing, have been very advantageous to writers, editors, publishers, proof-readers, and compositors. Immense sums have in this manner passed by indirect ways from the people into the hands of these men. The art of printing is so advantageous for these people that all kinds of means are thought out in order to increase the number of readers: poetry, stories, scandals, obloquy, PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 171 gossips, polemics, presents, premiums, societies for the encouragement of reading, distribution of books, and schools for the increase of the number of those who can read. No labour is so well paid as literature. No inter- est is so great as on the literary capital. The number of literary workers grows with every day. The pettiness and insignificance of literature increases in proportion with the increase of its organs. " But if the number of books and periodicals increases, if literature pays so well, it must be necessary," naive people will tell me. " Consequently the farming out of the monopolies is necessary, if they pay so well," I wUl reply. The success of literature would appear as satisfying a want of the people, only if the whole nation were in sympathy with it ; but that condition does not exist, just as it did not exist when the monopolies were farmed out. Literature, just like the monopolies, is only an artful exploitation, advantageous only for those who take part in it, and disadvantageous for the masses. There is the Contemporary, and the Contemporary Word, and the Contemporary Chronicle, and the Russian Word, the Rii,ssian Messenger, and the Time, and Our Time, and the Eagle, and the Little Star, the Garland, and the Reader, the Popular Reading; and Reading for the People; and there are certain words in certain com- binations and permutations, as titles of periodicals and newspapers, and all these periodicals believe firmly that they represent certain thoughts and tendencies. And there are the works of Pushkin, of Gdgol, of Turg^nev, of Derzhavin. And all these periodicals and works, in spite of their long existence, are unknown and unnecessary to the people and are of no advantage to it. I have already spoken of the efforts which I have made to inoculate the masses with our social literature. I became convinced, as any one else would, that in order 172 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES that a Eussian from the masses should take a liking to Pushkin's "Boris Godunov," or Solov^v's history, this man must cease being what he is, that is, an independent man, who satisfies all his human wants. Our literature has taken no hold on the masses — I hope that those who know the people and the literattire will not doubt it. What benefit do the masses derive from literature ? The people have as yet no cheap Bibles and saints' alma- nacs. Other books, which fall into their hands, to their thinking, betray only the stupidity and insignificance of their authors ; their money and work are wasted, and the advantage from printing to the masses — see how much time has passed — is nD. The masses have not learned from books to plough, to make kvas, to weave bast shoes, to build huts, to sing songs, or even to pray. Every con- scientious judge, who is not enthralled by his faith in progress, will admit that there have been no advantages to the masses from printing. But the disadvantages are many. Mr. Dal, a conscientious observer, has published his observations on the influence exerted by the knowledge of the rudiments on the masses. He proclaimed that the rudiments corrupt the masses. Incontinent accusations and curses were heaped on the observer by all the be- lievers in progress; it was decided that the knowledge of reading was injurious when it was an exception, and that this danger would disappear when it became the general rule. This may be an ingenious supposition, but it is only a supposition. The fact remains, and it has been confirmed by my own observations, and will be con- firmed by all people who have direct relations with the masses, such as merchants, burghers, captains of rural police, priests, and peasants themselves. But I shall probably be told by those who accept my deductions as just, that the progress of the art of printing, without bringing any direct advantage to the people, still tilOGRESS AiSt> EDUCATION 17B works in the direction of their well-being by softening the manners of society ; that, for example, the solution of the serf question is only the product of the progress of the art of printing. To this I will reply that the softening of the manners of society has to be proved and that I personally do not see it and that I do not consider it necessary to take it on faith. I do not find, for example, that the relations of the manufacturer to the workman are any humaner than were the relations of the landed proprietor to the serf. But that is my personal view, which cannot serve as a proof. The chief objection that I have against such an argument is that, even taking as an example the emancipation from serfdom, I do not see that the art of printing has cooperated in its progressive solution. If the government had not said its decisive word in the matter, the press would certainly have decided it quite differently. We saw that the greater part of the organs of the press would have demanded emancipation without land, and would have adduced proofs which would have appeared just as reasonable, ingenious, and sarcastic. The progress of the art of printing, like the progress of the electric telegraphs, is the monopoly of a certain class of society, advantageous only for the people of that class, who by the word " progress " understand their per- sonal advantage, which thus is always contrary to the advantage of the masses. It gives me pleasure to read the periodicals when I have nothing else to do, and I am even interested in . Otho, the King of Greece. It gives me pleasure to write or edit an article, and to get money and fame from it. It gives me pleasure to receive a despatch about my sister's health and to know for certain what price I may expect for my wheat. In all these cases there is nothing prejudicial in the pleasures which I experience, and in the desires which I have that the conveniences giving 174 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES rise to these pleasures may be increased ; but it will be quite incorrect to suppose that my pleasures coincide with the increase of the well-being of humanity at large. It would be as incorrect to suppose this, as to suppose with the monopolist or landed proprietor that, by getting c. great income without labour, he makes all humanity happy by encouraging art and giving many people work to do to supply his luxuries. I beg the reader to observe that Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, the German fairy-tales and songs, and, finally, the Eussian epos, did not need the art of printing in order to be eternal. Steam, the railways, and the much lauded steamboats locomotives, and engines in general, — we shall not speak of what may be in the future, of the results that arise from these inventions according to the contradictory theories of political economy, but will examine only those advantages which steam has brought to the masses. I see a Tula peasant, a good friend of mine, who is in no need of rapid transit from Tula to Moscow, to the Ehine, to Paris, and back again. The possibility of such migrations does not in the least increase his well-being. He satisfies all his wants from his own labour, and, begin- ning with his food and ending with his wearing apparel, everything is produced by him alone : money is not wealth to him. This is so true that when he has money, he buries it in the ground and finds no need of making use of it. Thus, if the railways make the objects of manufactures and commerce more accessible to him he remains quite indifferent to this greater accessibility. He needs no tricot, no velvets, no watches, no French, wines, no sardines. Everything which he needs, and which to his thinking forms wealth and increase of well- being, is acquired by his labour on his land. Macaulay says that the best measure of the well-beinf of the labouring people is the amount of wages they re- ceive. Is it possible that we, Eussians, are to such an PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 175 extent unacquainted with the condition of our people, and do not want to know it, that we repeat such a senseless and false proposition, so far as we are concerned ? Is it not evident to every Eussian that the earnings are to a common Eussian an accident, a luxury, upon which nothing can be based ? The whole nation, every Eussian without exception, will doubtless call rich a peasant of the steppe with his old ricks of grain on his threshing-floor, who never iu his life has seen such a thing as wages, just as he will certainly regard as poor a suburban Moscow peasant, who always commands high wages. Not only is it impossible in Eussia to determine the wealth by the amount of the wages, but one may boldly assert that for Eussia the ap- pearance of wages is a sign of the decline of wealth and well-being. This rule we, Eussians, who know our people, can verify throughout Eussia, and therefore, without dis- cussing the wealth of the nations and the wealth of the whole of Europe, we may and must say that for Eussia, that is, for the great majority of the Eussian people, the scale of wages not only does not serve as a measure of their well-being, but that the very appearance of wages indicates the decline of the national wealth. It is obvious that we must look for different first prin- ciples than those which exist in the rest of Europe; in the meantime European political economy wants to pre- scribe its laws for us. For the great majority of the Eussian people money constitutes no wealth, and the cheapening of articles of manufacture does not increase their well-being. For this reason, the railways bring no advantages to the great mass of the population. (I beg the reader to observe that I am speaking of the advan- tages according to the conception of the masses them- selves, and not of those advantages which the progress of civilization wants to enforce upon them.) According to the ideas of the Russian people, the 176 PEBAGOGICAL ARTICLES increase of their well-being consists in the increase of the powers of the soil, in the increase of the amount of live stock, in the increase of the quantity of grain and, consequently, in its cheapening (I beg you to observe that no peasant ever complains of the cheapness of grain ; it is only the European political economists who console him with the idea that the price of grain will be higher so that he will be able to purchase manufactured articles, — in which he is not interested), in the increase of work- ing powers (a peasant never complains that there are too many people in his village), in the increase of forest land and pastures, in the absence of city temptations. Which of these benefits do the railways offer the peasant? They increase the temptations; they destroy the forests; they take away labourers; they raise the price of bread. Maybe I am mistaken when I speak of the causes which lead the spirit of the people always to assume a hostile attitude toward the introduction of railways ; I may have omitted some causes, but the un- doubted fact of the permanent resistance of the popular spirit to the introduction of railways exists in its full force. The masses get accustomed to them only in the measure in which they succumb to the temptations of the railways and themselves become participants in the exploitation. The real people, that is, all those who work and live directly by the fruits of their work, — the pre- eminently agricultural masses, nine-tenths of the nation, without whom no progress could be thought of, are always inimical to them. Thus, those who beheve in progress, a small part of society, say that the railways are an increase of the people's well-being, while the great majority of society says that it is a decrease. We could easily verify and explain such a resistance to progress on the side of the people in every aspect of progress, but we shall confine ourselves to the above mentioned examples, and shall attempt to reply to the PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 177 question which naturally arises: "Is there any need of trusting this counteraction of the masses? You say," ■we shall be told, " that those who are dissatisfied with the railways are the agricultural peasants, who pass their lives on the hanging beds, in a smoky hut, or behind the plough ; who mend their own bast shoes and weave their own sliirts ; who have never read a book ; who once every two weeks take off their vermin-ridden shirts ; who tell the time by the sun and by cockcrows, and who have no other needs than slave labour, sleeping, eating, and in- toxication. They are not men, but beasts," the progress- ists will say and think, " and therefore we think we are right not to pay any attention to their opinion, and to do for them what we have found to be good for us." Such an opinion, though it be not expressed, is always at the basis of the reflections of the progressists ; but I presume that these people, who are called savages, and whole generations of these savages, are just such people and just the same kind of humanity as your Palmer- stons, Othos, and Bonapartes. I presume that genera- tions of workmen have in them the same human charac- teristics, and especially the characteristic of finding a better place, — as a fish looks for a greater depth, — as your generations of lords, barons, professors, bankers, and so forth. In this idea I am confirmed by my personal, no doubt insignificant, conviction, which is, that in the generations of workmen there lies more force and a greater conscious- ness of truth and goodness than in generations of barons, bankers, and professors ; I am, above all, confirmed in this idea by the simple observation that a peasant just as sarcastically and cleverly condemns the master and makes fun of him, because he does not know what a plough is, or a drag, or buckwheat, or grits .; and when to sow oats, when buckwheat ; how to tell one track from another ; how to find out whether a cow is with calf, or not ; and 178 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES because the master passes all his life in idleness, and so forth, — just as the master condemns the peasant because he mispronounces words, and because on a holiday he drinks like a fish, and because he does not know how to indicate a road. I am also struck by the observation that two men, quarrelling, quite sincerely call each other fools and rascals. I am still more struck by this observation in the con- flicts of Eastern nations with Europeans. Hindoos re- gard the English as barbarians and scoundrels, and thus the English look upon the Hindoos ; the Japanese look thus upon the Europeans, and the Europeans upon the Japanese ; even the most progressive nation, the French, regards the Germans as dullards, while the Germans think that the French are brainless. From all these observations I come to the conclusion that if the progxessists look upon the masses as having no right to consider their well-being, and the masses look upon the progressists as occupied with their own selfish ends, it is impossible from these contradictory views to conclude as to the justice of the one side or the other. For this reason I am constrained to side with the masses, on the ground that, first, the masses are more numerous than society, and because it must be assumed that a greater measure of truth is on the side of the masses, and, secondly and chiefly, because the masses could well get along without the society of the progressists, and could satisfy all their human wants, such as working, enjoying themselves, loving, thinking, and producing works of art (the Iliad, the Eussian songs), whereas the progressists could not exist without the masses. We lately read the history of the civilization of England by Buckle. This book had a great success in Europe (which is quite natural) and an immense success in the literary and learned circles of Eussia, — and that is incomprehensible to me. Buckle analyzes the laws of PEOGEESS AND EDUCATION 179 civilization in a very entertaining manner ; but this whole interest is lost for me and, it seems to me, for all Rus- sians, who have no foundation whatever to suppose thg,t we, Russians, must of necessity be subject to the same law of the progress of civihzation to which the European nations are subject, and that the progress of civihzation is a good. It is necessary first to prove both to us Rus- sians. We personally, for example, regard the progress of civi- lization as one of the greatest violent evils, to which a certain part of humanity is subject, nor do we regard this progress as inevitable. The author, who so strongly contends against propositions which are based on no proof, himself does not prove to us why the whole interest in history for him lies in the progress of civilization. For us this interest lies in the progress of the common well- being. The progress of well-being, according to our con- viction, not only does not spring from the progress of civilization, but for the most part is opposed to it. If there are people who think differently, this statement must be proved. We have found these proofs neither in the direct observations of the phenomena of life, nor in the pages of historians, philosophers, and publicists. We see, on the contrary, that these people, and Mr. Markov with them, in their arguments against us, without any foundation recognize as proved the question of the iden- tity of the well-being and the civilization. We have made a very long digression, which may appear to be irrelevant, only to say that we do not believe in progress as increasing well-being; that we have no grounds whatever for believing in it; and that we have been looking in our first article for a different measure of what is good and bad than the recognition of progress as good and that which is not progress as bad. Having elucidated this cliief hidden point of our disagreement with Mr. Markov, we presume, with the majority of the 180 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES sofcalled cultivated society, that the answers to the points of the article ia the Russian Messenger will become easy and simple for us. (1) The article in the Russian Messenger recognizes the right of one generation to interfere iq the education of another, on the ground that it is natural and that each generation casts its handful on the heap of progress. We do not recognize this right because, not regarding progress as an imconditional good, we seek other foundations for such a right, and we assume that we have found them. If it were proved that our suppositions are erroneous, we still should not be able to recognize the belief in progress as well founded any more than the belief in Mohammed or in the Dalai-Lama. (2) The article in the Russian Messenger recognizes the right of the upper classes to iuterfere ia the popular education. We think we have shown sufficiently in the previous pages why interference in the education of the masses by those who believe in progress is unjust, but advantageous for the upper classes, and why their injustice seems to them a right, just as serfdom seemed to be a right. (3) The author of the article in the Russian Messen- ger thinks that the schools cannot and must not be exempted from historical conditions. We thiak that these words make no sense, because, first, it is impossible, either ia fact or ia thought, to exempt anything from historical conditions ; secondly, because, if the discovery of the laws upon which the school has been built and ought to be built is, in Mr. Markov's opinion, an exemp- tion from historical conditions, we assume that our thought, which has discovered certain laws, also acts within historical conditions, and that it is necessary to condemn or approve the thought itself by means of reason, in order to make it clear, and not to answer by the truth that we are living under historical conditions. PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 181 (4) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger thinks that our modern schools more nearly correspond to the demands of the time than the mediaeval ones. We are sorry that we have given Mr. Markov an occasion to prove this to us, and we gladly confess that, in proving the opposite, we fell into the common habit of subordi- nating historical facts to a preconceived idea. Mr. Mdrkov has done the same, probably more successfully and more eloquently than we. We do not wish to discuss this, sincerely confessing our error. It is so easy to talk a great deal in this field, without convincing anybody ! (5) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger regards our education as not injurious, but as useful, because our education trains men for progress, in which they believe. But we do not believe in progress and therefore continue to regard our education as injurious. (6) The author of the article in the Russian Messenger thinks that full liberty of education is injurious and impossible. It is injurious, because we need men of progress, and not merely men, and impossible, because we have ready-made programmes for the education of men of progress, but we have no programmes for the education of mere men. (7) The author thinks that the structure of the school at Yasnaya Polyana contradicts the editor's convictions. We admit that, as a personal matter, the more so, since the author himself knows how strong the influence of historical conditions is, and, therefore, ought to know that the school at Yasnaya Polyana is subject to the action of two forces, to what the author calls an extreme conviction and .to historical conditions, that is, to the education of the teachers, the means, and so forth ; besides, the school could gain but a very small degree of freedom and, conse- quently, of advantage over other schools. What would have happened if these convictions had not been extreme, as the author thinks they are? The author says that 182 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES the success of the school depends on love. But love is not accidental. Love can exist only with freedom. In all the schools founded on the convictions of the school at Yasnaya Polydna the same phenomenon has been repeated : the teacher fell in love with his school ; and I am sure that the same teacher, with all the ideahzation possible, could not fall in love with a school where the children sit on benches, walk by the ringing of bells, and are whipped on Saturdays. And (8) finally, the author does not agree with the Yasnaya Polyana definition of education. It is here that we shall have to make our meaning clearer. It seems to me that it would have been juster on the side of the author, if he, without entering into any further discus- sion, had taken the trouble to overthrow our definition. But he did not do that ; he did not even look at it ; called it trite, and gave his own definition : progress, — and, therefore, to teach in accordance with the demands of the time. Everything which we wrote about progress was written for the purpose of eliciting people's retorts. Instead of it, they do not dispute with us, but only say : What is the use of instinct, of the necessity of equality, and aU that baggage of words, when there is a growing heap ? But we do not believe in progress, and so cannot be satisfied with the heap. Even if we did believe, we should say : Very well, the aim is to teach in accordance with the demands of the time, to. add to the heap ; we should admit that the mother teaches the child, with the inten- tion of transmitting her knowledge to him, as Mr. Markov says. But why ? I should ask, and I should have a right to get an answer. A man breathes. Why ? I ask. And I receive a reply, not that he breathes because he breathes, but in order to get the necessary supply of oxygen and to cast off the useless gases. And again I ask : Why the oxygen ? And a physiologist sees tihe PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 183 meaning of such a question and answers : In order to get heat. Why the heat ? I ask. And here he answers, or tries to answer, and he seeks and knows that the more general such au answer will be, the richer it will be in deductions. Now we ask : Why does one teach another ? It seems to me there can be no' question which lies nearer to a pedagogue than this. And we answer it, maybe irregu- larly, without proofs, but the question and the answer are categorical. Mr. Markov (I do not attack Mr. Markov, — every one who believes in progress will make the same reply) not only does not answer our question, he is not even able to see it. For him this question does not exist : it is nothing but a trite commonplace, to which, as to something funny, he directs the reader's especial atten- tion. And yet, in this question and answer lies the essence of everything I have said, written, and thought about pedagogy. Mr. Markov and the public who agree with Mr. Markov are intelligent, cultivated men, accustomed to reasoning; whence comes that sudden dulness of com- prehension ? Progress. The word " progress " is said, — and nonsense becomes clear, and what is clear looks Hke nonsense. I do not recognize the benefit of progress so long as it is not proved to me, and, therefore, as I observe the phenomenon of education, I need a definition of edu- cation, and I again repeat and explain wliat I have said : Education is the activity of man ivhich has for its base the need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress. As said before, to the study of the laws of education we apply not the metaphysical method, but the method of deductions from observations. We observe the phe- nomena of education in its most general sense, including the bringing up. In every phenomenon of education we see two factors, 184 PEDAGO&lCAL ARTICLES ' the educator and the one who is being educated. In order to study the phenomena of education, as we understand it, and to find its definition and criterion, we necessarily must study both activities and find the cause which unites the two activities into one phe- nomenon, called education. Let us first examine the activity of the person under education, and its causes. The activity of the person who is being educated, whatever, wherever, and in what- ever way he may learn (even if he reads books by him- self), consists in assimilating the manner, the form, or the contents of the idea of the man, or men, whom he regards as knowing more than he knows. The moment he reaches the level of his educators, the moment he no longer considers -the educators higher in knowledge than he is, the activity of education, on the side of the per- son under education, involuntarily stops, and no conditions whatever can make him continue it. A man cannot learn from another, if the man who learns knows as much as the man who teaches. A teacher of arithmetic, who does not know algebra, involuntarily stops his teaching of arithmetic the moment the pupil has made the knowledge of arithmetic completely his own. It would seem useless to prove that, as soon as the knowledge of the teacher and the pupil is equaUzed, the activity of teaching, of education in the larger sense, inevitably stops between the pupil and the teacher, and there begins a new activity, which consists in the teacher's opening to the pupil a new perspective of knowledge, familiar to him, but unknown to the pupil, in this or that branch of science, and the education continues until the pupil's knowledge is equalized with that of the teacher; or having reached the teacher's level in his knowledge of arithmetic, the pupil gives up his teacher and takes up a book, from which he learns algebra. In this case, the book, or the author of the book, appears as PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 185 the new teacher, and the activity of education lasts only so long as the pupil has not reached the level of the book, or of the author of the book. Again the activity of education comes to a close immediately upon having reached a point of equality in knowledge. It seems useless to prove this truth, which may be verified in all imaginable cases of education. From these observations and considerations we conclude that the activity of education, considered only from the side of him who is being educated, has for its foundation the tendency of the pupil to become equal in knowledge with his educator. This truth is proved by the simple obser- vation that the moment the equahty has been reached, the activity immediately and inevitably comes to an end, and by this other, more simple observation, that in every education may be observed this greater or lesser approach to equahty. A good or a bad education is always and everywhere, in the whole human race, determined only by the rapidity with which this equality between teacher and pupil takes place : the slower, the worse ; the faster, the better. This truth is so simple and self-evident that there is no need of proving it. But it behoves us to prove why this simple truth never occurs to anybody, is not expressed by anybody, or meets with enraged resistance when it is expressed. The following are the causes : Outside of the chief foundation of every education, which springs from the very essence of the activity of education, — the tendency toward an equahzation of knowledge, — there have arisen other causes in civil society, which urge on toward educa- tion. These causes seem so persistent that the peda- gogues keep only these in view, losing sight of the chief foundation. Considering now only the activity of him who is being educated, we shall discover many seeming foupdatiops of education, besides the essentjal o^e which 186 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES we have enunciated. The impossibility of admitting these foundations can easily be proved. These false, but active, foundations are the following : The first and most operative, — the child learns in order not to be punished; the second, — the child learns in order to be rewarded ; tlie third, — the child learns in order to be better than the rest; the fourth,.^ — the child, or young man, learns, in order to obtain an advan- tageous position in life. These foundations, acknowledged by all, may be clas- sified under three heads : (1) Learning on tlie basis of obedience ; (2) learning on the basis of egotism ; and (3) learning on the basis of material advantages and ambition. Indeed, on the basis of these three divisions the various pedagogical schools have been built up: the Protestant schools, on obedience ; the Catholic schools of the Jesuits, on the basis of rivalry and egotism ; our Eussian schools, on the basis of material advantages, civil privileges, and ambition. The groundlessness of these incentive causes is appar- ent, in the first place, in actual life, on account of the universal dissatisfaction with the educational institutions based on these foundations; in the second place, for the reason, which I have expressed ten times, and will keep expressing until I get an answer to it, that under such conditions (obedience, egotism, and material advantages) there is no common criterion of pedagogy, and the theo- logian and the natural scientist at once regard their schools as impeccable, and all the other schools as positively harmful ; finally, in the third place, because, taking obe- dience, egotism, and the material advantages for the basis of the activity of the learner, the definition of education becomes impossible. By admitting that the equality of knowledge is the aim of the learner's activity, I see that upon reaching this aim the activity itself stops ; but by assuming obedience, PKOGKESS AND EDUCATION 187 egotism, and material advantages as the aim, I see, on the contrary, that however obedient the learner may become, however he may surpass all the others in worth, no mat- ter what material advantages and civil rights he may have obtained, his aim is not reached, and the possibility of the activity of education does not stop. I see, in reality, that the aim of education, by admitting such false bases, is never attained, that is, that the equality of knowledge is not acquired, but there is obtained, inde- pendently of education, a habit of obedience, an irri- table egotism, and material advantages. The adoption of these false foundations of education explains to me all the errors of pedagogy and the incompatibility of the results of education with the demands, inherent in man, made upon it, to which these errors lead. Let us now analyze the activity of the educator. Just as in the first case, we shall find, by observing this phe- nomenon in civil society, many various causes of this activity. These causes may be brought under the follow- ing heads : the first and foremost, — the desire of making people useful to us (landed proprietors who had their manorial servants instructed in music ; the government which trains officers, officials, and engineers for itself) ; the second, — also obedience and material advantages, which cause a student of the university, for a certain remuneration, to teach children according to a given pro- gramme ; the third, — egotism, which urges a man on to teach in order to display his knowledge ; and the fourth, — the desire to make others participants in one's interests, to transmit one's convictions to them, and, for that reason, to impart one's knowledge to them. It seems to me that every activity of the educator comes under one of these four heads, from the activity of the mother, who teaches her child to speak, and the tutor, who, for a set remuneration, teaches the French language, to the professor and author. 188 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES By applying the same measure to these subdivisions that we have applied to the bases of the learner's activity, we shall find : Firstly, that the activity which has for its aim the training of useful people, such as the former landed pro- prietors and the government trained, does not come to an end when the aim is reached, — consequently, it is not its final end. The government and the landed proprietors could proceed still farther in their activity of education. Very frequently the attainment of the aim of usefulness has nothing in common with education, so that I cannot recognize usefulness as the measure of the activity of the educator. Secondly, if we are to assume as the basis of the activ- ity of a teacher of a gymnasium, or of a tutor, obedience to him who has entrusted him with the education, and the material advantages accruing to him from this activity, — I again see that with the acquisition of the greatest quantity of material advantages the education does not stop. On the contrary, I see that the acquisition of greater material advantages, as a reward for the education, is frequently independent of the degree of the education furnished. Thirdly, if we are to admit that egotism and the desire to display one's knowledge serve as the aim of education, then r again see that the attainment of the highest praise for one's lectures or book does not stop the activity of education, for the praise bestowed upon the educator may be independent of the amount of education acquired by the student ; I see, on the contrary, that the praise may be squandered by people who are not acquiring education. Fourthly, at last, by examining this last aim of educa- tion, I see that if the activity of the educator is directed toward equalizing the knowledge of the learner with his own, this activity comes to an end the moment this aim h^s been attained. PROGRESS AND EDUCATION 189 Indeed, by applying this definition to reality, I see that all the other causes are only external, vital phenomena, which cloud the fundamental aim of every educator. The direct aim of a teacher of arithmetic consists only in hav- ing his pupil assimilate all the laws of mathematical thinking which he himself possesses. The aim of a teacher of French, the aim of a teacher of chemistry and philosophy, are one and the same ; and the moment that aim is attained, the activity comes to an end. Only that instruction has everywhere and in all ages heen regarded as good, in which the pupil becomes com- pletely equal to the teacher, — and the more so, the better, and the less the worse. Precisely the same phe- nomenon may be observed in literature, in this mediate means of education. We regard only those books as good, in which the author, or educator, transmits all his knowl- edge to the reader or the learuer. Thus, by considering the phenomena of education as a mutual activity of educator and learner, we see that this activity in either case has for its basis one and the same thing, — the tendency of man toward equalized knowledge. In the definition which we made before, we expressed precisely this, except that we did not make it clear that by equality we meant the equality of knowledge. We added, however : " The tendency toward equality and the invariable law of educational progress." Mr. Mdrkov understood neither the one nor the other, and was very much startled to find there the invariable law of educa- tional progress. The law of educational progress means only that inas- much as education is the tendency of people toward an equality of knowledge, this equality cannot be obtained on a lower stage of knowledge, but may be obtained only on a higher stage, for the simple reason that a child may find out what I know, while I cannot forget what I know ; and also, because I may be acquainted with the mode of 190 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES thought of past generations, while past generations cannot know my mode of thought. This I call the invariable law of educational progress. Thus I answer to all of Mr. Markov's points as follows : First, that it is not right to prove anything by the fact that everything is growing better, — it is necessary first to prove whether really everything is growing better, or not ; secondly, that education is only that activity of man which has for its base man's need of equality and the invariable law of educational progress. I have only tried to lead Mr. Markov out of the waste of useless historical considerations and to explain to him that which he did not understand. ARE THE PEASANT CHIL- DREN TO LEARN TO WRITE FROM US? Or, Are We to Learn from the Peasant Children ? In the fourth number of Ydsnaya Polydna, in the department of children's compositions, there was printed by the editor's mistake "A Story of How a Boy Was Frightened in Tula." This story was not composed by a boy, but by the teacher from a boy's dream as related to him. Some of the readers, who follow the numbers of Ydsnaya Polydna, have expressed their doubts as regards the authorship of this story. I hasten to beg the readers' indulgence for this oversight, and to remark that in such matters a falsification is impossible. This story was recognized, not because it was better, but because it was worse, iufinitely worse, than all children's composi- tions. All the other stories belong to the children them- selves. Two of them, " He Feeds with the Spoon, and Pricks the Eye with the Handle," and " A Soldier's Life," were composed in the following manner. The chief art of the teacher, in the study of language, and the chief exercise with the aim in view of guiding children to write compositions consist in giving them 191 192 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES themes, and not so much in furnishing them as in pre- senting a large choice, in pointing out the extent of the composition, and in indicating the initial steps. Many- clever and talented pupils wrote nonsense; they wrote: " It began to burn, they began to drag out things, and I went into the street," and nothing came of it, although the subject was rich, and that which was described left a deep impression on the child. They did not understand, above all, why they should write, and what good there was in writing. They did not understand the art of expressing life by means of words, nor the charm of this art. As I have already mentioned in the second number, I tried many different methods of giving them themes to write. I gave them, according to their inclinations, exact, artistic, touching, funny, epic themes, — all to no purpose. Here is how I unexpectedly hit upon the present method. The reading of the collection of Snegir^Vs proverbs has long formed one of my favourite occupations, — nay, enjoyments. To every proverb I imagine individuals from among the people and their conflicts in the sense of the proverb. Among the number of unrealizable dreams, I always imagine a series of pictures, or stories, written to fit the proverbs. Once, last winter, I forgot everything after dinner in the reading of Snegir^v's book, and even returned to the school with the book. It was the lesson in the Eussian language. " Well, write something on a proverb ! " I said. The best pupils, FMka, S^mka, and others, pricked up their ears. " What do you mean by ' on a proverb ' ? What is it ? Tell us ! " the questions ran. I happened to open to the proverb: "He feeds with the spoon, and pricks the eye with the handle." " Now, imagine," I said, " that a peasant has taken a beggar to his house, and then begins to rebuke him for HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WEITE 193 the good he has done him, and you will get that ' he feeds with the spoon, and pricks the eye with the handle.' " " But how are you going to write it up ? " said F4dka and all the rest who had pricked up their ears. They re- treated, having convinced themselves that this matter was above their strength, and betook themselves to the work which they had begun. " Write it yourself," one of them said to me. Everybody was busy with his work ; I took a pen and inkstand, and began to write. " Well," said I, " who will write it best ? I am with you." I began the story, printed in the fourth number of the Tdsnaya Polydna, and wrote down the first page. Every unbiassed man, who has the artistic sense and feels with the people, will, upon reading this first page, written by me, and the following pages of the story, written by the pupils themselves, separate this page from the rest, as he will take a fly out of the milk : it is so false, so artificial, and written in such a bad language. I must remark that in the original form it was even more monstrous, since much has been corrected, thanks to the indications of the pupils. E^dka kept looking up from his copy-book to me, and, upon meeting my eyes, smiled, winked, and repeated : " Write, write, or I'll give it to you ! " He was evidently amused to see a grown person write a theme. Having finished his theme worse and faster than usual, he climbed on the back of my chair and began to read over my shoulders. I could not proceed ; others came up to us, and I read to them what I had written. They did not like it, and nobody praised it. I felt ashamed, and, to soothe my literary ambition, I began to tell them the plan of what was to follow. In the propor- tion as I advanced in my story, I became enthusiastic, corrected myself, and they kept helping me out. One 194 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES would say that the old man should be a magician ; another would remark : " No, that won't do, — he will be just a soldier ; the best thing will be if he steals from him ; no, that won't go with the proverb," and so forth. All were exceediugly interested. It was evidently a new and exciting sensation for them to be present at the process of creation, and to take part in it. Their judg- ments were all, for the most part, of the same kind, and they were just, both as to the very structure of the story and as to the details and characterizations of the persons. Nearly all of them took part in the composition ; but, from the start, there distinguished themselves positive S^mka, by his clearly defined artistic quality of descrip- tion, and F4dka, by the correctness of his poetical con- ceptions, and especially by the glow and rapidity of his imagination. Their demands had so little of the accidental in them and were so definite, that more than once I debated with them, only to give way to them. I was strongly pos- sessed by the demands of a regular structure and of an exact correspondence of the idea of the proverb to the story ; while they, on the contrary, were only concerned about the demands of artistic truth. I, for example, wanted that the peasant, who had taken the old man to his house, should himself repent of his good deed, — while they regarded this as impossible and created a cross old woman. I said: "The peasant was at first sorry for the old man, and later he hated to give away the bread." F^dka replied that that would be improbable : " He did not obey the old woman from the start and would not submit later." "What kind of a man is he, according to you?" I asked. "He is like Uncle Timof^y," said FMka, smiling. " He has a scanty beard, goes to church, and he has bees." HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 195 " Is lie good, but stubborn ? " I asked. " Yes," said F4dka, " he will not obey the old woman." From the time that the old inaa was brought into the hut, the work became animated. They evidently for the first time felt the charm of clothing artistic details in words. S^mka distinguished himself more than the rest in this respect : the correctest details were poured forth one after the other. The only reproach that could be made to him was that these details sketched only minutes of the present, without connection with the general feel- ing of the story. I hardly could write as fast as they told me the incidents, and only asked them to wait and not forget what they had told me. S^mka seemed to see and describe that which was before his eyes : the stiff, frozen bast shoes, and the dirt oozing from them, as they melted out, and the toast into which they were changed when the old woman threw them into the oven. F^dka, on the contrary, saw only such details as evoked in him the particular feeling with which he looked upon a certain person. FMka saw the snow drifting behind the peasant's leg-rags, and the feeling of compassion with which the peasant said : " Lord, how it snows ! " (F^dka's face even showed how the peasant said it, and he swung his hands and shook his head.) He saw the overcoat, a mass of rags and patches, and the torn shirt, behind which could be seen the haggard body of the old man, wet from the thawing snow. He created the old woman, who growled as, at the command of her husband, she took off his bast shoes, and the pitiful groan of the old man as he muttered through his teeth: "Softly, motherkin, I have sores here." S^mka needed mainly objective pictures : bast shoes, an overcoat, an old man, a woman, almost without any con- nection between them ; but F^dka had to evoke the feel- ing of pity with which he himself was permeated. He 196 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES ran ahead of the stoiy, telling how he would feed the old man, how he would fall down at night, and how he would later teach a boy in the field to read, so that I was obliged to ask him not to be in such a hurry and not to forget what he had said. His eyes sparkled to the point of tears ; his swarthy, thin Uttle hands were cramped convulsively ; he was angry with me, and kept urging me on : " Have you written it, have you written it ? " he kept asking me. He treated all the rest despotically ; he wanted to talk all the time, not as a story is told, but as it is written, that is, artistically to clothe in words the sensuous pic- tures. Thus, for example, he would not allow words to be transposed ; if he once said, " I have sores on my feet," he would not permit me to say, " On my feet I have sores." His soul, now softened and irritated by the senti- ment of pity, that is, of love, clothed every image in an artistic form, and denied everything that did not corre- spond to the idea of eternal beauty and harmony. The moment S^mka was carried away by the expression of disproportion able details about the lambs in the door- bench, and so forth, F^dka grew angry and said, " What a lot of bosh ! " I only needed to suggest what the peas- ant was doing, while his wife went to the gossip, when in F^dka's imagination there would immediately arise a pic- ture vnth lambs, bleating in the door-bench, with the sighs of the old man and the delirium of the boy Serd- zhka ; I only needed to suggest an artificial and false picture, when he immediately would angrily remark that that was not necessary. For example, I suggested the description of the peasant's looks, to which he agreed ; but to my proposition to describe what the peasant was thinking while his wife had run over to the gossip, there immediately rose before him the very form of the thought : " If you got in the way of Savdska the corpse, he would pull all your locks out ! " He said this in such a fatigued and calmly serious HOW PEASANT CHILDEEN WRITE 197 and habitual and, at the same time, good-natured voice, leaning his head on his hand, that the boys rolled in laughter. The chief quality in every art, the feeling of measure, was developed in him to an extraordinary degree. He writhed at the suggestion of any superfluous feature, made by some one of the boys. 1 He directed the structure of the story so despotically, and with such right to this despotism, that the boys soon went home, and only he and S^mka, who would not give in to him, though working in another direction, were left. We worked from seven to eleven o'clock ; they felt neither hunger nor fatigue, and even got angry at me when I stopped writing ; they undertook to relieve me in writing, but they soon gave that up as matters would not go well. It was then for the first time that F^dka asked my name. We laughed because he did not know. " I know," he said, " how to call you ; but how do they call you in the manor ? We have such names as Fokany- chev, Zyabrev, Ermilin." I told him. ? " Are we going to print it ? " he asked. "Yes." " Then we shall have to print : Work by Mak^rov, Mordzov, and Tolst<5y." He was agitated for a long time and could not fall asleep, and I cannot express that feeling of agitation, joy, fear, and almost regret, which I experienced during that evening. I felt that with that day a new world of enjoy- ment and suffering was opened up to him, — the world of art ; I thought that I had received an insight in what no one has a right to see, — the germination of the mys- terious flower of poetry. I felt both dread and joy, like the seeker after the treasure who suddenly sees the flower of the fern, — I felt joy, because sucldenljf an4 quite unexpectedly there 198 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES was revealed to me that stoue of the philosophers, which I had vainly been trying to iind for two years, — the art of teaching the expression of thoughts ; and dread, because this art called for new demands, a whole world of dasires, which stood in no relation to the surroundings of the pupils, as I thought in the first moment. There was no mistaking. It was not an accident, but a conscious creation. I beg the reader to read the first chapter of the story and to notice that wealth of features of true creative talent scattered through it ; for example, the feature when the woman in anger complains about her husband to the gossip, and yet weeps, although the author has an apparent dislike for her, when the gossip reminds her of the ruin of her house. For the author, who writes by reasoning out and from memory, the cross woman represents only the opposite of the peasant, — she had to invite the gossip for no other reason than the desire to annoy her husband ; but with F^dka the artistic feeling extends also to the woman, and she, too, weeps, fears, and suffers, — she is not guilty, to his manner of thinking. Then the accessory feature when the gossip puts on a woman's fur coat. I remember how struck I was by this and how I asked : " Why a woman's fur coat ? " N'one of us had led F^dka up to the idea that the gossip had put on a fur coat. He said : " It is more like it ! " When I asked hiin whether it would do to say that he put on a man's fur coat, he said : " No, a woman's fur coat is better." Indeed, this feature is extraordinary. At first it does not occur to one why it should be a woman's fur coat, and yet one feels that it is excellent and cannot be other- wise. Every artistic word, whether it belongs to Gothe or to F^dka, differs from the inartistic in that it evokes an endless mass of thoughts, images, and explanations. HOW PEASANT CHILDEEN WRITE 199 The gossip in a Woman's fur coat involuntarily presents himself to us as a sickly, narrow-chested peasant, just such as he apparently ought to be. The woman's fur coat, carelessly thrown on the bench and the first to fall into his hands, in addition, presents to us a winter even- ing scene in the life of the peasant. The fur coat leads you to imagine the late evening, during which the peasant is sitting without his wraps neat a torch, and the women, coming in and out to fetch water and attend to the cattle, and all that external disorder of the peasant hfe, where not a person has his clearly defined clothes, and no one thing a definite place. With this one sentence, " He put on a woman's fur coat," the whole character of the surroundings, in which the action takes place, is clearly outlined, and this phrase is not used by accident, but consciously. I remember vividly" how in his imagination arose the words used' by the peasant when he found the paper which he could not read. " Now, if my Ser^zhka knew how to read, he would have come tunning to me, and would have grabbed the paper out of my hands, and would have read it all, and would have told me who the old man is." One almost can see the relation of the peasant to the book which he is holding in his sunburnt hands ; the kind man with his patriarchal and pious inclinations rises before you in his whole stature. You feel that the author has taken a deep hking to him and, therefore, has fully comprehended him, so that soon after he lets him make a digression about there being such times nowadays that, before one knows it, one's soul is perished. The idea about the dream was suggested by me, but it was F^dka's idea to let the goat have sores on its legs, and this conception gave him much pleasure. The re- flection of the peasant, while his back is itching, and the picture of the nocturnal quiet, — all that is far from being 200 PEDAGOGICAL ARtlCLES accidental, and in all these features one feels so strongly the conscious power of the artist ! I also remember how, when the peasant was to fall asleep, I proposed to make him reflect on the future of his son and on the future relations of his son with the old man, and to let the old man teach Ser&hka reading, and so forth. r^dka frcpwned and said : " Yes, yes, that is good," but it was obvious that he did not like that suggestion, and twice he forgot it. His feehng of measure was stronger in him than in any of the authors I am acquainted with, — the feeling of measure, which but few artists acquire at the cost of immense labour and study, lived in its primitive force in his uncorrupted childish soul. I gave up the lesson, because I was too much agitated. "What is the matter with you? You are so pale, — are you ill?" my companion asked me. Indeed, only two or three times in my hfe have I experienced such a strong sensation as on that evening, and for a long time I was unable to render an account to myself of what I was experiencing. I dimly felt that I had criminally looked through a glass hive at the work of the bees, con- cealed from the gaze of mortal man ; it seemed to me that I had debauched the pure, primitive soul of a peasant boy. I dimly felt something like repentance for an act of sacrilege. I thought of the children, whom idle and debauched old men allow to contort themselves and represent lascivious pictures in order to fan their wearied, worn-out imaginations, and, at the same time, I was happy, as must be happy the man who beholds that which no one beheld before. For a long time I was unable to render an account to myself of the impression which it had produced on me, though I felt that this impression was one of those which at a mature age educate a man and lead him to a new HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WHITE 201 stage of life, making him renounce the old and fully devote himself to the new. Even on the following day I could not make myself believe that which I had experi- enced the day before. It seemed so strange to me thai a peasant boy, with the bare knowledge of reading, should suddenly manifest a conscious artistic power, such as Gathe, in all his imineasurable height of development, had been unable to equal. It seemed so strange and offensive to me that I, the author of " Childhood," who had had certain success and had earned recognition for artistic talent from a cultivated Eussian public, — that I, in the matter of art, not only should be unable to teach anything to eleven-year-old S^mka or F^dka or to help them, but that I only with difficulty and in a happy moment of excitement should be able to follow and understand them. All that seemed so strange to me that I could not believe that which had happened the day before. The next day we took up the continuation of the story. When I asked FMka whether he had thought out the continuation, he only swayed his hands and said : " I know, I know ! Who will write ? " We went to work, and again the children displayed the same feeling of artistic truth, measure, and enthu- siasm. In the middle of the lesson I was obliged to leave them. They continued to write without me and iinished two pages just as well done, just as well felt, and just as correctly, as the first. The only thing about these pages was that they were paler in details, that these details were not aptly disposed, and that there were two or three repetitions. All that apparently was due to the fact that the mechanism of writing hampered them. The same took place on the third day. During these lessons other boys frequently joined us, and, as they knew the tenor and the contents of the story, they often helped us 202 PEpAGOGICAL ARTICLES out by adding their correct features. Semka now kept up with us, a,nd now stayed away. F^dka alone carried the story from beginning to eiid and passed upon all the proposed changes. There co.uld no longer be any doubt or thought that this success was a matter of accident : we had apparently struck the method which was moje natural arid a greater incentive than everything tried before. But it was all so unusual that I did not believe th.at which took place before our eyes. It looked as though a specia,! incident were necessary in order tp destroy all my doubts. I had to, leave, for a iev( days, and the story remained unfinished. The manuscript, three large sh,eets, closely covered with writing, was left in the room of th^ teacher, to whom I had shown it. Even before my departure, while I was busy compos- ing, a newly entered pupil had shown our boys the art of nicking paper flaps, and, as is generally the case, the whole school entered upon a period of flaps, which had supplanted a period of snow-balls, as these again had sup- planted a period of whittling sticks. The period of the flaps lasted during my absence. S4m,ka and F^dka, who were amoi^g the singers, used to come to the teacher's room for singing exercises, and they repfiained there whole evenings, and even nights. Between the singing and during the singing, the flaps, of co.urse, did their business, arid all kinds of paper, which fell into their hands, was transfqrnied into flaps. The teacher went to get his supper, having forgotten to mention tha,t the papers on the table were important, and so the work of Makarov, Morozoy, and Tolstdy was changed into flaps. Qn the following day, before the lessons, the clacking of the flaps so very much annoyed the pupils that they themselves institiited a persecution against the flaps ; they were confiscated with shouts and screams, and soleinnly stuck into the fire of the oven, HOW PEASANT CHILDKEN WRITE 203 The period of the flaps came to an end, but with it perished our manuscript. Never had any loss been so hard to bear as the loss of these three sheets of writing. I was in despair, I wanted to give it all up and begin a new story, but I could not forget the loss, and so invol- untarily every minute kept nagging at the teacher and at the makers of the flaps. (I must remark here, upon this occasion, that just by means of the external disorder and full freedom of the pupils, which Mr. Mdrkov takes so charmingly to task in the Russian Messenger, and Mr. Gly^bov in No. 4 of the periodical Education, I, without the least trouble, threats, or cunning, learned all the details of the complicated story of the transformation of the manuscript into flaps, and of its consignment to the flames.) S^mka and F^dka saw that I was aggrieved, not under- standing by what, and they sympathized with me. F^dka finally timidly proposed to me to begin another such a story. " By yourselves ? " I asked. " I shall not help you now." " S^mka and I will stay here overnight," said F^dka. And so they did. At nine o'clock, when the lessoDS were over, they came to the house, locked themselves up in my cabinet, which afforded me much pleasure, laughed awhile, and grew quiet. Until midnight I could hear them, every time I came up to the door, talking with each other in low tones and scratching their pens. Once only they debated about what came first and what later, and they came to me to settle the dispute, whether he looked for the wallet before the woman went to the gossip, or after. I told them that it made no difference which. At midnight I knocked and asked to be let in. FMka in a new white fur coat, with black trimming, was sitting deep in the armchair, with one leg over the other, leaning his shaggy little head on his hand, and fumbling the 204 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES scissors in the other hand. His large black eyes, gleam- ing with an unnatural, but serious sparkle, like that of a grown person, were looking somewhere into the distance ; his irregular Hps, compressed as though for a whistle, apparently held back the word which he, having coined it in his imagination, was about to express. S4mka, standing at the large writing-table, with a large white patch of sheepskin over his back (the tailors had but lately been in the village), with ungirt belt, and dishev- elled hair, was writing crooked lines, constantly sticking his pen into the inkstand. I tossed S^mka's hair, and his fat face with protruding cheekbones and matted hair, as he, with surprised and sleepy eyes, looked in fright at me, was so funny, that I burst out into a laugh, but the children did not laugh with me. Without changing the expression of his face, F^dka touched S^mka's sleeve and told him to go on. "Thou must wait," he said, "we shall be through soon." (F^dka says " thou " to me whenever he is carried away by some- thing and agitated.) He contimjed to dictate. I took away their copy-book, and five minutes later, when they, seating themselves near a small safe, were getting away with potatoes and kvas, and, looking at the silver spoons, which they thought so funny, laughing their sonorous, childish laugh, without any cause what- ever, — the old woman, hearing them up-stairs, also burst out laughing, without knowing why. "Don't tip so!" said S^mka. "Sit straight, or you will eat on one side only." They took off their fur coats, and, spreading them under the writing-table, lay down on them to sleep, all the time rolling out their healthy, charming, childish, peasant laugh. I read over what they had written. It was a new yariant of the sanie thing. A few things were left out, sow tEASANT CtilLbEIiK WRITE 206 and a few new, artistic beauties were added. Again there was the same feeling of beauty, truth, and measure. Later on one sheet of the lost manuscript was found. In the printed story I combined both variants from memory, and from the sheet which was recovered. The writing of this story took place early in spring, before the end of our scholastic year. 'For various rea- sons I was unable to make new experiments. On given proverbs only one story was written by two vejry mediocre and spoilt children, being the sons of manorial servants. " He who is fond of a holiday gets drunk before daybreak," was printed in the third number. The same phenomena were repeated with these boys and with this story as had been observed with S^mka and F^dka and the first story, only with a difference ia the degree of talent and in the enthusiasm and the cooperation on my part. In the summer we have never had school and never wUl have. We shall devote a separate article to the cause why teaching is impossible in the summer in our school. • One part of the summer FMka and some other boys lived with me. Having had a swim, and being tired of playing, they took it into their heads to work. I pro- posed to them to write a composition, and so told them several themes. I told them a very entertaining story about the theft of some money, the story of a murder, the story of a marvellous conversion of a- Milker to Orthodoxy, and I also proposed to them to write in the form of an autobiography the history of a boy whose poor and disso- lute father is sent to the army, and to whom the father later returns a reformed, good man. I said : " I should write it like this. I remember that when I was a child I had a father, a mother, and some other relatives, and who they were. Then I should write that I remember how my father was all the time out on sprees, while my mother wept, and he beat her; then. 206 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES how he was sent to the army ; how she wept ; how our life grew harder; how father returned, and he did not seem to recognize me, but asked me whether Matr^na — that is, his wife — was alive ; and how all were happy, and we began to live well." That was all which I said in the beginning. FMka took a great liking to this theme. He immediately took the pen and paper, and began to write. During his writing, I only hinted _to him about the sister and about the mother's death. The rest he wrote himself and did not even show it to me, except the first chapter, until it was all done. When he showed me the first chapter, and I began to read, I felt that he was greatly agitated and that, holding his breath, he kept looking now at the manuscript and watching my reading, and now at my face, wishing to divine upon it an expression of approbation or disapproval. When I told him that it was very good, he flamed up, without saying anything to me, with agitated, though slow, steps walked with the copy-book up to the table, put it down, and slowly walked out into the yard. Out- side he was madly wanton with the boys during the day, and, whenever our eyes met, looked at me with a grateful and kindly glance. The next day he forgot entirely about what he had written, I only wrote out the title, divided the story into chap- ters, and here and there corrected the mistakes, which were due to carelessness. This story, in its primitive form, is being printed in a book under the title of "A Soldier's Life." I do not speak of the first chapter, although there are some inimitable beauties even there, and although heedless Gordy^y is there represented exceedingly true to life and vividly, — Gordy^y, who seems to be ashamed to con- fess his repentance, and who regards it as proper to beg the meeting of the Commune only about his son ; still, this chapter is incomparably weaker than all the following. HOW PEASANT CfllLDREN WRITE 207 The fault is all my own, for I could Dot keep, cliiring the writing of this chapter, from suggesting to him and telling him how I should have written. If there is a certain trite- ness in the introduction, when describing persons and dwellings, I am exclusively to blame for it. If I had left him alone, I am sure he would have described the same in action, imperceptibly, much more artistically, without the accepted and really impossible manner of logically distributed descriptions, which consists in first describing the dramatis personce, even their biographies, then the locality and the surroundings, and then only the action itself. Strange to say, all these descriptions, sometimes on dozens of pages, acquaint the reader much less with the persons than a carelessly dropped artistic feature during an action which has already begun among persons totally unfamiliar to the reader. Even thus in this first chapter, the one phrase of Gordy^y's, " That is all I need," when he, renouncing everything, acquiesces in his fate to become a soldier, and only asks the Commune not to abandon his son, — this phrase acquaints the reader much better with the person than the description of his attire, his figure, and his habit of frequenting the tavern, several times repeated and urged upon him by me. The same effect is produced by the words of the old woman, who always scolded her son, when, during her grief, she enviously remarks to her daughter-in-law : " Stop, Matr^na ! What is to be done ? Evidently God has willed it so ! You are young yet, — maybe God will grant you to see him again. But see how old I am — I am ill — before you know it, I shall be dead ! " In the second chapter there may still be noted my influence of triteness and tampering, but here again the profoundly artistic features in the description of pictures and of the boy's death redeem the v?hole matter. I sug- gested to him that the boy had thin legs, I also suggested 208 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES the sentimental details about Uncle NeMdya, who digs the little grave ; but the lamentation of the mother, expressed in one clause, " Lord, when will this slavery end ! " presents to the reader the whole essence of the situation ; and thereupon that night, when the elder brother is wakened by his mother's tears, and her answer to the grandmother's inquiry what the matter was, with the simple words, '' My son has died," and the grandmother, getting up and making a fire and washing the little body, — all that is strictly his own ; all this is so compressed, so simple, so strong, — not one word may be omitted, not one word changed, nor added. There are in all five lines, and in these five lines there is painted for the reader the whole picture of that sad night, — a picture reflected in the imagination of a boy six or seven years old. " At midnight the mother for some reason began to weep. Grandmother arose and said : ' What is the matter ? Christ be with you ! ' The mother said : ' My son has died.' Grandmother made a fire, washed the boy, put a shirt on him, girded him, and placed him beneath the images. When day broke — " You see the boy himself, awakened by the familiar tears of his mother, half-sleepy, under a caftan somewhere on the hanging bed, with frightened and sparkling eyes watching the proceedings in the hut ; you see the haggard soldier's widow, who but the day before had said, " How soon will this slavery come to an end ? " repentant and crushed by the thought of the end of this slavery, to such an extent that she only says, " My son has died," and knows not what to do, and calls for the grandmother to help her ; and you see the old woman, worn out by the sufferings of life, bent down, emaciated, with bony limbs, as she calmly takes hold of the work with her hands that are accustomed to labour ; she lights a torch, brings the water, and washes the boy ; she places everything in the right place, and sets the boy, washed and girt, updej- HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WEITE 209 the images. And you see those images, and all that night ■without sleep, until daybreak, as though you yourself were living through it, as that boy lived through it, gazing at it from underneath the caftan ; that night arises before you with all its details and remains in your imagination. In the third chapter there is less of my influence. The whole personality of the nurse belongs to him. Even in the first chapter, he characterized the relations of the nurse with the family in one sentence : " She was working for her own dowry, to get ready for marriage." This one feature paints the girl as she is : she cannot take part, and she really does not take part, in the joys and sorrows of her family. She has her lawful interests, her only aim, decreed by Providence, — her future mar- riage, her future family. An author of our kind, especially one who wants to instruct the people by presenting to them models of morality worthy of imitation, would certaiuly have treated the nurse with reference to the interest she took in the common want and sorrow of the family. He would have made her a disgraceful example of indifference, or a model of love and self-sacrifice, and there would have been an idea, but not a living person, the nurse. Only a man who has profoundly studied and learned life could understand that for the nurse the question of the family's bereave- ment, and of the father's military service, was lawfully a secondary question, for she has her marriage ahead. This very thing, in the simplicity of his heart, sees the artist, though but a child. If we had described the nurse as a most sympathetic, self-sacrificing girl, we should not be able at all to present her to our imagination, and we should not love her, as we love her now. Now there stands before me the dear, living form of the fat-cheeked, ruddy-faced girl, running iu the evening to take part in the round dance, in shoes and red cotton kerchief bought with the money earned by her, loving her family ^ though 210 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES distressed by that poverty and gloom which form such a contrast to her own mood. I feel that she is a good girl, if for no other reason than because her mother never complained about her uor was aggrieved by her. On the contrary, I feel that she, with the cares about her attire, with the snatches of tunable songs, with the village gossips, brought from the summer field work or from the wintry street, was the only representative of mirth, youth, and hope during the sad time of the soldier woman's loneliness. He says with good reason that the only joy there was, was when the nurse-girl was married. It is, therefore, with good reason that he describes the wedding-feast at such length and with so much love ; it is with good reason that he makes the mother say after the wedding, " Now we are com- pletely ruined." It is evident that, by giving up the nurse, they lost that joy and merriment which she had brought with her into the house. All that description of the wedding is uncommonly good. There are some details there which simply stagger you, and, remembering that it is an eleven-year-old boy who wrote it, you ask yourself, " Is it possible it is not merest accident ? " Back of this compressed and strong description you just see the eleven-year-old boy, not taller than the table, with his bright and intelligent eyes, to whom nobody pays any attention, but who remembers and notices everything. When, for example, he wanted some bread, he did not say that he asked his mother for it, but that he bent his mother down. This is not said by accident, but because he remembers his relation to his mother at that stage of his growth, and because he remembers how timid that relation was in the presence of others, and how familiar in their absence. There is one other thing out of a mass of observations which he could have made during the wedding ceremony which seemed to have impressed him, HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 211 and which he noted down, because to him and to each of us it pictures the whole character of these ceremonies. When they said that it was bitter, the nurse took Kon- drashka by his ears, and they began to kiss each other. Then the death of the grandmother, her thought of her son before her death, and the pecuHar character of the mother's grief, ■ — all that is so firm and so compressed, and all that is strictly his own. I told him most about the father's return when I gave him the plot of the story. I liked that scene, and I told it to him with trite sentimentality. He, too, liked the scene, and he asked me : " Don't tell me anything ! I know it all myself, I do," and sat down to write, after which he finished the story at one sitting. It will be very interesting for me to know the opinion of other judges, but I consider it my duty frankly to express my opinion. I have not come across anything like these pages in Russian literature. In the whole meeting there is not one reference to its having been touching ; all that there is told is how it happened, and only so much of what took place is told as is necessary for the reader to understand the situation of aU the persons. The soldier said only three sentences in his house. At first he braced himself and said, " Good morning ! " When he began to forget the part he was to play, he said, " Is that all there is of your family ? " And everything was said in the words, " Where is my mother ? " What simple and natural words they all are, and not one person is forgotten ! The boy was happy, and even wept; but he was a child, and so he, in spite of his father's tears, kept examining his wallet and pockets. Nor is the nurse forgotten. You almost see that ruddy woman, who, in shoes and fine attire, timidly enters the room, and, without saying anything, kisses her father. You almost see the embarrassed and happy father, who 212 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES kisses all in succession, without knowing whom, and who, upon learning that the young woman is his daugh- ter, calls her up once more and now kisses her, not as any young woman, but as a daughter, whom he had once left behind, without taking any thought of her. The father is reformed. How many false and inept phrases we should have used upon that occasion ! But F^dka simply told how the nurse brought some liquor, and he did not drink it. You just seem to see the woman, who, taking out of her pouch the last twenty-three kopeks, breathing heavily, in a whisper orders the young woman in the vestibule to bring some liquor, and deposits the copper money in her open hand. You see the young woman, who, raising her apron with her hand, with the bottle underneath it, thumping with her shoes and swinging her elbows, runs down to the tavern. You see her enter the room with flushed face, taking the bottle out from underneath the apron, and you see her mother place it on the table with an expression of self-contentment and joy, and how she feels both annoyed and happy because her husband has stopped drinking. And you see that if he has given up drinking at such an occasion, he certainly has reformed. You feel that the members of the family have become different people. " My father said a prayer and sat down at the table. I sat down by his side ; the nurse sat down on the door- bench, and mother stood at the table, and looked at him, and said : ' See how much younger you look ! You have no beard now ! ' All laughed." Only when all the others left, the real family conversa- tion began. Only then it v^'as revealed that the soldier had grown rich. He had become enriched in the simplest and most natural manner, as nearly all people in the world grow rich, that is, money which did not belong to him, the Crown's money, by a . lucky accident came iiito his hands. Some of the readers of the story remarked HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 213 that this detail was immoral, and that the conception of the Crown as a milch-cow ought to be eradicated, and not strengthened in the masses. But to me this feature, leav- ing alone its artistic truth, is particularly pleasing. The Crown's money always remains somewhere, — why, then, is it not to remain in the hands of some homeless soldier Gordy^y ? We frequently meet with diametrically opposite con- ceptions of honesty in the masses and in the upper classes. The demands of the masses are pecuharly serious and severe in respect to honesty in the nearest relations, for example, in relation to the family, the village, the Com- mune. In relation to outsiders, — the pubUc, the govern- ment, especially the foreigner, the treasury, — the applica- tion of the common rules of honesty presents itself but dimly. A peasant who will never tell a lie to his brother, who wiU endure all kinds of privations for his family, who will not take a superfluous or unearned kopek from his fel- low villager or neighbour, — the same peasant will strip a foreigner or townsman hke a linden switch, and wiU at every word tell a man of the gentry or an official a lie ; if he be a soldier, he will without the sUghtest compunction stab a captive Frenchman, and, if Crown money falls into his hands, he will not regard it a crime before his family to take advantage of it. In the upper classes, on the contrary, the very opposite takes place. A man of our kind will much sooner de- ceive a wife, a brother, a merchant, with whom he has had dealings for dozens of years, his servants, his peasants, his neighbour, — and this same man abroad is all the time consumed by fear lest he should cheat somebody, and begs all the time to have pointed out to him any one he may be owing money to. This same gentleman of our class will stint his company and regiment, to obtain money for his champagne and gloves, and will bubble up with civilities before a captive Frenchman, The same man 214 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES regards it as the greatest crime to make use .of the Crown's money, when he is penniless, — he Only regards it so, for generally he will not stand his ground when the oppor- tunity offers itself, but will commit that which he him- self regards as a piece of rascality. I am not saying which is better, — I am only telling what is, as it appears to me. I will, however, remark that honesty is not a conviction and that the expression "honest convictions" is nonsense. Honesty is a moral habit ; in order to acquire it, it is impossible to go by any other part than to begin with the nearest relations. The expression "honest convictions ' is, in my opinion, abso- lutely meaningless : there are honest habits, but not honest convictions. The words " honest convictions " are an empty phrase ; for this reason those reputed honest convictions, which refer to the most remote vital conditions, to the Crown's money, to the government, to Europe, to humanity, and which are not based on habits of honesty and not educated on the nearest vital relations, — for this reason those honest convictions, or, more correctly, those empty phrases of honesty, prove inadequate in relation to life. I return to the story. The mention of the money taken from the Crown, which in the first moment may appear immoral, in our opinion, on the contrary, is a charming, touching characteristic. How often a littera- teur of our class, wishing, in the simphcity of his soul, to represent his hero as an ideal of honesty, shows us all the dirty and corrupt interior of his imagination ! Here, on the contrary, the author must make his hero happy : for happiness, his return to his family would suffice, but he had to abolish the poverty which had been weighing so heavily on the family for so many years ; where was he to get the wealth from? From the impersonal Crown. To give wealth, one has to get it first, — and it could not have been got in a more lawful and clever manner. HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 215 In the very scene when the money is mentioned there is a tiny detail, one word, which seems to strike me anew, every time I read it. It illumines the whole picture, paints all the persons and their relations, and only one word, and an incorrectly, syntactically incorrectly, used word at that, — the word " hastened." A teacher of syn- tax must say that it is irregular. Hastened demands some modification, — hastened to do what ? the teacher ought to ask. And here it is simply said : " Mother took the money and hastened and carried it away to bury it," and it is charming. I wish I myself had used such a word, and I wish that teachers, who teach language, might say or write such a sentence. "When we had eaten, the nurse kissed father again and went home. Th^n father began to. rummage through his wallet, and mother and I just looked on. Mother saw a little book there, so she says : ' Oh, you have learned to read ? ' Says father : ' I have.' " Then father took out a kerchief tied in a large knot and gave it to mother. " Says mother : ' What is this ? ' " Says father : ' Money.' " Mother was happy and hastened and carried it away to bury it. Then mother came back, and says she : " ' Where did you get it ? ' " Says father : ' I was an under-officer and had Crown money : I gave it to the soldiers, and what was left in my hands, I kept.' " My mother was so happy and ran around like a mad person. The day had passed, and the evening came. They lighted a fire. My father took the book and began to read. I sat down near him and listened, and mother held the torch. Father read the book for a long time. Then we lay down to sleep. I lay down on the back bench with father, and mother lay down at our feet, and they talked for a long time, almost until midnight. Then we fell asleep." 216 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES Here again we have a scarcely perceptible detail, which does not startle us ia the least, but which leaves a deep impression, — the detail of their going to bed : the f athei lay down with his son, the mother lay at their feet, and they did not get tired talking for a long time. How tightly, I think, the son must have hugged to his father's breast, and what a joy and happiness it was for him, fall- ing asleep and waking again, to hear the two voices, one of which he had not heard for so long a time. One would think all is ended : the father has returned, and there is no more poverty. But F^dka was not satis- fied with that (his imaginary people apparently made a deep impression upon his imagination) ; he had to form a picture of their changed life, to present to himself vividly that now the woman was no longpr alone, a saddened soldier's wife with small babies, but that there was a strong man in the house, who would take off the wearied shoulders of his wife all the burden of the crushing sorrow and want, and would independently, firmly, and merrily begin a new life. For this purpose he paints us only one scene : the pow- erful soldier with a notched axe chops some wood and brings it into the house. You see the keen-eyed boy, used to the groans of his feeble mother and grandmother, with wonderment, respect, and pride admiring the bared muscular arms of his father, the energetic swinging of the axe, coinciding with the pectoral sigh of masculine labour, and the block, which, like a piece of kindling-wood, is spht under the notched axe. You look at it, and your mind is eased about the future life of the soldier's wife. Now she will not be lost, the dear one, I think. " In the morning mother got up, walked over to father, and says she : ' Gordy^y, get up ! I need some wood to make a fire in the oven.' " Father got up, dressed himself, put on his cap, and says he : ' Have you an axe ? ' HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 217 " Says mother : ' I have, — it is notched ; maybe it won't cut.' " My father took the axe firmly with both his hands, walked over to the block, put it up standing, swung the axe with all his might, and split the block ; he chopped up some wood and brought it to the house. Mother made a fire in the oven, and it burned, and soon it grew dayhght." But the artist is not satisfied with that. He wants to show us another side of their lives, the poetry of the happy family life, and so he paints the following picture for us : '' When it was all dayhght, my father said : ' Matr^na ! ' " My mother came up, and says she : ' Well, what ? ' " Says father : ' I am thinking of buying a cow, five sheep, two little horses, and a hut, — this one is falling to pieces, — well, that will take about one hundred and fifty roubles.' " Mother thought awhile, then says she : ' Well, we shall spend all the money.' " Says father : ' We will begin to work.' " Says mother : 'All right, we will buy it all, but where shall we get the timber ? ' " Says father : ' Hasn't Kiryiikha any ? ' " Says mother : ' That's where the trouble is : the Fok- an^chevs have taken it away.' " Father thought awhile, and says he : ' Well, we shall get it from Brantsev.' " Says mother : ' I doubt whether he has any.' " Says father : ' Why should he not have ? He has a forest.' " Says mother : ' I am afraid he wiU ask too much, — he is such a beast.' " Says father : ' I will take some brandy to him, and maybe we shall come to some understanding ; and you bake an egg in the ashes for diiiner/ 218 ' PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES " Mother got the dinner ready, — she borrowed from her friends. Then father took the brandy and went to Br^ntsev's, and we stayed at home, waiting for a long time. I felt lonely without father. I began to ask mother to let me go there where father was. " Says mother : ' You will lose your way.' " I began to cry and wanted to go, but mother slapped me, and I sat down on the oven and cried more than before. Then I saw father coming into the room. Says he : ' Why are you crying ? ' " Says mother : ' F^dka wanted to run after you, and I gave him a beating.' " Father walked over to me, and says he : ' What are you crying about ? ' " I began to complain of mother. Father went up to mother and began to beat her, in jest, saying : ', Don't beat F^dka ! Don't beat F^dka ! ' "Mother pretended to be crying. I sat down on father's knees and was happy. 'Then father sat down at the table, and put me by his side, and shouted : ' Mother, give F^dka and me something to eat, ■ — we are hungry ! ' " And mother gave us some beef, and we began to eat. When we were through dinner, says mother : ' What about the timber ? ' " Says father : ' Fifty roubles in silver.' " Says mother : ' That is not bad.' " Says father : ' I must say, it is fine timber.' " It seems so simple : so little is said, and you see the perspective of their whole domestic life. You see that the boy is still a child, who will cry and a minute later will be happy ; you see that the boy is not able to appreciate his mother's love, and that he has exchanged her for the virile father who was chopping the block ; you see that the mother knows that it must be so, and she is not jealous ; you see that splendid Gordy^y, whose heart is brimful of happiness. You notice that they ate beef, and that is a charming HOW PEASANT CHILDREN WRITE 219 comedy, whieli they all play, and all know tiat it is a comedy, wbich they play from excess of happiness. " Don't heat F^dka ! Don't beat F^dka ! " says th,e father, raising his hand against her. And the mother, who, is used to unfeigned tears, pretends to be crying, with a snxile of happiness at the father and the son, and the hoy, who chmbed on his father's knees, was proud and h,appy, not knowing why, — proud and happy, no doubt, because now they were all happy. " Then father sat down at the table, and put me by his side, and shouted : ' Mother, give Fddka and me some- thing to eat, — we are hungry ! ' " " We are hungry," and he placed him by his side. What love and happy pride of love breathes in these words ! There is nothing more charming and heartfelt in the wl:^ole charming story than this last chapter. But what do we mean to say by all that ? What im- port does this sto^'y, written, probably, by an exceptional boy, have pedagogically ? We shall be told : " You, the teacher, may unconsciously, to yourself, have helped in the composition of these stories, and it would be too difficult to find the limits of that which belongs to you, and of that which is original." We shall be told : " We shall admit that the story is good, but that is only one kind of literature." We shall be told : " FMka and the other boys, whose compositions you have printed, are happy exceptions." We shall be told : " You are yourself a writer, and, without knowing it, you have been helping the pupils along paths which cannot be prescribed as a rule to o^her teachers who are not authors themselves." We shall be told : " From all that it is inipossible to deduce a common rule or theory. It is partially an inter- esting pheiaomenon, and nothing else." I shall try to give my deductions in such ^ manne;- as to serve as answers to aU the retorts imagined by me. 220 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES The feelings of truth, beauty, and goodness are inde- pendent of the degree of development. Beauty, truth, and goodness are conceptions which express only the harmony of relations in the sense of truth, beauty, and goodness. Lie is only a non-correspondence of relations in the sense of truth ; there is no absolute truth. I am not lying when I say that the tables whirl about under the touch of my fingers, if I believe it to be so, even though it is an untruth ; but I am lying when I say that I have no money when, according to my ideas, I have money. No immense nose is monstrous, but it is mon- strous on a small face. Monstrosity is only a disharmony in relation to beauty. To give away my dinner to a mendicant, or to eat it up myself has nothing of badness in it ; but to give it away, or eat it up myself, while my mother is starving is a disharmony of relations in the sense of goodness. In bringing up, educating, developing, or in any way you please influencing the child, we ought to have and unconsciously do have one aim in view, — to attain the greatest harmony possible in the sense of truth, beauty, and goodness. If time did not run, if the child did not live with every side of himself, we should be able quietly to attain this harmony by supplementing there where there seems to be a lack, and by reducing where there seems to be a superfluity. But the child lives ; every side of his existence strives after development, trying to out- strip every other side, and, for the most part, we mistake the progress of these sides of his being for the aim, and coBperate in this development only, instead of aiding the harmony of the development. In this lies the eternal mistake of all pedagogical theories. We see our ideal before us, whereas it is behind us. The necessary development of man is far from being a means of attaining that ideal of harmony which we bear within us ; it is, on the contrary, a hindrance, put HOW PEASANT CSILDEEN WRITE 221 in our way by the Creator, in the attainment of the highest ideal of harmony. In this necessary law of forward motion lies the meaning of that fruit of that tree of the knowledge of good and evU, which our first ancestor tasted. A healthy child is born into the world, completely satisfying all the demands of unconditional harmony in relation to truth, beauty, and goodness, which we bear within us ; he is near to inanimate beings, — to the plant, to the animal, to Nature, which always represents to us that truth, beauty, and goodness, which we are seeking and wishing for. In all, the ages and with all men, the child has been represented as a model of innocence, sin- lessness, goodness, truth, and beauty. ''Man is born perfect" is a great word enunciated by Eousseau, and this word will remain firm and true, like a rock. At birth man represents the prototype of harmony, truth, beauty, and goodness. But every hour in life, every minute of time increases the extent, the quantity, and the duration of those relations which during his birth were in full harmony, and every step and every hour threaten the impairment of that harmony, and every successive step and every successive hour threaten a new impairment and give no hope of the restitution of the impaired harmony. For the most part educators forget that the child's age is the prototype of harmony, and they assume the develop- ment of the child, which goes on independently according to immutable laws, as the aim. The development is erroneously taken for the aim because to the educators happens that which takes place with poor sculptors. Instead of trying to arrest a local exaggerated develop- ment or the general development, instead of waiting for a new incident to destroy the irregularity which has arisen, just as a poor sculptor, instead of eradicating that which is superfluous, keeps pasting on more and more, — 222 PEDAGOGICAL ARTICLES even thus educators seem to be concerned only about not interrupting the process of development, and if they ever think of the harmony, they try to attain it by ap- proaching an unknown prototype in the future, by depart- ing from the prototype in the present and in the past. No matter how irregular the development of a child may be, there are always left in him the primitive features of harmony. By moderating, at least by not pushing, the development, we may hope to get a certain approach to regularity and harmony. But we are so sure of ourselves, we are so visionarily devoted to the false ideal of manhood perfection, we are so impatient with irregularities which are near to us and so firmly believe in our ability to correct them, we are so little able to Comprehend and value the primitive beauty of a child, that we, as fast as we can, magnify and paste up the irregularities that strike our vision, — we coiTcct, we educate the chUd. Now one side has to be equalized with the other, now the other has to be equalized with the first. The child is developed more and more, and all the time departs more and more from the former shat- tered prototype, and the attainment of the imaginary prototype of the perfection of manhood becomes ever more impossible. Our ideal is behind us, not before us. Edu- cation spoils, it does not correct men. The more a child is spoiled, the less he ought to be educated, the more liberty he needs. It is impossible and absurd to teach and educate a child, for the simple reason that the child stands nearer than I do, than any grown-up man does, to that ideal of harmony, truth, beauty, and goodness, to which I, in my pride, wish to raise him. The consciousness of this ideal is more powerful in him than in me. All he needs of me is the material, in order to fill out harmoniously and on all sides. The moment I gave him full liberty and stopped teaching him, he wrote a poetical production, HOW PEASANT CHILDEEN WRITE 223 the like of which cannot be found in Russian Hterature. Therefore, it is my conviction . that we cannot teach chil- dren in general,, and peasant children in particular, to write and compose. All that ve c^n do is to teach them how to go about writing. If what I did in order to obtain this result may be called method, this method consisted in the following : (1) Give a great variety of themes, not inventing them specially for the children, but propose such as appear most serious and interesting to the tej^cher himself. (2) Give the children children's compositions to read, and give them only children's compositions as models, for children's compositions are always more correct, more artistic, and more moral than the compositions of grown people. (3) (Most important.) When looking through a\/ „ i pupil's composition, never make any remarks to him about., "■ , the cleanliness of the copy-book, nor about penmanship, ^""^^ nor orthography, nor, above all, about the structure of the sentences and about logic. (4) Since the difficulty of composition does not he in the volume, nor tbe contents, nor the artistic quality of the theme, the sequence of the themes is not to be based on volume, nor on the contents, nor on the language, but in the mechanism of the work, which consists, first, in selecting one out of a large number of ideas and images presented ; secondly, in choosing words for it and cloth- ing it in words ; thirdly, in remembering it and finding a place for it; fourthly, in not repeating nor leaving out anything, and in the ability of combining what follows with that which precedes, all the time keeping in mind what is already written down ; fifthly, and finally, in thinking and writing at the same time, without having one of these acts iaterfere with the other. To obtain this end, I did as follows : A few of those sides of the labour I at first took upon myself, by degrees transferring thenj 224 PEDAGOGICAL AETICLES to their care. At first I chose from the ideas and images that presented themselves to them such as I considered best, and retained them, and pointed out the place, and consulted what had already been written, keeping them from repetitions, and myself wrote, leaving to them only the clothing of the images and ideas in words ; then I allowed them to make their own choice, and later to con- sult that which had been written down, until, at last, as in the case of " A Soldier's Life," they took the whole matter into their own hands. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA For the Months of November and Deceniber 1862 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA For the Months of November and December, 1862 GENERAL SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF THE SCHOOL We have no beginners. The lowest class reads, writes solves problems in the first three arithmetical operations and reads sacred history, so that the subjects are divided in the programme in the following manner : (1) Mechanical and graded reading, (2) writing, (3) penmanship, (4) grammar, (5) sacred history, (6) Eus- sian history, (7) drawing, (8) mechanical drawing, (9) singing, (10) mathematics, (11) talks on the natural sciences, (1 2) religion. .Before saying anything about the instruction, I must give a short sketch of what the Y^snaya Polyana school is and of what stage of its growth it is in. Like all living beings, the school not only becomes modified with every year, day, and hour, but also is sub- ject to temporary crises, hardships, ailments, and evil moods. The Yasnaya Polyana school passed through such a crisis during this last summer. There were many causes for it : in the first place, as is always the case, all our best pupils left us, and we met them only occasiop- 227 228 THE SCHOOL AT yXsNATA POLy/nA ally at work in the field, or in the pastures; secondly, new teachers had come to the school, and new influences began to be brought to bear upon it ; thirdly, every day of the summer brought new visiting teachers, who were taking advantage of the summer vacation. Nothing is more detrimental to the regular progi-ess of the , school than visitors. In one way or another the teacher adapts himself to the visitors. We have four teachers. Two old ones, who have been teaching in the school for two years, and have become accustomed to the pupils, their work, the freedom and the external disorder of the school. The two new teachers — both themselves fresh from school — are lovers of exter- nal precision, programmes, bells, and so forth, and have not yet adapted themselves to the school so well as the first. What for the first seems reasonable, necessary, un- avoidable, like the features of a beloved though homely child, that has grown up under one's eyes, to the new teachers sometime appears as a corrigible fault. The school is held in a two-story stone building. Two rooms are given up to the school, one is a physical cabi- net, and two are occupied by the teachers. Under the roof of the porch hangs a bell, with a rope attached to the clapper; in the vestibule down-stairs stand parallel and horizontal bars, while in the vestibule up-stairs there is a joiner's bench. The staircase and the floor of the vesti- bule are covered with snow or mud ; -here also hangs the programme. The order of instruction is as follows : At about eight o'clock, the teacher hving in the school, a lover of exter- nal order and the administrator of the school, sends one of the boys who nearly always stay overnight with him to ring the bell. In the village, people rise with the fires. From the school the fires have long been observed in the windows, and half an hour after the ringing of the bell there appear, At the door of the school. THE SCHOOL AT YiCsNATA POLyXnA 229 in the mist, in the rain, or in the oblique rays of the au- tumnal sun, dark figures, by twos, by threes, or singly, on the mounds (the village is separated from the school by a ravine). The herding feeling has long disappeared in the pupils. A pupil no longer has the need of waiting and shouting : " boys, let's to school ! She has begun." He knows by this time that " school " is neuter, and he knows a few other . things, and, strange to say, for that very reason has no longer any need of a crowd. When the time comes to go, he goes. It seems to me that the personahties are becoming more independent, their char- acters more sharply defined, with every day. I have never noticed the pupils playing on their way, unless it be a very young child, or a new pupil, who had begun his instruction in some other school. The children bring nothing with them, — neither books, nor copy-books. No lessons are given for home. Not only do they carry nothing in their hands, but they have nothing to carry even in their heads. They are not obliged to remember any lesson, — nothing that they were doing the day before. They are not vexed by the thought of the impending lesson. They bring with them nothing but their impressionable natures and their convictions that to-day it will be as jolly in school as it was yesterday. They do not think of their classes until they have begun. No one is ever rebuked for tardiness, and they never are tardy, 'except some of the older ones whose fathers now and then keep them back to do some work. In such cases they come running to school at full speed, and all out of breath. So long as the teacher has not arrived, they gather near the porch, pushing each other off the steps, or skating on the frozen crust of the smooth road, while some go to the schoolrooms. If it is cold, they read- write, or play, waiting for the teacher. 230 THE SCHOOL AT t/sNAYA POLYANA The girls do not mingle with the boys. When the boys have anything to do with the girls, they never address any one in particular, but always all collectively : " girls, Xyhy don't you skate ? " or, " I guess the girls are frozen," or, " Now, girls, all of you against me ! " There is only one girl, from the manor, with enormous, all-around ability, about ten years of age, who is begin- ning to stand out from the herd of girls. This girl alone the boys treat as their equal, as a boy, except for a deli- cate shade of politeness, condescension, and reserve. Let us suppose, for example, that according to the programme there is in the first, the lowest, class, mechan- ical reading, in the second, graded reading, in the third, mathematics. The teacher comes to the room, where on the floor lie screaming children, shouting, " The heap is not large enough ! " or, " You are choking me, boys ! " or, " That will do ! Don't pull my hair ! " and so forth. " Peter Mikhaylovich ! " a voice at the bottom of the heap calls out to the teacher as he enters, " tell them to stop ! " " Good morning, Peter Mikhaylovich ! " shout the others, continuing their game. The teacher takes the books and gives them to those who have gone'with him up to the bookcase ; those who are lying on top of the heap, without getting up, also ask for books. The heap becomes smaller by degrees. The moment the majority have books, the rest tun to the bookcase and cry : " Me too, me too. Give me yester- day's book ; and me the Koltsovian book," and so forth. If there are two left who, excited from the struggle, still keep rolling on the floor, those who have the books cry out to them : " Don't bother us ! We can't hear a word ! Stop now ! " The excited boys submit and, out of breath, take hold of their books, and only at first, while sitting at their THE SCHOOL AT Y^^SNATA POLY^NA 231 books, keep swinging their legs from unallayed excite- ment. The martial spirit takes flight, and the reading spirit reigns in the room. With the same enthusiasm with which he was pulling Mitka's hair, he is now reading the Koltsovian book (so they call Koltsdv's works with us), almost clenching his teeth, his eyes aflame, and seeing nothing about him but his book. It will take as much effort to tear him away from the book as it took before to get him away from fighting. They sit down wherever they please : on the benches, the tables, the window-sill, the floor, and in the arm- chair. The girls always sit down near each other. Friends, of the same village, especially the younger ones (they have greater comradeship), always sit together. The moment one such has decided to sit down in the corner, all his friends, pushing one another and diving under the benches, make for the same place, sit down near him, and, looking about them, express as much happiness and contentment in their faces as though their having taken up those seats would make them happy for the rest of their lives. The large armchair, which somehow found its way into the room, forms the object of envy for the more independent individuals, — for the manorial girl and for others. The moment one of them makes up his mind to sit down in the chair, another guesses his inten- tions from his looks, and there ensues a struggle. One boy pushes out another, and tne victor spreads himself in it, with his head way below the back, and goes on read- ing like the rest, all absorbed in his work. I have never noticed any one whispering, or pinching his neighbour, or giggling, or snorting into his hand, or complaining against another. When a pupil who has been studying with a sexton or in a county school comes to us with such a complaint, we say to him : " Why don't you pinch back ? " 232 THE SCHOOL AT tXsNATA POLY/NA The two lower classes meet in one room, while the advanced class goes to the next. The teacher comes, and, in the lowest class, all surround him at the board, or on the benches, or sit or lie on the table about the teacher or one of the reading boys. If it is a writing lesson, they seat themselves in a more orderly way, but they keep getting up, in order to look at the copy-books of the others, and to show theirs to the teacher. According to the programme, there are to be four lessons before noon, but there sometimes are only three or two, and sometimes there are entirely different subjects. The teacher may begin with arithmetic and pass over to geometry, or he may start on sacred history, and end up with grammar. At times the teacher and pupils are so carried away, that, instead of one hour, the class lasts three hours. Sometimes the pupils themselves cry: "More, more!" and scold those who are tired of the subject. " If you are tired, go to the babies," they will call out contemptuously. All the pupils meet together for the class of religion^ which is the only regular class we have, because the teacher lives two versts away and comes only twice a week ; they also meet together for the drawing class. Before these classes there is animation, fighting, shouting, and the most pronounced external disorder: some drag the benches from one room into another ; some fight ; some of the children of the manorial servants run home for some bread, which they roast in the stove ; one is taking something away from a boy ; another is doing some gymnastics, and, just as in the disorder of the morn- ing, it is much easier to allow them to quiet themselves and resume their natural order than forcibly to settle them. With the present spirit of the school it would be physically impossible to stop them. The louder the teacher calls, — this has actually happened, — the louder they shout: his loud voice only excites them. If you THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 233 stop them, or, if you can do that, if you carry them away into another direction, this small sea begins to billow less and less until it finally grows calm. In the majority of cases there is no need to say anything. The drawing class, everybody's favourite class, is at noon when, after three hours' work, the children are beginning to be hungry, and the benches and tables have to be taken from one room to another, and there is a terrible hubbub ; and yet, in spite of it, the moment the teacher is ready, the pupils are, too, and if one of them should keep them back from starting, he gets his punishment meted out to him by the children themselves. I must explain myself. In presentiug a description of the Yasnaya Polyana school, I do not mean to offer a model of what is needed and is good for a school, but simply to furnish an actual description of the school. I presume that such descriptions may have their use. If I shall succeed in the following numbers in presenting a clear account of the evolution of the school, it will become intelligible to the reader what it is that has led to the formation of the present character of the school, why I regard such an order as good, and' why it would be abso- lutely impossible for me to change it, even if I wanted. The school has evolved freely from the principles intro- duced into it by teacher and pupils. In spite of the preponderating influence of the teacher, the pupil has always had the right not to come to school, or, having come, not to listen to the teacher. The teacher has had the right not to admit a pupil, and has had the possibility of bringing to bear all the force of his influence on the majority of pupils, on the society, always composed of the school children. The farther the pupils proceed, the more the instruction branches out and the more necessary does order become. For this reason, in the normal non-compulsory develop- ment of the school, the more the pupils bepopie edticated, 234 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA the fitter they become for order, and the more strongly they themselves feel the need of order, and the greater is the teacher's influence in this respect. In the Yfcnaya Polyana school this rule has always been observed, from the day of its foundation. At first it was impossible to subdivide into classes, or subjects, or recess, or lessons; everything naturally blended into one, and all the attempts at separation remained futile. Now we have pupils in the first class, who themselves demand that the programme be adhered to, who are dissatisfied when they are disturbed in their lessons, and who constantly drive out the little children who run in to them. In my opinion, this external disorder is useful and not to be replaced by anything else, however strange and inconvenient it may seem for the teacher. I shall often have occasion to speak of the advantages of this system, and now I will say only this much about the reputed inconveniences: First, this disorder, or free jjrder, is terrible to us only because we are accustomed to some- thing quite different, in which we have been educated. Secondly, in this case, as in many similar cases, force is used only through haste and through insufficient respect for human nature. We think that the disorder is growing greater and greater, and that there are no limits to it, — we think that there is no other means of stopping it but by the use of force, — whereas we only need to wait a little, and the disorder (or animation) calms down natu- rally by itself, growing into a much better and more permanent order than what we have created. School children, small men though they be, have the same needs as we, and they reason in the same manner; they all want to learn, coming to school for this only, and so they will naturally arrive at the conclusion that they must submit to certain conditions in order to acquire knowledge. They are more than merely men, they are a company of men, united by one idea. And where three are THE SCHOOL AT yXsNATA POLYANA 235 gathered in My name, there wiE I be with them ! When they submit only to natural laws, such as arise from their natures, they do not feel provoked and do not murmur ; but when they submit to your predetermined interference, they do not believe in the legahty of your bells, pro- grammes, and regulations. How often have I seen children fighting, when the teacher would rush up to take them apart, which would only make the separated enemies look awry at each other, and would not keep them, even in the presence of a stern teacher, from rushing later against each other in order to inflict a more painful kick ! How often do I see every day some Kiryushka, with set teeth, fly at Tardska, pull his hair, knock him down, and, if it costs him his life, try to maim his enemy, — and not a minute passes before Taraska laughs underneath Kiryushka, — it is so much easier personally to square up accounts ; in less than five minutes both become friends and sit down near each other. The other day, between classes, two boys got into a hand-to-hand fight in the corner; one of them is a remarkable mathematician, about nine years of age, of the second class ; the other, a close-cropped manorial servant's son, an intelligent, but revengeful, tiny, black-eyed boy, nicknamed Pussy. Pussy had grabbed the mathematician by his hair and jammed his head against the wall ; the mathematician in vain tried to get hold of Pussy's cropped bristles. Pussy's black httle eyes were triumphant. The mathematician with difficulty restrained his tears and kept saying: "Well, well! What? What?" He was evidently badly off, though he tried to brace himself. This lasted quite awhile, and I was in a quandary what to do. " They are fighting, they are fighting ! " cried the boys, crowding in the corner. The httle boys laughed, while the big ones, without taking them apart, exchanged serious looks, which, together with the silence, did not escape Pussy. He saw that he was doing something bad. 236 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLY^NA and began to smile criminally and to let go of the mathe- matician's hair by degrees. The mathematician got away from Pussy, pushed him so that he fell with the back of his head against the wall, and walked away satisfied. Pussy burst out weeping, made for his enemy, and struck him with all his might, though not painfully, on his fur coat. The mathematician wanted to pay him back, but just then several disapprov- ing voices were heard. " I declare, he is fighting a little fellow ! " cried the spectators. " Eun, Pussy ! " This was the end of the matter, and it was as though it had never happened, except, I suppose, that the dim con- sciousness of both fighting is not a pleasant matter, because it causes both pain. It seems to me I observed here the sentiment of justice, which guides a crowd. How often such matters are settled no one knows on the basis of what law, and yet satisfactorily to both sides. How arbitrary and unjust in comparison with it are all educational methods employed in such cases ! " You are both guilty, get down on your knees ! " says the educator, and the educator is wrong, because only one of them is guilty, and that guilty one is now triumphant, as he is kneeling and ruminating his unspent rage, while the innocent boy is doubly punished. Or, " You are guilty of having done this or that, and you will be punished," says the educator, and the pun- ished boy hates his enemy so much the more, because the despotic power, the legality of which he does not acknowledge, is on his enemy's side. Or, " Forgive him, as God orders you to, and be better than he," says the educator. You tell him to be better than he, and he only wants to be stronger, and does not, and cannot, understand anything better. Or, " Both of you are wrong : ask each other's forgive- THE SCHOOL At TASKAirA POLYi^NA 23? ness and kiss each other, children ! " That is worst of all, on account of the lie and the flimsiness of that kiss, and because the feehng which was being allayed only flames out anew. Leave them alone, if you are not a father, or mother, and simply sorry for your child, and, therefore, always right when you pull away by the hair the one that has given your son a beating, — leave them alone and see how simply and naturally the whole matter will settle itseH, and at the same time in what a compUcated and varied manner, like all unconscious vital relations. It may be that teachers who have had no experience in such disorder, or free order, will think that without the teacher's interference such a disorder may have physically injurious results, and so forth. In the Ydsnaya Poly^na school there have been only two cases of injuries since last spring. One boy was pushed down the porch and he skinned his leg to the bone (the wound healed up in two weeks), and they scorched another boy's cheek with burned rubber, from which he had a mark left for about two weeks. It happens not oftener than once a week that somebody cries, and then not from pain, but from anger or shame. With the exception of these two cases, we cannot recall any bruises or bumps for the, whole summer among thirty to forty pupils left entirely to themselves. I am convinced that the school ought not to interfere in that part of the education which belongs to the family ; that the school has no right and ought not to reward and punish ; that the best pohce and administration of a school consist in giving full liberty to the pupils to study and settle their disputes as they know best. I am convinced of it, and yet, in spite of it, the old habits of the educa- tional schools are so strong in us that we frequently depart from that rule in the Ydsnaya Polydna school. Last semester, namely in November, there happened two such cases of punishment. 238 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYifNA During the class iu drawing, the newly arrived teacher noticed a boy. who kept shouting, without paying any attention to the teacher, and madly striking his neigh- bours without any cause. Finding it impossible to assuage him with words, the teacher led him out from his seat and took his slate away from him; that was his pun- ishment. During the rest of the lesson the boy was bathed in tears. It was the very boy whom I had not received at the opening of the Yasnaya Polyana school, as I regarded him as a hopeless idiot. The main character- istics of the boy are dulness and meekness. His com- rades never let him play with them, laugh at him, and ridicule him, and in surprise say of him : " What a funny boy P^tka is ! If you strike him, — even the Little fellows strike him, — he just picks himself up and goes away." " He has not any heart at aU," a boy said to me about him. If such a boy was wrought up to such an extent that the teacher punished him, the punished boy was certainly not the one who was at fault. Another case. In the summer, while the building was being repaired, a Leyden jar had disappeared from the physical cabinet ; later, when there were no longer any carpenters or calciminers in. the house, there disappeared on various occasions pencils and books. We asked the boys: the best pupils, those who had been with us the longest, our old friends, blushed, and looked so timid that any prosecuting magistrate would have taken their embar- rassment for the surest proof of their guilt. But I knew them, and could answer for them as for myself. I under- stood that the mere thought of a suspicion offended them deeply and painfully : a boy whom I will call F^dor, a talented and tender nature, was all pale, and he trem- bled and wept. They promised to tell me if they found it out ; but they refused to make a search. A few days later the thief was found: he was a mano- THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYANA 239 rial boy from a distant village. He had influenced a peasant boy who came with him from the same village, and both together had hidden the stolen objects in a small chest. This discovery produced a strange effect on his schoolmates : something like relief, and even joy, and at the same time contempt and compassion for the thief. We proposed to them to mete out a punishment to the thief: some demanded that be be flogged, but that they themselves should do the flogging ; others said that a label with the inscription "thief" ought to be sewn on his coat. This punishment, to our shame be it said, had been used by us before, and the very boy who the year before had worn such a label, with the inscription " har," was the most persistent in demanding that label for the thief. We agreed on the label, and while a girl was sewing it on, all the pupils, with mali- cious joy, looked at the punished boys, and made fun of them. They demanded that the punishment be increased : " Take them through the Village ! Let them keep on the labels untU the holidays," said they. The punished boys wept. The peasant child, who had been influenced by the manorial boy, a talented story- teller and joker, a white-skinned, plump little fellow, was crying his heart away at the top of his boyish voice. The other, the chief criminal, a hump-nosed boy, with fine features and an intelligent face, was pale; his lips quivered ; his eyes looked wildly and angrily at the tri- umphant boys, and now and then his face twitched unnatu- rally as though getting ready to cry. His cap, with torn visor, was poised on the back of his head, his hair was dishevelled, and his clothes soiled with chalk. All that struck me and everybody else forcibly, as though we saw it all for the first time. The hostile attention of all was directed upon him. And this he was painfully conscious of. When he, without looking around ?,nd with bent head, and with a peculiar criminal gait, as 240 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLYXnA I thought, walked home, and the children, running after him in a crowd, teased him in a pecuUarly unnatural and strangely cruel manner, as though an evil spirit were guiding them against their will, something told me that it was not good. But the matter stood as it was, and the thief went with the label for a whole day. From that time on I thought he was studying with less zeal, and he no longer took part in the games and conversations of the boys outside the school. Once I came to the classroom, when all the pupils with a certain terror informed me that the boy had again stolen. He had taken away twenty kopeks in copper from the teacher's room, and he had been caught hiding the money under the staircase. We again attached the label to him, — and the old monstrous scene was repeated. I began to admonish him, just as all educators admonish ; a grown up boy, a good talker, who was present, began to admon- ish him, too, repeating the words which he, no doubt, had heard from his father, an innkeeper. " You steal once, and you steal a second time," he spoke, solemnly declaiming his words, " and it becomes a habit, and leads to no good." I began to feel vexed. I was almost enraged against the thief. I looked at the face of the punished boy, which now was even paler, more suffering, and more cruel than before ; I for some reason thought of prisoners in jail, and I suddenly felt so ashamed and felt such loath- ing for myself that I tore off the stupid label, told him to go wherever he pleased, and suddenly convinced myself, not through reasoning, but with my whole being, that I had no right to torment the unfortunate boy, and that I could not make of him what I and the innkeeper's son would like to make of him. I convinced myself that there were secrets of the soul, hidden from us, upon which only life can act, and not moral precepts and punish' ments. THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLYANA 241 What nonsense ! The boy has stolen a hook. By a whole, complicated road of feelings, thoughts, faulty ratio- cinations, he was led to take a book belonging to somebody else, which he for some reason locked up in a chest, — and I paste on him a piece of paper with the word " thief," which means something entirely different ! What for ? To punish him by shaming him, I shall be told. To punish him by shaming him ? What for ? What is shame ? How do we know that shame destroys the in- clination toward thieving ? Maybe it only encourages it. Maybe that which was expressed in his face was not at all shame. Indeed, I know for sure that it was not shame, but something quite different, which might have slept for ever in his soul, and which it was not good to evoke. Maybe there, in the world, which is called real, in the world of the Palmerstons, Cayenne, — in the world where not that is reasonable which is reasonable, but that which is real, — let people, who themselves have been punished, invent rights and duties to punish. Our world of chil- dren — of simple, independent men — must remain pure from self-deception and the criminal faith in the legality of punishment, free from that self-deception and behef that the feeling of revenge becomes just the moment you call it punishment. We will proceed with the description of the daily order of instruction. At about two o'clock the hungry children run home. In spite of their hunger, they lag behind a few minutes to find out their grades. The grades at the present time amuse them very much, though they give them no privileges. " I have five plus, and Olgiishka has caught a whopper of a cipher ! — And I got four ! " they cry. The grades serve to them as a measure of their work, and dissatisfaction with grades is expressed only when they are not just. There is trouble when a pupil has tried hard, and the teacher by oversight gives him less 242 THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYANA than he deserves. He will not give the teacher aiiy rest and will weep bitter tears, if he cannot get him to change it. Bad marks, if they are deserved, remain without pro- test. However, marks are left with us from the old order and are beginning to fall into disuse. At the first lesson after the dinner recess, the pupils gather just as in the morning, and wait for the teacher in the same manner. It is generally a lesson in sacred or Eussian history, for which all the classes meet together. This lesson generally begins at close of day. The teacher stands or sits down in the middle of the room, and the crowd gathers around him in amphitheatrical order, on benchss, on tables, on window-sills. All the evening lessons, especially the first, have a peculiar character of calm, dreaminess, and poetry, differ- ing in this from the morning classes. You come to the school at fall of day : no lights are seen in the. windows ; it is almost quiet, and only tracks of snow on the stair- case, freshly carried in, a weak din and rustling beyond the door, and some urchin clattering on the staircase, by taking two steps at a time and holding on to the balus- trade, prove that the pupils are at school. Walk into the room! It is almost dark behind the frozen windows ; the best pupils are jammed toward the teacher by the rest of the children, and, turning up their little heads, are looking straight into the teacher's mouth. The independent manorial girl is always sitting with a careworn face on the high table, and, it seems, is swallow- ing every word ; the poorer pupils, the small fry, sit farther away : they listen attentively, even austerely ; they behave just like the big boys, but, in spite of their attention, we know that they will not tell a thing, even though they may remember some. Some press down on other people's shoulders, and others stand up on the table. Occasionally one pushes his way into the crowd, where he busies h'mself with thl; school at yasnata pOLYi^NA ^43 iidwing some figures with his nail on somebody's back. It is not often that one will look back at you. When a new story is being told, all listen in dead silence ; when there is a repetition, ambitious voices are heard now and then, being unable to keep from helping the teacher out. Still, if there is an old story which they like, they ask the teacher to repeat it in his own words, and then they do not allow any one to interrupt him. " What is the matter with you ? Can't you hold in ? Keep quiet ! " they will call out to a forward boy. It pains them to hear the character and the artistic quality of the teacher's story interrupted. Of late it has been the story of Christ's life. They every time asked to have it all told to them. If the whole story is not told to them, they themselves supply their favourite ending, — the history of Peter's denying Christ, and of the Saviour's passion. You would think all are dead : there is no stir, — can tney be asleep ? You walk up to them in the semi-dark- ness and look into the face of some Httle fellow, — he is sitting, his eyes staring at the teacher, frowning from close attention, and for the tenth time brushing away the arm of his companion, which is pressing down on his shoulder. You tickle his neck, — he does not even smile ; he only bends his head, as though to drive away a fly, and again abandons himself to the mysterious and poetical story, how the veil of the church was rent and it grew dark upon earth, — and he has a mingled sensation of dread and joy. Now the teacher is through with his story, and all rise from their seats, and, crowding around their teacher, try to outcry each other in their attempt to tell what they have retained. There is a terrible hubbub, — the teacher barely can follow them all. Those who are forbidden to tell anything, the teacher being sure that they know it all, are not satisfied: they approach the other teacher; 244 THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLT^NA and if he is not there, they importune a companion, a stranger, even the keeper of the fires, or walk from cornei to corner by twos and by threes, begging everybody to listen to them. It is rare for one to tell at a time. They themselves divide up in groups, those of equal strength keeping together, and begin to tell, encouraging and cor- recting each other, and waiting for their turns. " Come, let us take it together," says one to another, but the one who is addressed knows that he can't keep up with him, and so he sends him to another. As soon as they have had their say and have quieted down, lights are brought, and a different mood comes over the boys. In the evenings in general, and at the next lessons in particular, the hubbub is not so great, and the docility and the confidence in the teacher are greater. The pupils seem to evince an abhorrence for mathematics and analy- sis, and a liking for singing, reading, and especially for stories. "What's the use in having mathematics all the time, and writing ? Better tell us something, about the earth, or even history, and we wUl listen," say all. At about eight o'clock the eyes begin to get heavy; they begin to yawn ; the candles burn more dimly, — they are not trimmed so often ; the elder children hold them- selves up, but the younger, the poorer students, fall asleep, leaning on the table, under the pleasant- sounds of the teacher's voice. At times, when the classes are uninteresting, and there have been many of them (we often have seven long hours a day), and the children are tired, or before the holidays, when the ovens at home are prepared for a hot bath, two or three boys will suddenly rush into the room during the second or third afternoon class-hour, and will hurriedly pick out their caps. "What's up?" " Going home." THE SCHOOL AT TASSTATA POLT^NA 245 " And studies ? There is to be singing yet ! " " The boys say they are going home," says one, slipping away with his cap. " Who says so ? " " The boys are gone ! " "How is that?" asks the perplexed teacher who has prepared his lessoij. " Stay ! " But another boy runs into the room, with an excited and perplexed face. " What are you staying here for ? " he angrily attacks the one held back, who, in indecision, pushes the cotton batting back into his cap. " The boys are way down there, — I guess as far as the smithy." " Have they gone ? " "They have.", And both run away, calling from behind the door: " Good-bye, Ivdn Iv^novich ! " Who are the boys that decided to go home, and how did they decide it? God knows. You will never find out who decided it. They did not take counsel, did not conspire, but simply, some boys wanted to go home, " The boys are going ! " — and their feet rattle down-stairs, and one rolls down the steps in catlike form, and, leaping and tumbling in the snow, running a race with each other along the narrow path, the children bolt for home. Such occurrences take place once or twice a week. It is aggravating and disagreeable for the teacher, — who will not admit that? But whj will not admit, at the same time, that, on account of one such an occurrence, the five, six, and even seven lessons a day for each class, which are, of their own accord and with pleasure, attended by the pupils, receive a so much greater significance ? Only by the recurrence of such cases could one gain the certainty that the instruction, though insufficient and one- sided, was not entirely bad and not detrimental. If the question were put like this : Which would be 246 THE SCHOOL AT YASJTAYA POLTANA better, that not one such occurrence should take place during the whole year, or that this should happen for more than half the lessons, — we should choose the latter. At least, I was always glad to see these things happen several times a month in the Yasnaya Polydna school. In spite of the frequently repeated statements to the boys that they may leave any time they jvish, the influence of the teacher is so strong that, of late, I have been afraid that the discipline of the classes, programmes, and grades might, imperceptibly to them, so restrict their liberty that they would submit to the cunning of the nets of order set by us and that they would lose the possibility of choice and protest. Their continued willingness to come to school, iu spite of the liberty granted them, does not, I think, by any means prove the especial, qualities of the Yasnaya Polyana school, — I believe that the same would be repeated in the majority of schools, and that the desire to study is so strong in children that, in order to satisfy their desire, they will submit to many hard conditions and will forgive many defects. The possibility of such escapades is useful and necessary only as a means of securing the teacher against the most detrimental and coarsest errors and abuses. In the evening we have singing, graded reading, talks, physical experiments, and writing of compositions. Of these, their favourite subjects are reading and experi- ments. During the reading the older children lie down on the large table in star-shaped form, — their heads together, their feet radiating out, and one reads, and all tell the contents to each other. The younger children locate themselves with their books by twos, and if the book is intelligible to them, they read it as we do, by getting close to the light and making themselves comfort- able, and apparently they derive pleasure from it. Some, trying to unite two kinds of enjoyment, seat themselves opposite the burning stove, and warm themselves and read. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 247 Not all are admitted to the class in experiments, only the oldest and best, and the more iatelligent ones of the second class. This class has assumed, with us, a vesper- tine, most fantastic character, precisely fitting the mood produced by the reading of fairy-tales. Here the fairy- like element is materialized, — everything is personified by them : the pith-ball which is repelled by the sealing- wax, the deflecting magnetic needle, the iron filings scurrying over the sheet of paper underneath which the magnet is guided, present themselves to them as living objects. The most intelligent boys, who understand the cause of these phenomena, become excited and talk to the needle, the ball, the fihngs : " Come now ! Hold on ! "Where are you going ? Stop there ! Ho there ! Let her go ! " and so forth. Generally the classes end at between eight to nine o'clock, if the carpentry work does not keep the boys longer, and then the whole mass of them run shoutiag into the yard, from where they begin to scatter in groups in all the directions of the village, calling to each other from a distance. Sometimes they scheme to coast down- hill into the village on a large sleigh standing outside the gate, by tying up the shafts : they crawl in and disappear with screaming in the snow-dust, leaving, here and there along the road, black spots of children tumbled out. Outside the school, in the open air, there establish them- selves, despite all the liberty granted there, new relations between pupils and teachers, of greater liberty, greater simplicity, and greater confidence, — those very relations, which, to us, appear as the ideal of what the school is to strive after. The other day we read Gogol's " The Elf -king " with the first class. The last scenes powerfully affected them and excited their imagination : some tried to look like witches and kept mentioning the last night. It was not cold outside, — a moonless winter night 248 THE SCHOOL AT YifsNAYA POLYANA with clouds in the sky. We stopped at the cross-road ; the older, third-year pupils stopped near me, asking me to accompany them farther ; the younger ones looked awhile at me and then coasted down-hilL The younger ones had begun to study with a new teacher and there is no longer that confidence between them and me, as between the older boys and me. " Come, let us go to the preserve " (a small forest within two hundred steps of the house), said one of them. Fddka, a small boy of ten, of a tender, impressionable, poetical, and dashing nature, was the most persistent in his demands. Danger seems to form his chief condition for enjoyment. In the summer it always made me shud- der to see him, with two other boys, swim out into, the very middle of the pond, which was something like three hundred and fifty feet wide, and now and then disappear in the hot reflections of the summer sun, and then swim over the depth, while turning on his back, spurting up the water, and calling out in a thin voice to his companions on the shore, that they might see what a dashing fellow he was. He knew that there were wolves in the forest now, and so he wanted to go to the preserve. All chimed in, and so we went, four of us, into the wood. Another boy, I shall call him Sdmka, a physically and morally sound lad of about twelve, nicknamed Vavilo, walked ahead and kept exchanging calls with somebody in his ringing voice. Pronka, a sickly, meek, and uncommonly talented boy, the son of a poor family, — sickly, I think, mainly on account of insufficient food, — was walking by my side. Fddka was walking between me and S^mka, talking all the time in his extremely soft voice, telling us how he had herded horses here in the summer, or saying that he was not afraid of anything, or asking, " Suppose one should jump out ! " and insisting on my answering him. We did not go into the forest itself, — that would have been THE SCHOOL AT yXsNATA POLYANA 249 too terrible, — but even near the forest it was getting darker : we could hardly see the path, and the fires of the village were hidden from view. S^mka stopped and began to listen. " Stop, boys ! What is that ? " he suddenly said. We grew silent, but we could hear nothing ; still it added terror to our fear. • " Well, what should we do, if one should jump out and make straight for us ? " Fddka asked. We began to talk about robbers in the Caucasus. They recalled a story of the Caucasus I had told them long ago, and I told them again about abr^ks, about Cossacks, about Khadzhi-Murat. S^mka was strutting ahead of us, stepping broadly in his big boots, and evenly swaying his strong back. Pr6nka tried to walk by my side, but F^dka pushed him off the path, and Pronka, who appar- ently always submitted to such treatment on account of his poverty, rushed up to my side only during the most interesting passages, though sinking knee-deep in the snow. Everybody who knows anything about peasant children has noticed that they are not accustomed to any kind of caresses, — tender words, kisses, being touched with a hand, and so forth, — and that they cannot bear these caresses. I have observed ladies in peasant schools, who, wishing to show their favours to a boy, say, " Come, my darling, I will kiss you ! " and actually kiss him, whereat the boy so kissed is embarrassed and feels offended and wonders why that was done to him. A boy of five years of age stands above these caresses, — he is a lad. It was for this reason that I was startled when F^dka, who was walking by my side, in the most terrible part of the story suddenly touched me at first lightly with his sleeve and then clasped two of my fingers with his whole hand, and did not let them out of his grasp. The moment I grew silent, F^dka demanded th9,t I 250 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLY^NA should proceed, and he did that ia such an imploring and agitated voice that I could not refuse his request. " Don't get in my way ! " he once angrily called out to Pronka, who had run ahead ; he was carried away to the point of cruelty, — he had such a mingled feeling of terror and joy, as he was holding on to my finger, and no one should dare to interrupt his pleasure. " More, more ! That's fine ! " We passed the forest and were approaching the village from the other end. " Let us go there again,'' all cried, when the lights became visible. " Let us take another walk ! " We walked in silence, now and then sinliing in the loose, untrodden path ; the white darkness seemed to be swaying before our eyes ; the clouds hung low, as though piling upon us, — there was no end to that whiteness over which we alone crunched through the snow; the wind rustled through the bare tops of the aspens, but we were protected from the wind behind the forest. I finished my story by telling them that, the abr^k being surrounded, he began to sing songs, and then threw himself on his dagger. All were silent. " Why did he sing a song when he was surrounded ? " asked S^mka. " Didn't you hear ? He was getting ready to die ! " F^dka replied, sorrowfully. " I think he sang a prayer," added Prdnka. All agreed. FMka suddenly stopped. " How was it when they cut the throat of your aunt ? " he asked, — he had not had enough terrors. "Tell us! Tell us!" I told them once more that terrible story of the mur- der of Countess Tolstdy, and they stood silently about me, gazing at my face. " The fellow got caught ! " said S^mka. " It did frighten him to walk through the night, while she THE SCHOOL AT YjCSNAYA POLYANA 251 lay with her throat cut," said F^dka. " I should have run away myself !" and he moved up his hand on my two fingers. We stopped in the grove, beyond the threshing-floors, at the very end of the village. S^mka picked up a stick from the snow and began to strike the frozen trunk of a linden-tree. The hoarfrost fell from the branches upon his cap, and the lonely sound of his beating was borne through the forest. " Lev Nikolaevich," F^dka said (I thought he wanted to say something again about the countess), " why do peo- ple learn singing ? I often wonder why they really do ? " God knows what made him jump from the terrors of the murder to this question ; but by everything, — by the sound of his voice, by the seriousness with which he requested an answer, by the silence which the other two preserved, — I could feel a vivid and lawful connection of this question and the preceding conversation. What- ever the connection may have consisted in, whether in my explaining the possibiUty of crime from ignorance (I had told them so), or in his verifying himself, by transferring himself into the soul of the murderer and recalling his favourite occupation (he has a charming voice and im- mense talent for music), or whether the connection con- sisted in his feeling that now was the time for intimate conversation, and that now in his soul had arisen all the questions demanding a solution, — the question did not surprise any of us. " What is drawing for ? And why is it good to write ? " I said, positively not knowing how to explain to him what art was for. "What is drawing for?" he repeated, thoughtfully. What he was asking me was what art was for, and I did not dare and did not know how to explain to him. " What is drawing for ? " said S^mka. " You draw everything, and then you know how to make things from the drawing." 252 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLTANA "No, that is mechanical drawing," said FMka, "Imt why do you draw figures ? " S^mka's healthy nature was not at a loss : " What is a stick for ? What is a linden for ? " he said, stni striking the Hnden. " Yes, what is the hnden for ? " I asked. " To make rafters with," rephed S^mka. " What is it for in summer, when it has not yet been cut down ? " " Por nothiug." "Eeally," FMka kept stubbornly at it, "why does a linden grow ? " And we began to speak of there not being only a use- fulness of things, but also a beauty, and that art was beauty, and we understood each other, and F4dka com- prehended well why a linden grew and 'what singing was for. Pronka agreed with us, but he had mostly in mind moral beauty, — goodness. S^raka understood it rightly with his big brain, but he did not recognize beauty without usefulness. He doubted, as people of great intelligence doubt, feeling that art is a force, but feehng in their souls no need of that force ; he wanted, like them, to reach out for that art by means of reason, and tried to start that fire in himself. " Let us sing ' He who ' to-morrow, — I remember my voice.'' He has a correct ear, but no taste, no artistic quality in singing. Fddka comprehended completely that the linden was nice with its leafage and that it was nice to look at it in summer, — and nothing else was needed. Prdnka understood that it was a pity to cut it down, because it, too, had Hfe : " When we drink the sap of the linden, it is just the same as though we were drinking blood." THE SCHOOL AT YASKAYA POLyXnA 253 S^mka did not say much, but it was evident that he did not think there was much use in a linden when it was rotten. It feels strange to me to repeat whal we spoke on that evening, but I remember we said everything, I think) that there was to be said on utility and on plastic and moral beauty. We went to the village. FMka still clung to my hand, — this time, I thought, from gratitude. We were all so near to each other on that night, as we had not been for a long time. Pronka walked by our side over the broad village street. " I declare, there is Hght still in Mazanov's house ! " he said. " As I was going this morning to school, Gavryukha was coming from the tavern," he added, " drunk, oh, so drunk ! The horse was all in a lather, and he kept warm- ing him up — I always feel sorry for such things. Eeally I do ! What does he strike him for ? " " The other day father gave his horse the reins, coming from Tula," said S^mka, " and the horse took him into a snowdrift, but he was drunk and asleep." " Gavryukha kept switching him over the eyes — and I felt so sorry for him," Pr6nka repeated once more. "What did he strike him for? He got down and just switched him." S^mka suddenly stopped. " They are asleep," he said, looking through the windows of his black, crooked hut. "Won't you walk a little more ? " "No." " Goo-ood-bye, Lev NikoMevich," he suddenly shouted, and, as though tearing himself away from us, darted for his house, raised the latch and disappeared. " So you will take us home ? First one, and then another ? " asked F^dka. We walked ahead. In Prdnka's house there was a 254 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLTANA light. We looked through the window : his mother, a tall, handsome, but emaciated woman, with black eye- brows and eyes, was sitting at the table and cleaning potatoes ; in the middle of the room hung a cradle ; Prdnka's other brother, the mathematician of the second class, was standing at the table and eating potatoes with salt. It was a tiny, dirty, black house. " What is the matter with you ? " the mother cried to Prdnka. " Where have you been ? " Prdnka smiled a meek, sickly smile, looking at the window. His mother guessed that he was not alone, and immediately assumed an insincere, feigned expression. There was now F^dka left. " The tailors are at our house, so there is a light there," he said in the molhfied voice of that evening. "Good- bye, Lev Nikolaevich ! " he added, softly and tenderly, and began to knock the closed door with the ring. " Let me in '. " his thin voice rang out through the winter stillness of the village. Quite a time passed before he was admitted. I looked through the window : it was a large room ; on the oven and on the benches feet could be seen; his father was playing cards with the tailors, — a few copper coins were lying on the table. . A woman, the boy's stepmother, was sitting near the torch-holder, eagerly looking at the money. One tailor, an arrant knave, still a young peasant, was holding his cards on the table, bending them like bark, and triumphantly looking at his partner. F^dka's father, the collar of his shirt being all unbuttoned, scowling from mental strain and annoyance, was fumbling his cards in indecision, waving his heavy peasant hand over them. " Let me in ! " The woman got up and went to open the door. " Good-bye ! " FMka repeated. " Let us walk often that way ! " I see honest, good, liberal men, members of charitable THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLYANA 255 societies, who are ready to give and who do give one- hundredth part of their possessions to the poor, who have established schools, and who, reading this, will say, " It is not good ! " and will shake their heads. " Why develop them forcibly ? Why give them senti- ments and conceptions which will make them hostile to their surroundings ? Why take them out of their existence?" they will say. Of course, it is even worse with those who regard themselves as leaders, and who will say : " A fine state it will be, where all want to be thinkers and artists, and where nobody will be working ! " These say without ambiguity that they do not like to work, and that, therefore, there have to be people who are not merely unfit for any other activity, but simply slaves, who must work for others. Is it good, is it bad, is it necessary to take them out of their surroundings, and so forth ? Who knows ? And who can take them out of their surroundings ? That is not done by a mere mechanical contrivance. Is it good or bad to add sugar to flour, or pepper to beer ? F4dka is nc't vexed by his tattered caftan, but moral queations and doubts torment him, and you want to give him three roubles, a catechism, and a tract about the use- fulness of labour, and about meekness which you your- selves cannot bear. He does not need three roubles : he will find and take them when he needs them, and he will learn to work without your aid, just as he has learned to breathe ; he needs that to which life has brought you, your own life and that of ten generations not crushed by work. You have had leisure to seek, think, suffer, — so give him that which you have gained by suffering, — that is what he wants ; but you, like an Egyptian priest, veil yourselves from him in a mysterious mantle and bury in the ground the talent given you by history. Fear not: nothing human is injurious to man. Are you in 256 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLT^ITA doubt? Abandon yourselves to your feelings, and they will not deceive you. Have faith in his nature, and you will convince yourselves that he will take only as much as history has enjoined you to give to him, as much as has been worked in you by means of suffering. The school is free, and the first pupils to enter were those from the village of Ydsnaya Polyana. Many of these pupils have left the school because their parents did not regard the instruction as good ; many, having learned to read and write, stopped coming and hired themselves out at the railroad, — the chief occupation at our village. At first they brought the children from the near-by poorer villages, but because of the inconvenience of the distance or of boarding them out (in our village the cheapest board is two roubles in silver a month), they were soon taken out of school From the distant villages the well-to-do peasants, pleased to hear that the school was free and that, as it was rumoured among the people, they taught well at the Yasnaya Polyana school, began to send their children, but this winter, when schools were opened in the villages, they took them out again and put them into the village pay schools. There were then left in the Yasnaya Polyana school the children of the Y&naya Polyana peasants, who attend school in the winter, but in the summer, from April to the middle of October, work in the fields, and the children of innkeepers, clerks, sol- diers, manorial servants, dramshop-keepers, sextons, and rich peasants, who are brought there from a distance of thirty and even fifty versts. There are in all about forty pupils, but rarely more than thirty at a time. The girls form ten or only six per cent, of the whole, being from three to five in number Boys from the age of seven to thirteen are the normal age with us. In addition to these we have every year three or four grown people who come to us for a month, and sometimes the whole winter, and then leave us- THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYjCnA 257 For the grown people, who come to school singly, the order of the school is very inconvenient: on account of their age and their feeling of dignity they cannot take part in the animation of the school, nor can they free themselves from their contempt for the youngsters, and so they remain entirely alone. The animation of the school is only an obstacle to them. They generally come to finish the instruction begun before, having some little knowledge, and with the conviction that instruction con- sists in making them learn the book, of which they have heard before, or iti which they have had experience. In order to come to the school, they had to overcome their own foar and embarrassment and to endure a domestic storm and the ridicule of their companions. "Look at the stallion that is going to study ! " Besides, they con- stantly feel that every day lost at school is a day lost at labour, which forms their only capital, and so all the time that they are at school they are in an irritable state of hurry and zeal, which more than anything else is detrimental to study. During the time which I am describing now we had three such grown people, one of whom is studying even now. A grown pupil acts as at a fii'e : no sooner has he finished writing than he grabs a book with one hand, while he puts down the pen held in the other, and begins to read standing ; take the book away from him, and he takes hold of the slate; take that away from him, and he is completely at a loss. There was one labourer this fall, who studied with us and at the same time made the fires in the school. He learned to read and write in two weeks, but that was not learning, but a disease, something hke a protracted spree. Passing with an armful of wood through the classroom, he would stop, with the wood still in his arms, and, bend- ing over a boy's head, would spell s, k, a — ska, and then go to his place. If he did not succeed in doing so, he 258 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA looked witli envy, almost with malice, at the children) when he was at liberty, we could not do anything with him : he gazed steadfastly at his book, repeating 5, a — la, r, i — ri, and so forth, and while in this state he lost all ability to understand anything else. When the grown men had to sing or draw, or to listen to a history recitation, or to look at experiments, it became apparent that they submitted to cruel necessity, and, like hungry people who are torn away from their food, they waited only for the moment when they could again bury themselves in their spelhng-books. Eemaining true to the rule, I have not compelled boys to study the ABC when they do not want to do so, and so I do not insist on a grown person's learning mechanics or drawing, when he wants the ABC. Everybody takes what he wants. In general, the grown persons, who started their instruction elsewhere, have not yet found a place for themselves in the Yasnaya Polyana school, and their instruction proceeds poorly : there is something unnatural and morbid in their relation to the school. The Sunday schools which I have seen present the same phenomenon in regard to grown persons, and so any information in respect to a successful free education of grown-up people would be a very precious acquisition for us. The view of the masses as regards our school has much changed from the beginning of its existence. Of the former view we shall have to speak in the history of the Yasnaya Polyaiia school ; but now the people say that in the Yasnaya Polyana school " they teach everything and all the sciences, and there are some awfully smart teachers there, — they say they can make thunder and hghtning! And the boys comprehend well, — they have begun to read and write." Some of them — the rich innkeepers — send their children to school out of vanity, " to promote them into THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLY^NA 269 the full science, so that they may know division " (divi- sion is the highest conception they have of scholastic wisdom) ; other fathers assume that science is very proiit- able ; but the most send their children to school uncon- sciously, submitting to the spirit of the time. Out of these boys, who form the majority, the most encouraging to us are those who were just sent to school and who have become so fond of study that their parents now submit to the desire of the children, and themselves feel unconsciously that something good is being done to their children and have not the heart to take the children out of school. One father told me that he once used up a whole candle, holding it over his boy's book, and praised both his son and the book. It was the GospeL " My father," another pupil told me, " now and then listens to a fairy-tale, and laughs, and goes away ; and if it is something divine, he sits and listens until midnight, holding the candle for me." I called with the new teacher at the house of a pupil, and, in order to show him off, had the boy solve an algebraic equation for the teacher. The mother was busy at the oven, and we forgot all about her ; while hstening to her son, as he briskly and earnestly transformed the equation, saying, " 2db — c — d, divided by 3," and so forth, she all the time kept her face covered with her hand, with difficulty restraining herself, and finally burst out into laughter and was unable to explain to us what it was she was laughing about. Another father, a soldier, once came after his son ; he found him in the drawing class, and when he saw his son's art, he began to say " you " instead of " thou " to him and did not have the heart to give him the water chestnuts which he had brought him as a present. The common opinion is, I think, as follows : They teach everything there (just as to gentlemen's children), 260 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLY^NA many useless things, but they also teach them to read and write in a short time, — and so it is all right to send the children there. There are also ill-wishing rumours current among people, bub they now have little weight. Two fine boys lately left school for the alleged reason that we did not teach writing at school. Another, a soldier, wanted to send his boy, but, upon examining one of our pupils and finding that he read the psalter with hesitation, he decided that our instruction was had, and that only the fame of the school was good. A few of the Ydsnaya Polyana peasants have not stopped fearing lest the old rumours should prove true ; they imagine that there is some ulterior purpose in teach- ing the children and that at an unforeseen hour somebody will slip a cart under their boys and haul them off to Moscow. The dissatisfaction with the absence of corporal pun- ishment and order at school has now almost entirely disappeared. I have often had occasion to observe the perplexity of a father, when, coming to the school for his boy, he saw the pupils running about, making a hubbub, and tussling with each other. He is convinced that naughtiness is detrimental, and yet he believes that we teach well, and he is at a loss to combine the two. Gymnastics now and then cause them to reassert their con .iction that it somehow is hard on the stomach, and that " it does not go through." Soon after fasting, or in the fall, when the vegetables get ripe, gymnastics do the most harm, and the old women cover up the pots and explain that the cause of it all is the naughtiness and the twisting. For some, though only a small number, even the spirit of equality in the school* serves as a subject of dissatis- faction. In November we had two girls, the daughters of a rich innkeeper, in cloaks and caps, who at first kept THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLY ANA 261 themselves aloof, but later got used to the rest and forgot their tea and the cleaning of their teeth with tobacco, and began to study well. Their father, dressed in a Crimean sheepskin fur coat, all unbuttoned, entered the school and found them standing in a crowd of dirty bast shoe boys, who, leaning with their hands on the head-gear of the girls, were listening to what the teacher was say- ing ; the father was offended and took his girls out of the school, though he did not confess the cause of his dissatis- faction. Finally, there are some children who leave school be- cause their parents, who have sent their children to school in order to gain somebody's favour by it, take them out again, when the need of gaining somebody's favour has passed. And thus, there are twelve subjects, three classes, forty pupils in all, four teachers, and from five to seven recita- tions a day. The teachers keep diaries of their occupa- tions, which they communicate to each other on Sundays, and in conformity with which they arrange their plans for the following week. These plans are not carried out each week, but are modified in conformity with the needs of the pupils. MECHANICAL READING Eeading forms part of language instruction. The prob- lem of language instruction consists, in our opinion, in guiding people to understand the contents of books writ- ten in the literary language. The knowledge of the liter- ary language is necessary because the good books are all in that language. At first, soon after the foundation of the school, there was no subdivision of reading into mechanical and graded, for the pupils read only that which they could under- stand, — their own compositions, words and sentences written or> the blackboard with chalk, and then Khudya,- 2t)2 THE SCHOOL AT YASNArA POLYANA kdv's and Afandsev's fairy-tales. I then supposM that for the children to learn to read, they had to like reading, and in order to like reading it was necessary that the reading matter be intelligible and interesting. That seemed so rational and clear, and yet the idea was false. In the first place, in order to pass from the reading on the walls to the reading in books, it became necessary to devote special attention to mechanical reading with each pupil according to any book whatsoever. As long as the number of pupils was inconsiderable and subjects were not subdivided, that was possible, and I could, without much labour, transfer the children from reading on the wall to reading in a book ; but with the arrival of new pupils that became impossible. The younger pupils were not able to read a fairy-tale and understand it : the labour of putting together the words and at the same time of understanding their meaning was too much for them. Another inconvenience was that the graded reading came to an end with the fairy-tales, and . whatever book we took, — whether " The Popular Eeading," " The Soldier's Eeading," Pushkin, Gdgol, Karamzin, — it turned out that the older pupils experienced the same difficulty in reading Pushkin as the younger ones experienced in the reading of the fables: they could not combine the labour of reading and comprehending what they read, though they understood a little when we read to them. We first thought that the difficulty was in the imper- fect mechanism of the pupils' reading, and we invented mechanical reading, reading for the process of reading, — the teacher read alternately with the pupils, — but matters did not improve, and the same perplexity arose in reading " Eobinson Crusoe." In the summer, during the transitional stage of our schools, we hoped to be able to vanquish this difficulty in the simplest and most approved manner possible. Why not confess it, — we succumbed to false shame before our THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYANA 263 visitors. (Our pupils read much worse than those who had studied the same length of time with a sexton.) The new teacher proposed to introduce reading aloud from the same books, and we agreed to it. Having once become possessed of the false idea that the pupils must by all means read fluently during this very year, we put down on the programme mechanical and graded reading, and we made them read about two hours a day out of the same books, and that was very convenient for us. But this one departure from the rule of the pupils' free- dom led to lies and to one blunder after another. We bought some booklets, — the fairy-tales by Pushkin and by Ershdv, — we placed the boys on benches, and one had to read aloud v^hile the others followed his reading. To find out whether they were really following, the , teacher asked now one, now another, a question. At first we thought that everything was well. You come to the school, . — all sit in orderly fashion on benches ; one reads, the rest follow. The one who reads says : " Marcy, niy Queen Fish ! " and the others, or the teacher, correct him : " Mercy, my Queen Fish ! " Ivanov hunts for the place and goes on reading. All are busy ; you may hear the teacher ; every word is correctly pro- nounced, and they read quite fluently. You would think all is well ; but examine it closely, — the one who is reading is reading the, same thing for the thirtieth or fortieth time. (A printed slieet will not last longer than a week, and it is terribly expensive to buy new books all the time, while there are only two compre- hensible books for peasant children, — the fairy-tales by Khudyakov and by Afanasev. Besides, a book which has once been read by a class and is known by heart by some is not only familiar to all the pupils, but even the home people are tired of it.) The reader becomes tiinid,, listen- ing to his lonely voice amid the silence of the room ; all his effort is directed toward observing all the punctua- 264 THte SCHOOL At YifsNAtA POLTinA tion marks and the accents, and he acquires the habit of reading without understanding the meaning, for he is bur- dened with other demands. The hearers do the same, and, hoping always to strike the right place when they are asked, evenly guide their fingers along the lines and are distracted by other things. The meaning of what is read involuntarily lodges in their heads at times, or it does not stay there at aU, being a secondary consideration. The chief harm hes in that eternal battle of cunning and of tricks between the pupils and the teacher, which is developed with such an order, and which had not existed in our school heretofore ; whereas the only advantage of this method of reading, consisting in the correct pronun- ciation of words, had no meaning whatsoever for our pupils. Our pupils had been learning to read the sentences written and pronounced by them on the board, and all knew that you write kogo and pronounce it havo ; but I consider it useless to teach stops and changes of voice from the punctuation marks, because every five-year-old boy makes correct use of the punctuation marks in his voice, if he understands what he is saying. Therefore it is easier to teach him to understand that which he speaks from the book (which he must attain sooner or later) than to teach him to sing^ as though from music, the punctuation marks. And yet, how convenient that is for the teacher ! The teacher always involuntarily strives after selecting that method of instruction which is most convenient for himself. The more convenient the method is for the teacher, the more it is inconvenient for the pupils. Only that man- ner of, instruction is correct with which the pupils are satisfied. These three laws of instruction were most palpably reflected by the mechanical reading in the school at Ydsnaya Poly^na. Thanks to the vitality of the spirit of the school, espe- cially when the old pupils returned to it from their field THE SCHOOL AT t/sNAYA POLyXnA 265 labours, this reading of itself fell into disuse : the pupils grew tired, and began to play and became slack in their work. Above all, the reading with stories, which was to verify the success of the mechanical reading, proved> that there was no such progress, that in five weeks we had not advanced one step in reading, while many had fallen behind. The best mathematician of the first class, R , who mentally extracted square roots, had for- gotten how to read to such an extent that we had to read with him by syllables. We abandoned the reading from the booklets, and racked our brains to discover a means of mechanical reading. The simple idea that the time had not yet come for good mechanical reading, that there was no urgent need for it at the present time, and that the pupils themselves would find the best method, when that need should arise, burst upon us only within a short time. During that search the following processes established themselves of their own accord : During the reading lessons, now divided in name only into graded and mechanical, the worst readers come in twos and take some book (sometimes fairy-tales, or the Gospel, and at times a song collection or a number of the Popular Beadiiuf) and read by twos for the process of reading only, and when that book is an intelligible fairy- tale, they read it with comprehension, after which they demand of the teacher that he should ask them ques- tions, although the class is called mechanical. At times the pupils, generally the poorest, take the same book several times in succession, open it at the same page, read one and the same tale, and memorize it, not only without the teacher's order, but even in spite of his explicit pro- hibition ; sometimes these poor pupils come to the teacher, or to an older boy, and ask him to read with them. Those who can read better, pupils of the second class, are not so fond; of Trading in company^, less pf ten re^xi for the process 266 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLyXnA of ^ jeading, and if they memorize anything, it is some poem, but not a prose tale. With the oldest boys the same phenomenon is re- peated, with this one difference which has struck me during the last month. In their class of graded reading they get some one book, which they read in turn, and ^hen all together tell its contents. They were joined this fall by a very talented boy, Ch-r , who had studied for two years, with a sexton and who therefore is ahead of them all in reading, — he reads as weU as we do, and so the pupils understahd the graded reading, at least a little of it, only when Ch ■ reads, and yet each of them wants to read himself. But the moment a bad reader begins to read, all express their dissatisfaction, — especially when the story is interesting, — they laugh and are angry, and the poor reader is ashamed, and there begin endless disputes. Last month one of these declared that, cost what it might, he would read as well as Ch within a week ; others made the same declaration, and suddenly mechanical reading became the favourite subject. They would sit an hour or an hour and a half at a timej without tearing themselves away from the book, which they did not understand ; they began to take their books home, and really made in three weeks such progress as could hardly have been, expected. There happened to them the direct opposite of what generally takes pl'ace with those who learn the rudiments'. Generally a man learns to read, but there is nothing for him to read or understand ; here it turned out that the pupils convinced themselves that there was something to read and understand, but that thtey did not read well enough, 'and so they tried to become more proficient in reading. We have, now abandoned mechanical reading entirely; and matters are carried on as described above ; each pupil is permitted to use whatever method is most convenient THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 267 for him, and, strange to say, they have made use of all the methods I am acquainted with: (1) Eeading with the teacher, (2) reading for the process of reading, (3) reading with memorizing, (4) reading in general, and (5) reading with the comprehension of what is being read. The Jirst, in use by the mothers of the whole world, is not a scholastic, but a domestic method. It consists in the pupil's coming and asking to read with the teacher, whereupon the teacher reads, guiding his every syllable and the combination of syllables, — the very first rational and immutable method, which the pupil is the first to demand, and upon which the teacher involuntarily hits. In spite of aU means which are supposed to mechanize instruction and presumably facilitate the work of the teacher with a large number of pupils, this method will always remain the best and the only one for teaching people to read, and to read fluently. The second method of teaching to lead, also a favourite one, through which every one has passed who has learned to read fluently, consists in giving the pupil a book and leaving it entirely to him to spell and understand as well as he can. The pupil, who has learned to read by syllables so fluently that he does not feel the need of asking the sexton to read with him, but depends upon himself, always acquires that passion for the process of reading wliich is so ridiculed in Gdgol's '' Petrushka," and on account of that passion advances. God knows in what manner that kind of reading assumes any definite shape in his mind, but he thus gets used to the forms of the letters, to the process of syllable combinations, to the pro- nunciation of words, and even to understanding what he reads, and I have had occasion to convince myself by actual experience that our insistence that the pupil should understand what he reads only retards the result. There are many autodidacts who have learned to read well in 268 THE SCHOOL, AT YASNAYA POLtXnA this way, although the defects of this system must be apparent to everybody. The third method of teaching reading consists in learn- ing by heart prayers, poems, in general anything printed, and in pronouncing that which has so been memorized, looking at the book all the time. The fourth method consists in that which has proved so detrimental in the Y^snaya Polyana school, — in the reading from a few books only. It arose unpremedi- tatedly in our school. At first we did not have enough books, and two pupils had to read together; later, they themselves became fond of this, and when the order is given to read, pupils of precisely the same ability pair off, or sometimes assemble three at a time, around one book, and one reads, while the others watch and correct him. You will only disturb them if you rearrange them, for they are quite sure who their matches are, and Taraska will certainly ask for Diinka. " You come here to read, and you go to your partner ! " Some of them do not like such collective reading, because they do not need it. The advantage of such reading in common lies in the greater precision of pro- nunciation and in the greater freedom of comprehension left to him who is not reading, but watching ; but the whole advantage, thus produced, becomes harmful the moment this method, or, for that, any other method, is extended to the whole school. In fine, another favourite method of ours, the fifth, is the graded reading, that is, the reading of books with ever growing interest and comprehension. All these methods, as mentioned above, quite naturally came into use in our school, and in one month we made considerable progress. The business of the teacher is to afford a choice of all known and unknown methods that may make the matter of learning easier for the pupil. It is true, with a certain method, — say with reading out of one book, — the in- struction becomes easy and convenient for the teacher, and has the aspect of seriousness and regularity ; but with our order it seems not only difficult, but to many appears even impossible. How, they say, is one to guess what is needed for each pupil, and how is one to decide whether the demand of each is justified ? How can one help being lost in this heterogeneous crowd which is subject to no rule ? To this I will reply that we cannot get rid of our old view of the school as a discipHned company of soldiers, commanded to-day by one lieutenant, and to-morrow by another. Tor the teacher who has adapted himself to the liberty of the school, each pupil represents a separate character, putting forth separate demands, ^which only the freedom of choice can satisfy. If it had not been for the freedom and for the external disorder, which, seems so strange and impossible to some, we not only should never have struck these five methods of reading, but should never have been able to employ and apportion them according to the exigencies of the pupils, and therefore should never have attained those brilliant results which we have of late attained in reading. How often have we had occasion to observe the per- plexity of the visitors to our school, who in two hours' time wanted to study the method of instruction, which we do not have, and in the course of the same two hours told us all about their own method ! How frequently we listened to the advice of these same visitors to intro- duce the very method which, unknown to them, was being used in their presence in the school, only that it was not generalized as a despotic rule ! GEADED BEADING Although, as we said, the mechanical and graded read- ings in reality blended into one, — these two subjects are 270 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA still subdivided for us according to their aims. It seems to us that the aim of the first is the art of fluently form- ing words out of certain signs, while the aim of the second is the knowledge of the literary language. For the study of the literary language we, naturally, thought of a means which seemed exceedingly simple, but which, in reality, was most difficult. It seemed to ua that after the pupils had learned to read sentences written on the board by pupils themselves, we ought to give them Khudyakdv's and Afauasev's fairy-tales, then something more difficult and more complicated as regards language, then something more difficult still, and so on, up to the language of Karamzin, Pushkin, and the Code of Laws; but this supposition, like the majority of our, and in general of any, suppositions, was not realized. From the language which they themselves employed in their writing on the boards, I succeeded in transferring them to the language of the fairy-tales, but in order to take them from the language of the fairy-tales to a higher level, we did not find that transitional " something " in our literature. We tried " Eobinson Crusoe," — the thing did not work: some of the boys wept from vexation, because they could not understand and tell it; I began to teU it to them in my own words, and they began to believe in the possibihty of grasping that wisdom, made out the meaning of it, and in a inonth finished " Eobinson Crusoe," but with tedium and, in the end, almost in disgust. The labour was too great for them. They got at things mostly through memory, and they remembered parts of it, if they told them each evening soon after the reading ; but not one of them could make the whole his own. They remembered, unfortunately, only certain incompre- hensible words, and began to use them without rhyme or reason, as is generally the case with half-educated people, I saw that something was wrong, but did not know THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLTjCnA 271 how to help the matter. To justify myself and clear my conscience, I began to give them to read all kinds of popular imitations, such as " Uncle Naiim " and " Aunt Natdlya," though I knew in advance that they would not like them, — and my supposition came true. These books were the most tiresome for the pupils, if they were ex- pected to tell their contents. After " Eobinson Crusoe " I tried Pushkin, namely, his " The Gravedigger ; ' but without my aid they were still less able to tell it than " Eobinson Crusoe," and " The G-ravedigger " seemed much duller to them. The author's apostrophes to the reader, his frivolous relation to his persons, his jocular characterizations, his incompleteness of detail, — all that is so incompatible with their needs, that I definitely gave up Pushkin, whose stories I had assumed to be most regularly constructed, simple, and, therefore, intelligible to the masses. I then tried Gdgol's "The Night Before Christmas." With my reading, it at first pleased them, especially the grown pupils, but the moment I left them alone, they could not comprehend anything and felt ennui. Even with my reading they did not ask to have it repeated. The wealth of colours, the fantasticalness and capricious- ness of the structure are contrary to their needs. Then again I tried to read Gny^dich's translation of the Iliad to them, and the reading produced only a strange perplexity in them ; they supposed that it was written in French, and did not understand a thing so long as I did not tell the contents to them in my own words, but even then the plot of the poem made no impression on their minds. Skeptic S^mka, a sound, logical nature, wa? struck by the picture of Phcebus, with the clanking arrows at his back, flying down from Olympus, but he apparently did not know where to lodge the image. " But why did he not smash to pieces as he flew down f rSm the mountain ? " he kept asking me. 272 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLTXnA " According to their idea he was a god," I answered him. •'•' A god ? But were there not many of them ? Then he was not the real God. It is no joke to fly down from such a mountain : he must have been smashed all to pieces," he tried to prove to me, swaying his arms. I tried George Sand's " Gribouille," " Popular Eeading," and " Soldier's Reading," — all in vain. We try every- thing we can find and everything they send to us, but we now try everything almost without any hope. I am sitting at school and break the seal of a package containing a book purporting to be popular, fresh from the post-office. " Uncle, let me read it, me ! " cry several children, stretching out their hands, " so I can understand it." I open the book and read : " The life of the great Saint Alexis presents to us an example of the flaming faith of piety, untiring activity, and warm love of his country, for which this holy man did such important service ; " or, " Three hundred years have passed since Bohemia became dependent on Ger- many ; " or, " The village of Karacharovo, spreading out at the foot of a mountain, lies in one of the most fertile Governments of Russia ; " or, " Broadly lay and stretched the road, the path ; " or a popular exposition of some natural science on one sheet, half of which is filled with the author's address to the peasant and his taking him into his confidence. If I give such a book to one of the boys, — his eyes grow dim, and he begins to yawn. " No, I can't understand it. Lev Nikolaevich," he wUl say, returning the book. It is a mystery to us for whom and by whom these popular books are written. Out of all the books of this kind, read by us, nothing was left but " The Grandfather," by the story-teUer Zolotov, which had a great success both in the school and at home. • THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 273 Some of these are simply poor compositions, written in a bad literary language and finding no readers with the public at large, and so dedicated to the masses ; others, worse still, written not in Kussian, but in some newly invented language which is supposed to be the people's language, something like the language in Kryldv's fables ; others again are remodellings of foreign books intended for the people, but not popular. The only books that are comprehensible to the people and according to their taste are not such as are written for the people, but such as have their origin in the people, namely, fairy-tales, proverbs, collections of songs, legends, of verses, of riddles, and of late the collection made by Vodov6zov, and so on. One who has not had the experience could hardly believe with what ever new pleasure all similar books, not excepting any, are read, — even the sayings of the Russian people, the bylinas, and the song-books, Snegir^v's proverbs, the chronicles, and all the monuments of ancient literature without exception. I have observed that children have a greater lildng for the reading of such books than grown persons have ; they read them several times over, memo- rize them, joyfully take them home, and in their games and talks give each other names taken from the ancient bylinas and songs. Grown-up persons, either because they are not so natural, or because they have grown to make a show of their knowledge of the book language, or because they unconsciously feel the necessity of the knowledge of the book language, are less addicted to the reading of such books, and prefer those in which the words, images, and thoughts are half-unintelligible to them. And yet, no matter how books cf this kind are liked by the pupils, the aim, which we probably erroneously put to ourselves, is not attained by them : there still remains the same abyss between these books and the literary language. So far we have found no means of 274 THE SCHOOL AT YisNAfA POLTANA coming out of this false circle, although we are all the time making new experiments and new suppositions, trying to discover our error. We beg all those who have this matter at heart to communicate to us their proposi- tions, experiments, and solutions of the question. The insoluble question for us consists in the following : For the education of the people the possibility and the desire to read good books are peremptory, but the good books are written in a language which the masses do not comprehend, lu order to learn to understand, one must read a great deal ; in order to read with pleasure, one must compre- hend. Where is here the error, and how can we escape this situation ? Maybe there is a transitional literature, which we do not recognize for lack of knowledge ; maybe the study of the books current among the people, and the people's view of these books, will reveal to us those paths by which the men of the people obtain the comprehension of the literary language. We devote a special department in the periodical to the study of this question, and we ask all who understand the importance of this matter to send us their articles upon this subject. Maybe the cause of it lies in our aloofness from the masses, in the forced education of the upper classes, and matters will be mended only by time, which creates not a chrestomathy, but a whole transitional literature, composed of all books now appearing and organically arranging itself into a course of graded reading. Maybe, too, the masses do not understand and do not wish to understand our literary language because there is nothing for them to understand, because our whole literature is not good for them, and they are themselves evolving a literature for themselves. Finally, the last proposition, which seems to us the most hkely, is that the seeming defect does not lie in THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 275 the essence of the case, but in our prepossession with the thought that the aim of language instruction is to raise the pupils to the level of the knowledge of the literary language and, above all, in the rapid acquisition of that knowledge. It is very likely that the graded reading, the subject of our dreams, will appear of itself, and that the knowledge of the literary language will of its own accord come to each pupil, just as we constantly see in the ease of people who, without understanding, read indiscriminately the psalter, novels, judicial documents, and in that way acqiiire the knowledge of the literary language. Supposing this to be so, it is incomprehensible to us why all the books published are so bad and not to the people's taste, and we wonder what the schools must do while waiting for that time to come ; for there is one proposition which we cannot admit, and that is, that, having convinced ourselves in our mind that the knowl- edge of the literary language is useful, we should allow ourselves by forced explanations, memorizing, and repeti- tions to teach the masses the literary language against their will, as one teaches French. We must confess that we have more than once tried to do so within the last two months, when we invariably ran up against an insuper- able loathing in the pupUs, proving the falseness of the measures accepted by ul. During these experiments 1 convinced myself that explanations of the meaning of words and of speech ia general are quite impossible even for a talented teacher, not to mention even such favourite explanations, employed by incapable teachers, as that "assembly is a certaia small synedrion," and sq forth. When explaining any one word, for example, the word " impression," you either substitute another unintelligible word in place of the on«", in question, or you give a whole series of words, the conn-'ciion of which is as unintelUgible as the word itself. 276 THE SCHOOL AT YiCsNATA POLTANA Nearly always it is not the word which is unintelligible, but the pupil lacks the very conception expressed by the word. The world is nearly always ready when the idea is present. Besides, the relation of the word to the idea and the formation of new ideas are such a complicated, mysterious, and tender process of the soul that every interference appears as a rude, clumsy force which retards the process of the development. It is easy enough to say that the pupil must under- stand, but cannot everybody see what a number of different things may be understood while reading one and the same book ? Though missing two or three words ia the sentence, the pupil may grasp a fine shade of thought, or its relation to what precedes. You, the teacher, insist on one side of the comprehension, but the pupil does not at all need that which you want to explain to him. At times he may understand you, without being able to prove to you that he has comprehended, all the while dimly guessing and imbibing something quite different, and something very useful and important for him. You exact an explanation from him, and as he is to explain to you in words what impression the words have made upon him, he is silent, or begins to speak nonsense, or lies and deceives; he tries to discover that which you want of him and to adapt himself to your wishes, and so he invents an unexisting difficulty and labours over it; but the general impression produced by the book, the poetical feeling, which has helped him to divine the meaning, is intimidated and beats a retreat. We read Gogol's " The Elf-king," repeating each period in our own words. Everything went well to the third page, where the following period is to be found : " All those learned people, both of the seminary and of the ' biirsa,' who fostered a certain traditional hatred against each other, were exceedingly poor as regards their means Oi subsistence and, at the same time, uncommonly vora- THE SCHOOL AT T^SNATA POLYANA 277 cious, so that it would have been an absolutely impossible matter to ascertain what number of flour and suet dump- lings each of them got away with in the course of a supper, and therefore the voluntary contributions of the well-to-do proprietors could not be sufficient." Teacher. Well, what have you read ? (Nearly all the children are very well developed.) Best pupil. In the bursa the people were all big eaters, poor, and at supper got away with a lot of dumplings. Teacher. What else ? Pupil {a rogue, and having a good memory, says any- thing that occurs to him). An impossible matter, the voluntary contributions. Teacher {angrily). You must think. It is not that. What is an impossible matter ? Silence. Teacher. Eead it once more. They read it. Another boy, with a good memory, added a few more words which he happened to recall : " The seminary, the feeding of the well-to-do proprietors could not be sufficient." Not one had understood any- thing. They began to talk the merest nonsense. The teacher became insistent. Teacher. What is an impossible matter ? He wanted them to say : " It was impossible to ascer- tain." A pupil. The bursa is an impossible thing. Another pupil. Very poor impossible. They read it once more. They hunted for the word which the teacher needed, as for a needle, and they struck every word but the word " ascertain," and they became utterly discouraged. I — that same teacher I am speak- ing of — did not give in and had them take the whole period to pieces, but now they understood much less than when the first pupil told me the contents. After all there was not much to understand. The carelessly con- 278 THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLT^NA nected and drawn out period gave nothing to the reader ; its essence was simple enough: the poor and voracious people got away with dumplings, — that and nothing more the author had intended to convey. I made all the fuss about the form, which was faulty, and by endeavour- ing to get at it, I only spoiled the whole class for the rest of the afternoon, and had crushed and ruined a mass of budding flowers of a many-sided comprehension. Upon another occasion I in the same sinful and mon- strous manner wasted my time on explainiug the meaning of the word " instrument," and with the same disastrous result. On that same day, in the class of drawing, pupil Ch protested against his teacher, who demanded that the drawing-books should have " Eomdshka's drawings " written upon them. He said that they had themselves drawn in the books, and that Romashka had only invented the figure and that, therefore, they ought to write " Eo- mashka's composition," and not " Romashka's drawing." In what way the distinction of these ideas had found its way into his head — just as now and then, though rarely, participles and introductory clauses appear in their com- positions — will remain a mystery to me, into which it will be best not to penetrate. The pupU must be given an opportunity to acquire new ideas and words from the general context. When he hears or reads an unintelligible word in an intelligible sentence, and then meets it in another sentence, he dimly begins to grasp a new idea, and he finally will come to feel the need of using the word by accident ; once used, the word and the idea become his property. And- there are a thousand other ways. But consciously to give the pupil new ideas and forms of a word is, in my opinion, as impossible and fruitless as to teach a child to walk by the law of equilibrium. Every such attempt does not advance the pupil, but only removes him from the aim toward which he is to THE SCHOOL AT Y^SNATA POLTjCnA 279 tend, like the rade hand of a man, which, wishing to help the flower to open, crushes everything all around and violently opens the flower by its petals. WRITING, GRAMMAE, AND PENMANSHIP Writing was taught in the following manner: The pupils were taught simultaneously to recognize and draw the letters, to spell aud write the words, and to under- stand what they had read, and to write it down. They stood at the wall, marking off spaces for themselves with chalk on the board ; one of them dictated whatever occurred to him, and the others wrote. If there were many of them, they were divided into several groups. Then the others, in succession, dictated, and all read each jther's writiug. They wrote printed letters, and at first corrected the ijistakes of the incorrectly formed syllables and the sepa- itttion of the words, then the mistakes o — a, and then ye — e} and so forth. This class formed itself quite naturally. Every pupil who has learned to make the letters is possessed by the passion of writing, and, at first, the doors, the outer walls of the schoolhouse and of the huts, where the pupils live, are covered with letters and words, and it affords them the greatest pleas- ure to be able to write out whole sentences, such as ' Marf utka has had a fight with Olgushka to-day." In order to organize this class, the teacher had only to show the children how to carry on the affair by them- selves, just as a grown-up person teaches children any kind of a game. Indeed, this class has been conducted without change for two years, and every time as merrily and as interestingly as a good game. Here we have read- ing, and pronunciation, and writing, and grammar. With such writing we obtain in a natural manner the moat diffi- ^Tbe chiej Ufficulties of BusEiau orthography. 280 THE SCHOOL AT TiCsNATA POLT^NA cult thing for the initial study of language, — the faith in the stability of the form of the word, not only the printed word, but also the oral, — one's own word. I think that every teacher who has taught language, in addition to the use of Vostdkov's grammar, has come across this diffi- culty. Suppose you want to direct the pupil's attention to some word, say " me." You catch his sentence : " Miki- shka pushed me down the porch," he said. " Whom did he push down ? " you say, asking him to repeat the sentence, and hoping to get " me." " Us," he replies. " No, how did you say it ? " you ask him. " We fell down the porch on account of Mikishka," or " When he pushed us, Praskutka flew down, and I after her," he replies. Try to find the accusative singular and its ending in that. But he does not see any difference in the words which he employed. And if you take a book or if you repeat his words, he will be analyzing, not the living word, but something quite different. When he dictates, every word of his is caught on the wing by the other pupils and is written down. " "What did you say ? How ? " and he will not be per- mitted to change a single letter. Then there are the endless debates about one having written so and another so, and soon the dictating pupil begins to reflect about what he is to say, and he begins to understand that there are two things in speech, ■ — - form and contents. He says a certain sentence, thinking only of its meaning, and it escapes his hps like one word. They begin to question him, " How ? What ? " and he, repeating it several times to himself, becomes sure of the form and of the compo- nent parts, and fixes them by means of words. Thus they write in the third, that is, the lowest, class, some writing in script, and others in printed letters THE SCHOOL AT YjCsNATA POLTiClirA 281 We not only do not insist on writing in script; but if there were anything which we should permit ourselves to prohibit the pupils, it would be their writing in script, which ruins their handwriting and is illegible. They get used to script in a natural manner : one learns one or two letters from an older boy ; others learn from them, and frequently write lilce this : uncle ; and before a week has passed, they all write in script. With penmanship there happened this summer the same that had happened with the mechanical reading. The pupils wrote very wretchedly, and the new teacher introduced writing from copy (again a comfortable and easy method for the teacher). The pupils lost interest, and we were compelled to abandon penmanship and were unable to discover a means for improving the handwriting. The oldest class found that means by itself. Having finished the writing of sacred history, the pupils began to ask to be allowed to take their copy-books home. These copy-books were soiled, torn, and horribly scribbled over. The precise mathematician E asked for some scraps of paper, and began to rewrite his history. They all took a liking for that. " Let me have paper ! Let me have the copy- book ! " and there was started the fashion of penmanship which has continued up to the present in the higher class. They took their copy-books, placed before them the model alphabet, copied each letter, and contended with each other. In two weeks they made, great progress. Nearly all of us were as children made to eat bread with our other food, though we did not like it, and yet now we do not eat otherwise than with bread. Nearly all of us were compelled to hold the pen y/iih. out- stretched fingers, but we held it with bent fingers because they were short, — and now we stretch our fingers. The question then is : Why did they torment us so when what is necessary comes later quite naturally ? Wijl not 282 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLY^NA the desire and the necessity of knowledge of anything else come in the same way ? In the second class compositions are written on slates from oral stories taken from sacred history, and these are later copied on paper. In the lowest, the third class, they write anything they can think of. In addition to that, the youngest in the evening write single sentences, com- posed by all together. One writes and the others whispar among themselves, noticing his mistakes, and wait only for the end, when they may catch him on a wrong ye instead of an e, or in an incorrectly placed preposition, and sometimes, in order to make some blunders them- selves. It affords them great pleasure to write correctly and to correct the mistakes of others. The older ones get hold of any letter they can find, exercise themselves in the correction of mistakes, and use their utmost endeavour to write well ; but they cannot endure gram- mar and the analysis of the language, and, in spite of our former bias for analysis, admit it only in very small pro- portions, and fall asleep or evade the classes. We have made all kinds of experiments in the instruc- tion of grammar, and we must confess that not one of them has attained its end, — to make this instruction interesting. In the second and the first classes the new teacher made this summer an attempt at explaining the parts of the sentence, arid a few of the children at first took interest in them as in charades and riddles. After lessons they frequently hit upon the idea of proposing riddles to each other, and they amused themselves in pro- pounding each other such questions as " Where is the predicate ? " on a par with " What sits on the bed hanging down its feet ? " Of applications to correct writing there were none, and if there were, they were more faulty than correct. Just the same happens with the letter o, when used for a. You tell a pupil that it is pronounced a but written o, — THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYjCnA 283 and he writes rohota, molina (instead ot ralota,malina); you tell him that two predicates are separated by a comma, aUd he v^rites I want, to say, and so forth. It is impossible to demand of him that he should each time give himself an account of what in each sentence is a modifier, and what a predicate. And if he does render ' himself an account, he, during the process of the search, Idses all feeling which he needs in order tb write correctly the rest, not to mention the fact that during the syntactic analysis the teacher is constantly compelled to use cunning befcite his pupils and to deceive them, which they are well aWare of. For example : we came across the sentence, " There were no mountains upon earth." ^' One said that the subject was "earth," another said that the subject was " mountains," while we declared that it was an impersonal sentence. We saw that the pupils acquiesced only out of . pohteness, but that they knew full well that our ainsVer was more stupid than theirs, which we inwardly admitted to be so. Having convinced ourselves of the inconvenience of syntactical analysis, we tried the etymological analysis, — parts of speech, declensions, and conjugations, and we alsO propounded to each other riddles about the dative, about the infinitive, and about adverbs, and that resulted in the same tedium, the same abuse of the influence gained' by us, and the same inapplicability. In the upper class they always write correctly ye ia the dative and prepositional cases, but when they correct that mistake in the younger pupils, they are never able to give any reason why they do so, and they must be reminded of the cases, in order to remember the rule : " Ye in the dative." The youngest, who have not fet heard anything about the parts Of speech, frequently call out sebye ye, not knowing thein- • 1 The difficulty in the Russian sentence is that the subject is put in the genitivei case after a negative copula, hence the sentence becomes ■■(iipersonal. 284 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA selves why they do so, and apparently happy to have guessed right. I tried of late an exercise of my own invention with the second class; it was one I, like all inventors, was carried away with, and it appeared unusually convenient and rational to me until I convinced myself of its incon- sistencies through practice. Without naming the parts of the sentence, I made them write anything, frequently giving them the theme, that is, the subject, and making them through questions expand the sentence, by adding modifiers, new predicates, subjects, and modifying clauses. " The wolves are running." When ? Where ? How ? What wolves are running ? Who else is running ? They are running, and what else are they doing? I thought that by getting used to questions demanding this or that part, they would acquire the distinction of the parts of the sentence and of the parts of speech. So they did, but. they grew tired of this, and they inwardly asked them- selves what it was for, so that I myself was compelled to ask myself the same question without finding any answer to it. Neither man nor child likes, without a struggle, to give up the living word to be mechanically dismembered and disfigured. There is a certain feeling of self-preserva- tion in the living word. If it is to develop, it tends to develop independently and only in conformity with all vital conditions. The moment you want to catch that word, to tighten it in the vise, to plane it off, and to give it such adornments as this word ought to get, according to your ideas, this word and the live thought and meaning connected with it becomes compressed and conceals itself, and in your hands is left nothing but the shell, on which you may expend all your cunning without harming or helping that word which you wanted to form. The syntactical and grammatical analyses, the exercises in the expansion of the sentences, have been carried on in the second class uptil now, but they proceed indolently THE scapoL AT y/snaya polyaka 285 and, I suppose, will soon entirely disappear of their own accord. In addition to these, we use the following as an exercise in language, although it is not at all of a gram- matical character : (1) We propose to form periods out of certain given words : Nikoldy, wood, learn, and they write, " If Nikolay had not been chopping wood, he would have come to learn," or, " Nikolay is a good wood chopper, — we must learn from him," and so forth. (2) We compose verses on a given measure, which exercise amuses particularly the oldest pupils. The verses turn out something like this : At the window sits a man In a torn coat ; In the street a peasant leads By a- rope a goat. (3) An exercise which is very successful in the lowest class : a certain word is given, at first a noun, then an adjective, an adverb, a preposition. One of the pupils goes outside, and of those who remain each must form a sentence, in which the word is to be contained. The one who went out must guess it. All these exercises — the writing of sentences from given words, the versification, and the guessing of words — have one -common aim : to convince the pupil that the word is one having its own immutable laws, changes, endings, and correlations between these endings, — a conviction which is late in entering their minds, and which is needed before grammar. All these exercises give them pleasure ; all the grammatical exercises breed tedium. The strangest and most significant thing is that grammar is dull, although there is nothing easier. The moment you do not teach grammar from a book, beginning with definitions, a six-year-old child in half an hour begins to decline, conjugate, distinguish gendera 286 THE SCHOOL AT YiCsNATA POLyInA numbers, tenses, subjects, and predicates, and you feel that he knows it all as well as you do. (In our locality, there is no neuter gender : gun, hay, butter, window, everything is she, and grammar is of no avail here. The oldest pupils have known grammar for three years, and yet they make blunders in gender, and they avoid them only to the extent of corrections made and in so far as reading helps them.) Why do I teach them all that, when it appears that they know it as well as I do ? Whether I ask him what the genitive plural feminine gender of "great" is, or where the predicate, and where the modifiers are, or what the origin of such and such a word is, . — he is in doubt only about the nomenclature, otherwise he wUl always use an adjective correctly in any case and number you please. Consequently he knows declension. He will never use a sentence without a predicate, and he does not mix it up with its complement. He naturally feels the radical rela- tion of words, and he is more conscious than you of the laws by which words are formed, because no one more frequently invents new words, than children. Why, then, this nomenclature, and the demand of philosophical defi- nitions, which are above his strength ? The only explanation for the necessity of grammar, outside of the demand made at examinations, may be found in its application to the regular exposition of ideas. In my own e:?;perience I have not found thi^ application, and I do not find it in the examples of the lives of people who do not know grammar and yet write correctly, and of candidates of philology, vv^ho write incorrectly, and I hardly find a hint of the fact that the knowledge of grammar is applied to anything whatever by the pupils of the Yfenaya Polyana school It seems to me that grammar goes by itself as a useless mental gymnastic exercise, and that the language, — the ability to write, read, and understand, gees by itself. Geometry and mathematics in general also appear at first as nothing more than' mental gym- THE SCHOOL AT y/sNAYA POLYANA 287 nasties, but with this difference, that every proposition in geometry, every ma,theniaticar definition, brings with it further endless deductions and applications ; is^hile in grammar, even if we should agree with those who see in it an application of logic to language, there is a very narrow limit to these deductions and applications. The moment a pupU in one way or other masters a language, all appli- cations from grammar tear away and drop off as some- thing dead and lifeless. We personally are not yet able completely to renounce the tradition that grammar, in the sense of the laws of language, is necessary for the regular exposition of ideas ; it even seems to us that the pupils have a need of grammar, and that in them unconsciously lie the laws of grammar; but we are convinced that the grammar, such as we know it, is not at all the one which the pupils need, and that in this habit of teaching grammar lies' some great historical misunderstanding. The child Jearns that ye is to be written in the word sebye (self), not because it is in the dative, however frequently he may have been told so, and not merely because he blindly imitates that which he has seen written down a number of times, — he gen- eralizes these examples, only not in the form of the da- tive, but in some other manner. We have a pupil from another school, who knows gram- mar excellently and who is hot able to distinguish the third person from the infinitive reflexive, and another pupil, F^dka, who has no conception of the infinitive, and who,, nevertheless, makes no mistake, for he explains the dif&ciilty to himself and to others by adding the word " will." 1 In the Yasnaya Poly&a school we regard all known methods for the study of. language as legitimate, as in the iThe third person present and the infinitive differ only by a soft sign. Of necessity, a passage had to be omitted here, as being one comprehensible only to a Bussian student. 288 THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLT^NA case of the study of the nidiments, and we employ them to just such an extent as they are cheerfully accepted by the pupils and iu accordance with our knowledge ; at the same time we consider none of these methods exceptional, and we continually try to find new methods. We are as little in accord with Mr. Perevly^sski's method, which did not stand a two days' experiment at the Yasnaya Polyana school, as with the very prevalent opiuion that the only method to learn language is through writing, although writing forms at the Yasnaya Polyaua school the chief method of language instruction. We seek and we hope to find. COMPOSITIONS In the first and second class the choice of compositions is left to the students themselves. A favourite subject for compositions for the first and the second class is the history of the Old Testament, which they write two months after the teacher has told it to them. The first class lately began to write the New Testament, but not ap- proximately as well as the Old; they even made more orthographical mistakes, — they did not understand it so well. In the first class we tried compositions on given therae:. The first themes that most naturally occurred to us were the descriptions of simple objects, such as grain, the house, the wood, and so forth ; but, to our great surprise, these demands upon our pupils almost made them weep, and, in spite of the aid afforded them by the teacher, who divided the description of the grain into a description of its growth, its change into bread, its use, — they emphati- cally refused to write upon such themes, or, if they did write, they made the most incomprehensible and sense- less mistakes in orthography, in the language and in the meaning. We tried to give them the description of certain events. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLyXnA 289 and all were as happy as if a present had been given to them. That which forms the favourite description of the schools — the so-called simple objects, — pigs, pots, a table — turned out to be incomparably more difficult than whole stories taken from their memories. The same mis- take was repeated here as in all the other subjects of instruction, — to the teacher the simplest and most general appears as the easiest, whereas for a pupil only the comphcated and living appears easy. All the text-books of the natural sciences begin with general laws, the text-books of language with definitions, history with the division into periods, and even geometry with the definition of the concept of space and the mathe- matical point. Nearly every teacher, being guided by the same manner of thinking, gives as a first composition the definition of a table or bench, without taking the trouble to consider that in order to define a table or bench one has to stand on a high level of a philosophicol- dialectic development, and that the same pupil who weeps over the composition on a bench will excellently describe the feeling of love or anger, the meeting of Joseph with his brothers, or a fight with his companion. The subjects of the compositions were naturally chosen from among descriptions of incidents, relations to persons, and the repetition of stories told. The writing of compositions is a favourite occupation. The moment the oldest pupils get hold of a pencil and paper outside of school, they do not write " Dear Sir," but some fairy-tale of their own composition. At first I was vexed by the clumsiness and disproportionateness of the structure of the compositions ; I thought I had properly inspired them with what was necessary, but they mis- understood me, and everything went badly : they did not seem to recognize any other necessity than that of writing without mistakes. But now the time has come in the natural course of events, and frequently we hear an ex- 290 THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLYANA preSsion of dissatisfaction when the composition is unnec- essarily drawn out, or when there are frequent repetitions and jumps from one subject to another. It is hard to define wherein their demands consist, but these demands are lawful. " It is clumsy ! " some of them cry, listening to the Composition of a companion ;- some of them will not read their own after they have found that the compo- sitioti of a comrade, as read to them, is good ; some tear their copy-books out of the hands of the teacher, dis- fealtisfied to hear it sound differently from what they wanted, and read it themselves. The individual charac- ters are beginning to express themselves so definitely that we have experimented on making the pupils guess whose composition we have been reading, and the first class they guess without a mistake. ' Exigencies of space make us delay the description of the instruction in language and in other subjects, and the extracts from the diaries of the teachers ; here we shall only quote specimens from the writings of two students of the first class without change of orthography and punc- tuation marks, as given by them. Composition by B (an exceedingly poor pupil, but an original and lively boy) about Tula and about study. The composition about study was quite successful with the boys. B is eleven years old; this is his third winter at the Yasnaya Polydna school, but he has studied before. *' About Tiila : " On the following Sunday I again went to Tiila. When we arrived, Vladimir Aleksandrovich says to us and Vaska Zhdanov go to the Sunday school. We went, and went, and went, and barely found it, we come and we see that all the teachers set. And there I saw the teacher the one that taught us botany. So I say good morning gentlemen ! They say good morning. Then I ascended into the class, stood near the table, and I felt so lonely, THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLI'/nA 291 that I took and went about Tula. I went and went and I see a woman selling white-bread. I began to take my money out of my pocket, when I took it out I began to buy white-breads, I bought them and went away. And I saw also a man walking on a tower and looking where it is burning. I am through with Tula." " Composition of how I have been studying : " When I was eight years old, I was sent to the cattle- yard at Grumy. There I studied well. And then I felt lonely, I began to weep. And the old woman took a stick and began to beat me. And I cried worse than ever. And a few days later I went home -and told every- thing. And they took me away from there and gave me to Dilnka's mother. I studied well there and they never beat me there, and I learned the whole ABC there. Then they sent me to Fdka Demidovich. He beat me dreadfully. Once I run away from him, and he told . them to catch me. When they catched me they took me to him. He took me, stretched me out on a bench and took into his hands a bundle of rawds and began to strike me. And I cried with all my might, and when he had beat me he made me read. And he himself Ustens and says : ' What ? You son of a b , just see how badly you read ! Ah, what a swine ! ' " Now here are two specimens of Fddka's compositions : one on the presented therae ; the other, chosen by him- self, on his travel to Tula. (F^ka is studying the third winter. He is ten years old.) • " About grain : "Grain grows from the ground. At first it is green grain. When it grows up a little, there sprout from it ears and the women reap it. There is also grain like grass, that the cattle eat very well." That was the end of it. He felt that it was not good, and was aggrieved. About Tiila he wrote the following without corrections. 292 THE SCHOOL Al YifsNAYA POLyXnA « About Tula : " When I was small I was five years old ; then I heard the people went to some kind of Tula and I myself did not know what kind of a Tula it was. So I asked father. Dad ! to what kind of Tula do you travel, oh it must be fine ? Father says : it is. So I say, Dad ! take me with you, I will see Tiilt Father says well all right,,let the Sun- day come I will take you. I was happy began to run and jump over the bench. After those days came Sunday. I just got up iu the morning and father was already hitching the horses in the yard, I began to dress myself quickly. The moment I was dressed and went out into the yard, father had already hitched the horses. I sat down in the sleigh and I started. We travelled, and travelled, and made fourteen versts. I saw a tall church and I cried : father ! see what a tall church. Father says : there is a smaller church but more butiful, I began, to ask him, father let us go there, I will pray to God. , Father went. When we came, they suddenly rang the bell, I was frightened and asked father what it was, whether they were beating drums. Father says : no, mass is beginning. Then we went to church to pray to God. When we were through praying, we went to the market. And so I walk, and walk and stumble all the time, I kept looking around me. So we came to the market, I saw they were selling white-breads and wanted to take with- out money. And father says to me, do not take, or they will take your cap away. I say why wiU they take it, and father says, do not take without money, I say well give me ten Icopeks, I will buy me a small white-bread. Father gave me, I bought three white-breads and ate them up and I say: Father, what fine white-breads. When we bought everything, we went to the horses and gave them to drink, gave them hay, when they had eaten, we hitched up the horses and went home, went into the hut and undressed myself and began to tell everybody how THE SCHOOL AT T^SNATA POLtXnA 293 1 was in Tula, and how father and I were in church, and prayed to God. Then I fell asleep and I see in iny dream as though father was again going to Tula. I immediately awoke, and I saw all were asleep, I took and went to sleep." SACKED mSTOEY From the foundation of the school even up to the present time the instruction in sacred and Eussian history has been carried on in this manner : The children gather about the teacher, and the teacher, being only guided by the Bible, and for Eussian history by Pogddin's " Norman Period," and Vodovdzov's collection, tells the story, and then asks questions, and all begin to speak at the same time. When there are too many voices speaking at the same time, the teacher stops them, making them speak one at a time ; the moment one hesitates, he asks others. When the teacher notices that some have not understood anything, he makes one of the best pupils repeat it for the benefit of those who have not understood. This was not premeditated, but grew up naturally, and it has been found equally successful with five and with thirty pupils if the teacher follows all, does not allow them to cry and repeat what has once been said, and does not permit the shouts to become maddening, but regulates that stream of merry animation and rivalry to the extent to which he needs it. In the summer, during the frequent visits and changes of teachers, this order was changed, and the teaching of history was much less successful. The general noise was incomprehensible to the new teacher; it seemed to him that those who were telling the story through the noise would not be able to tell it singly ; it seemed to him that they holloaed only to make a noise, and, above all, he felt uncomfortably warm in the mass of those closely pressing on his back and to the very mouths of the boys. (In 294 THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLTiwA order to comprehend better, the children have to be close to the man who is speaking, to see every change of his facial expressions, every motion of his. I have observed more than once that those passages are best understood where the speaker makes a correct gesture or a correct intonation.) The new teacher introduced the sitting on benches and single answers. The one called out was silent and em- barrassed, and the teacher, looking aside, with a sweet expression of submission to fate, or with a meek smile, said, " Well, and then ? Well, very well ! " and so forth, — in that teacher's manner which we all know so well. Moreover, I have convinced myself in practice that there is nothing more injurious to the development of the child than that kind of single questioning and the author- itative relation of teacher to pupils, arising from it, and for me there is nothing more provoking than such a spectacle. A big man torments a httle fellow, having no right to do so. The teacher knows that the pupU is tormented, as he stands blushing and perspiring before him ; he himself feels uncomfortable and tired, but he has a rule by which a pupil may be taught to speak alone. Why one should be taught to speak singly, nobody knows. Perhaps in order to make the child read a fable in the presence of his or her Excellency. I shaU prob- ably be told that without it it is impossible to determine the degree of his knowledge. To which I shall answer that it is indeed impossible for an outsider to determine the knowledge of a pupil in an hour, while the teacher always feels the measure of that knowledge without the pupil's answer and without examinations. It seems to me that the method of this single asking is the reminiscence of an old superstition. Anciently the teacher, who made his pupil learn by heart everything, could not, in any other way, determine the knowledge of his pupil except vj making him repeat everything word for word. Then THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 295 it was found that the repetition of words learned by heart was not knowledge, and the pupils were made to repeat in their own words ; but the method of calling out singly and the demand of answering at the teacher's request was not changed. They left out of consideration that one may expect at any time and under all conditions that the pupil will repeat the words of the psalter or of a fable, but that, in order to be able to catch the contents of speech and to render it in his own words, the pupil must be in a certain favourable mood for it. Not ordy in the lower schools and in the gymnasia, but even in the universities, I do not understand examinations according to given questions otherwise than under a system of memorizing word for word, or sentence for sentence. In my day (I left the university in the year 1845), I studied before the examinations, not word for word, but sentence for sentence, and I received five only from those professors whose notes I had learned by heart. The visitors, who were so detrimental to the instruction in the Yasnaya Polyana school, in one way were very use- ful to me. They completely convinced me that the reci- tation of lessons and the examinations were a remnant of the superstitions of the mediaeval school, and that with the present order of things they were positively impossible and only injurious. Frequently I was carried away by a childish vanity, wishing in an hour's time to show to an honoured visitor the knowledge of the pupils, and it turned out either that the visitor convinced himself that the pupils knew that which they did not knew (I enter- tained him by some hocus-pocus) or that the visitor sup- posed that they did not know that which they knew very well. Such a tangle of misunderstandings took place be- tween me and the visitor — a clever, talented man and a specialist in his business — during a perfect freedom of relations ! What, then, must take place during the in- spections of directors, and so forth, — even if we leave 296 THE SCHOOL At TASNAYA POLYANA out of consideration that disturbance in the progress of teaching and the indefiniteness of ideas produced in the pupils by such examinations ? At the present time I am convinced of this : to make a r^sum^ of all the pupil's knowledge is as impossible for the teacher as it is for an outsider, just as it is impossible to make a r^sum^ of my own knowledge and yours in respect to any science whatsoever. If a forty-year-old man were to be taken to an examination in geography, it would be as stupid and strange as when a ten-year-old child is led to the examination. Both of them have to answer by rote, and in an hour of time it is impossible to find out their actual knowledge. In order to find out the knowledge of either, it is necessary to live for months with them. Where examinations are introduced (by examination I understand every demand for an answer to a question), there only arises a new subject, demanding special labour, special ability: that subject is called "preparation for examinations or lessons." A pupil in the gymnasium studies history, mathematics, and, the main subject, the art of answering questions at the examinations. I do not regard this art as a useful subject of instruction. I, the teacher, judge of the degree of my pupils' knowledge as correctly as I judge of the degree of my own knowledge, although neither the pupils nor I myself recite any les- sons. If an outsider wants to judge of the degree of that knowledge, let him live awhile with us and let him study the results of our knowledge and their applications to life. There is no other means, and all attempts at examination are only a deception, a lie, and an obstacle to instruction. In matters of instruction there is but one independent judge, the teacher, and only the pupils can control him. During the history lessons the pupils answer all at once, not in order that any one might verify their knowl- edge, but because they feel the need of strengthening by THE SCHOOL AT YASKAYA POLYANA 297 means of words the impression which they have received. In the summer neither the new teacher nor I understood that ; we saw in that only a verification of their knowl- edge, and so we found it more convenient to verify it singly. I did not th3n as yet reflect on the reason for its being tedious and bad, but my faith in the rule of the pupils' freedom saved me. The majority began to feel dull; three of the boldest boys always answered alone: three of the most timid were constantly silent and wept and received zeros. During the summer I neglected the classes of sacred history, and the teacher, a lover of order, had full liberty to seat the pupils on the benches, to torment them singly, and to murmur about the stubbornness of the children. I several times advised him to allow the children in the history class to leave the benches, but my advice was taken by the teacher as a sweet and pardonable originality (just as I know in advance that my advice will be regarded as such by the majority of readers), and the former order prevailed so long as the old teacher did not return, and it was only in the diary of that teacher that such entries were made : " I cannot get anything out of Savin ; Grishin did not tell a thing ; P^tka's stubbornness is a surprise to me, — he has not spoken a word ; Savin is even worse than before," and so forth. Savin is a ruddy, chubby boy, with gleaming eyes and long lashes, the son of an innkeeper or a merchant, in a tanned fur coat, in small boots that fit him well, as they are not his father's, and in a red cotton shirt and trousers. The sympathetic and handsome personahty of that boy struck me more especially because in the class of arithmetic he was the first, on account of the force of his imagination and merry animation. He also reads and writes not at all badly. But the moment he is asked a question he presses his pretty curly head sidewise, tears appear on his long lashes, and be looks as though h^ 298 THE SCHOOL AT YASKAYA POLYANA wanted to hide somewhere from everybody, and it is evi- dent that he is suffering beyond endurance. If he is made to learn by heart, he will recite a piece, but he is not able, or has not the courage, to express anything in his own words. It is either some fear inspired by his former teacher (he had studied before with a teacher of the clerical profession), or lack of confidence in himself, or his awkward position among boys who, in his opinion, stand below him, or aristocratism or annoyance that in this alone he is behind the rest and because he once showed himseK in a bad Ught, or his Httle soul was offended by some careless word escaped from the teacher, or all these causes acting together, — God knows which, — but his bashfulness, though not a good feature in itself, is certainly inseparably connected with everything that is best in his childish soul. It is possible to knock all that out with a physical or moral stick, but the danger is that' all the precious qualities, without which the teacher would find it hard to lead him on, might be knocked out at the same time. The new teacher listened to tny advice, dismissed the pupils from the benches, permitted them to crawl where- ever they pleased, even on his back, and that same day all began to recite incomparably better, so that the entry was made in the teacher's diary, " Stubborn Sdivin said a few words." There is in the school something indefinite, which almost does not submit to the guidance of the teacher, and that is the spirit of the school. This spirit is subject to certain laws and to the negative influence of the teacher, that is, the teacher must avoid certain things in order not to break up that spirit. The spirit of the school is, for example, always in inverse relation to the compul- sion and order of the school, in inverse relation to the interference of the teacher in the pupils' manner of think- ing, in direct relation to the number of pupils, in inverse THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLY^NA 299 relation to the duration of a lesson, and so on. This spirit of the school is something that is rapidly communi- cated from pupil to pupil, and even to the teacher, some- thing that is palpably expressed in the sound of the voice, in the eyes, the movements, the tension of the rivalry, — something very tangible,* necessary, and extremely pre- cious, and therefore something that ought to be the aim of every teacher. Just as the saliva in the mouth is neces- sary for the digestion, but is disagreeable and superfluous without food, even so this sfirit of strained animation, though tedious and disagreeable outside the class, is a necessary condition for the assimilation of mental food. It is impossible to invent and artificially to prepare this mood, nor is it necessary to do so because it always makes its appearance of its own accord. In the beginning of the -school I made mistakes. The moment a boy began to comprehend badly and unwill- ingly, when the so habitual dulness of the school came over him, I used to say, " Jump awhile ! " The boy began to jump ; others, and he with them, laughed ; and after the jumping the pupil was a different boy. But, after having repeated this jumping several times, it turned out that when I told the boy to jump he was overcome by a greater tedium, and he began to weep. -He saw that he was not in the mood in which he ought to be, and yet he was not able to control his own soul, and did not wish to allow anybody else to control it. A child and a man are receptive only when in an excited state, there- fore it is a great blunder to look upon the happy spirit of a school as upon an enemy, an obstacle, though we are often inclined to regard it as such. But when the animation in a large class is so strong that it interferes with a teacher in his attempt to guide the class, then one feels tempted to cry out against the children and to subdue that spirit. If that animation has the lesson for an object, then nothing better is to be 300 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLT^NA desired. But if the animation has passed over to another object, the fault is with the teacher who did not manage that animation properly. The problem of a teacher, which nearly every one carries out unconsciously, con- sists in constantly giving food to this animation and giving it the reins. You ask one pupil, and another wants to answer: he knows it, — he is bending over to you and gazing at you with both his eyes ; he is scarcely able to keep his words back ; he eagerly follows the story- teller and will not forgivf him a single mistake; ask him, and he will tell you impassionately, and that which he will tell you will for ever impress itself upon his mind. But keep him in this tension, without allowing him to talk for half an hour, and he will pass his time in pinching his neighbour. Another example : Walk out of a class of the county school, or from a German school, where it has been quiet, leaving the order that they are to proceed with their work, and half an ho'ir later listen at the door ; the class is animated, but the subject of the animation is different, it is the so-called mischievousness. We have often made this experiment in our classes. Leaving the class in the middle, when the shouting was at the loudest, we would return to the door to listen, and we would find that the boys continued to tell their stories, correcting and verifying each other, and frequently they would entirely quiet down, instead of being naughty without us. Just as with the order of seating the pupils on the benches and asking them questions singly, even so with this order there are simple rules which one must know and without which the first experiment may be a failure. One must watch the criers who repeat the last words said, only to increase the noise. It is necessary to see to it that the charm of the noise should not become their main purpose and problem. It is necessary to test some pupils, as to whether they are able to tell everything by THiE SCHOOL AT Yj^SNAtA POLTANA BOl themselves, and whether they have grasped the whole meauing. If there are too many pupils, they ought to be divided, into a number of divisions, and the pupils ought to tell the respective story to each other by divisions. There is no need of fearing because a newly arrived pupil does not open his mouth for a month. All that is necessary is to watch whether he is busy with the story or with something else. Generally a newly arrived pupil grasps only the material side of the matter, and is all rapt in observing how the pupils sit and lie, how the teacher's lips are moving, how they all cry out at once ; if he is a quiet boy, he will sit down just as the others do ; if he is bold, he will cry Hke the rest, without getting the meaning of what is said, and only repeating the words of his neighbour. The teacher and his companions stop him, and he understands that something else is meant. A little time will pass, and he will begin to tell a story. It is difficult to find out how and when the flower of com- prehension will open up in him. Lately I had occasion to watch such an opening of the bud of comprehension in a very timid girl who had kept silent for a month. Mr. U was telling something, and I was an outside spectator and made my observations. When all began to tell the story, I noticed that Mar- futka climbed down from the bench with the gesture with which story-tellers change the position of hearer to that of narrator, and came nearer. When all began to shout, I looked at her: she barely moved her lips, and her eyes were full of thought and animation. Upon meet- ing my glance, she lowered hers. A minute later I agaiu looked around, and she was again whispering something to herself. I asked her to tell the story, and she was completely lost. Two days later she told a whole story beautifully. The best proof that the pupils of our school remember 302 THK SCHOOL AT TiisNATA POLY^NA what is told them is found in the stories which they themselves write down from memory, given here with the correction of the orthographical mistakes only. Extract from the note-book of ten-year-old M : " God commanded Abraham to bring his son Isaac as an offering. Abraham took two servants with him. Isaac carried the wood and the fire, and Abraham carried the knife. When they came to Mount Hor, Abraham left his two servants there and himself went with Isaac up the mountain. Says Isaac : ' Father, we have every- thing, where, then, is the victim ? ' " Says Abraham : ' God has commanded me to sacrifice thee.' " So Abraham made a fire and put his son down. " Says Isaac : ' Father, bind me, or else I will jump up and kill thee.' "Abraham took and tied him. He just swung his arm, and an angel fiew down from the heavens and held back his arm and said : ' Abraham, do not place thine hand on thy young son, God sees thy faith.' " Then the angel says to him : ' Go into the bush, a wether is caught there, bring him in place of thy son,' and Abraham brought a sacrifice to God. "Then came the time for Abraham to marry off his son. They had a servant Eliezer. Abraham called up the servant and says he : ' Swear to me that thou wilt not take a bride from our town, but that thou wilt go where I send thee.' " Abraham sent him to Nahor in the land of Mesopo- tamia. Eliezer took the camels and went away. When he came to a well he began to speak : ' Lord, give me such a bride, as will come first, and will give to drink to me and also to my camels, — she shall be the bride of my master Isaac' " Eliezer had barely said these words, when a maiden came. Eliezer began to ask her to give him to drink. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA 303 She gave him to drink, and says she : ' Maybe thy camels want to drinlt.' " Says Eliezer : ' All right, give them to drink.' " She gave the camels to drink, then EUezer gave her a necklace, and says he : ' May I not stay overnight in your house ? ' " Says she : ' Thou mayest.' " When they came to the house, her relatives were eat- ing supper, and they put Eliezer down to eat supper. " Says Eliezer : ' I will not eat until I have said a word.' " Eliezer told it to them. " Said they : ' We are willing, how is she ? ' " They asked her, — she was willing. Then her father and mother blessed Eebecca, Eliezer sat down with her, and they rode away, and Isaac was walking over the field. Eebecca saw Isaac and she covered herself with a towel. Isaac went up to her, took her hand, and led her to his house, and they were married." From the note-book of the boy I E , about Jacob : " Rebecca had been sterile for nineteen years, then she bore twins, — Esau and Jacob. Esau was a hunter, and Jacob helped his mother. One day Esau went to kill beasts and he killed none and came home angry ; and Jacob was eating a mess of pottage. Esau came and says he : ' Let me have of that mess.' " Says Jacob : ' Give me thy birthright.' " Says Esau : ' Take it.' " ' Swear.' "Esau swore. Then Jacob gave Esau of the mess of pottage. " When Isaac grew blind, he said : ' Esau, go and kill me some venison ! ' " Esau went, Eebecca heard it, and gays she to Jacob : ' Go and kill two kids.' 304 THE SCHOOL AT TiCsTSTATA POLT/nA " Jacob went and killed two kids and brought them to his mother. She roasted them and wrapped Jacob in a skin, and Jacob brought the food to his father, and says he : ' I have brought thee thy favourite dish.' " Says Isaac : ' Come up nearer to me.' "Jacob came nearer. Isaac began to touch his hody, and says he : 'It is Jacob's voice and Esau's body.' " Then he blessed Jacob. Jacob just came out of the door, and Esau came in through the door, and says he: • Here, father, is thy favourite dish.' " Says Isaac : ' Esau was here before.' " ' No, father, Jacob has deceived thee,' and he himself went through the door, and wept, and says he : ' Let father die, and then I will get even with thee.' " Eebecca says to Jacob : ' Go and ask thy father's bene- diction and then go to thine uncle Laban.' " Isaac blessed Jacob, and he went to his uncle Laban. Here night overtook him. He stayed overnight in the field; he found a rock, put it under his head, and fell asleep. Suddenly he saw something in his dream, as though a ladder were standing from earth to heaven, and the angels were going up and down it, and on the top the Lord himself was standing, and says he : " ' Jacob, the land on which thou Mest I give to thee and to thy descendants.' " Jacob arose, and says he : ' How terrible it is here, evidently this is God's house, I will come back from there, and will build a church here.' Then he hghted a lamp, and he went on, — he saw shepherds herding some cattle. Jacob began to ask of them where his uncle Laban was living. " The shepherds said : ' There is his daughter, she is driving the sheep to water.' " Jacob went up to her, she could not push away the stone from the well. Jacob pushed the stone away and he watered the sheep, and says he : ' Whose daughter art thou?' THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLY^NA 305 " She replied : ' Laban's.' ■" I am thy cousia.' "They kissed each other and went home. Uncle Laban received him, and says he : ' Jacob, stay with me, 1 will pay thee.' " Says Jacob : ' I will not hve with thee for pay, but give me thy younger daughter Eachel.' " Says Laban : ' Live seven years with me, then will I give thee my younger daughter Eachel, for we have no right to give a younger daughter away sooner.' '- Jacob lived for seven years with his uncle, then Laban gave him Eachel." From the note-book of eight-year-old T F , about Joseph : " Jacob had twelve sons. He loved Joseph best of all, and had made for him a many-coloured dress. Then Joseph saw two dreams, and he told them to his brothers : ' It was as though we were reaping rye iu the field and we reaped twelve sheaves. My sheaf was standing straight, and the eleven sheaves were bowing before my sheaf.' " Say the brotliers : ' Is it really so that we shall bow to thee ? ' " And he had another dream : ' It was as though there were eleven stars in heaven, and the sun and moon were bowing to my star.' " Say father and mother : ' Is it possible we shall bow before thee ? ' "His brothers went a long distance away to herd cattle, then the father sent Joseph to take some food to his brothers. His brothers saw him, and say they : 'There comes our reader of dreams. Let us put him down in a bottomless well.' " Eeuben was thinking to himself : ' The moment they turn away, I will pull him out.' And there merchants came by. Says Eeuben : ' Let us sell liim to the Egyptian merchants.' 300 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLy/nA " They sold Joseph, and the merchants sold him to Potiphar the courtier. Potiphar loved him, and his wife loved him. Potiphar was absent somewhere, and his wife says to Joseph: "•'Joseph, let us kill my husband, and I will marry thee.' " Says Joseph : ' If thou gayest that a second time, I will tell thy husband.' " She took him by his garment and cried out loud. The serva.nts heard her and came rushing in. Then Potiphar arrived. His wife told him that Joseph had intended to kill him, and then to marry her. Potiphar ordered him to be put in jail. As Joseph was a good mau, he deserved well there, and he was made to look after the prison. Once upon a time Joseph went through the jail and saw two men sitting in sorrow. Joseph went up to them, and says he : " ' Why are ye so saddened ? ' " Say they : ' We have had two dreams in one night, and there is nobody to explain them to us.' " Says Joseph : ' What is it ? ' " The cupbearer began to tell him : ' I dreamt that I had picked three berries, squeezed the juice, and given it to the king.' " Says Joseph : ' Thou wilt be in thy place in three days.' " Then the steward began to tell : ' I dreamt that I carried twelve loaves in a basket, and the bird flew about and picked at the bread.' " Joseph said : ' Thou wilt be hanged in three days, and the birds will fly about and will pick thy body.' " And so it happened. Once Pharaoh had two visions in one night and he called together all his wise men, and they could not explain his dreams to him. The cup- bearer remembered and said : " ' I have a certain man in mind.' THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA SOV "The king sent his carriage for him. When he was brought, the king began to say : ' I dreamt that I stood on the bank of a river and there came out seven fat kine, and seven lean ones ; the lean ones threw themselves on the fat ones and ate them up and did not get fat.' " And he had another vision : ' I dreamt that there were growing seven full ears on one stalk, and seven empty ones ; the empty ones threw themselves on the full ones, ate them up, and did not grow full.' " Joseph said : ' This means that there will be seven fruitful years and seven hungry years.' " The king gave Joseph a gold chain over his shoulder and the riag from his right hand, and told him to build granaries." All that has been said refers to the teaching of sacred and Russian and natural history, of geography, partly of physics, chemistry, zoology, in general of all subjects except singing, mathematics, and drawing. About the instruction in sacred history in particular at that time I must say as follows : First, why the Old Testament is chosen before anything else. Not only was the knowledge of sacred history demanded by the pupils and their parents, but I also liscovered that of all oral information, which I had tried in the period of three years, nothing so fitted the com- prehension of the boys' minds as the Bible. The same thing was repeated in all the other schools which I had had occasion to examine in the beginning. I tried the New Testament, Eussian history, and geography; I tried the favourite subject of our day, — the explanations of the phenomena of Nature, — but all that was easily forgotten and was not readily listened to. On the other hand, the Old Testament was remembered and gladly repeated, with enthusiasm, both at school and at home, and it left such an impression upon the children that, two 308 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLy/nA months after it had been told to tfcem, they wrote down sacred history from memory ia their note-books, with but few omissions. It seems to me that the book of the childhood of the race will always be the best book of the childhood of each man. It seems to me impossible to put another book in its place. It seems to me injurious to change and shorten the Bible, as is done in Sonntag's text-books, and so forth. Everything, every word in it, is true, as revelation and as art. Eead about the creation of the world in the Bible and in the short Sacred History, and the transformation of the Bible in the Sacred History will appear quite unintelligible to you ; from the Sacred History you cannot learn otherwise than by memorizing, while in the Bible there is presented to the child a majes- tic and living picture, which he will never forget. The omissions in the Sacred History are quite unintelligible and only impair the character and beauty of Holy Scrip- ture. Why, for example, do all the sacred histories omit that when there was nothing, the Spirit of God was borne over the abyss, that God, haying created, surveyed His creation and saw that all was well, and that then it was morning and evening of such and such a day ? Why do they leave out that God breathed the soul through the nostrils, that, having taken out a rib from Adam, he filled up the place with flesh, and so forth ? Let uncor- rupted children read the Bible, and then you wiU under- stand to what extent that is necessary and true. It may be that spoiled young ladies must not get the Bible into their hands, but when I read to peasant children, I did not leave out a single word. And nobody giggled behind somebody's back, and all listened with trepidation and natural awe. The story of Lot and his daughters, the story of Judas, provoke horror, not laughter. How comprehensible and clear, particularly for a child, everything is, and, at the same time, how stern and seri- THE SCHOOL AT tXsNATA POLTjCnA 309 ous ! I can't understand what kind of an education would be possible if it were not for that book. And yet it seems if we learn these stories only in childhood and then partly forget them, — what good are they to us? And would it not be the same if we did not know them at all ? This seems so only so long as you do not teach others, when you have a chance to watch aU the elements of your own development in other children. It seems that it is possible to teach the children to write and read, to give them a conception of history, geography, and the phenomena of Nature, without the Bible and before the Bible ; and yet that is not done anywhere, — everywhere the child first learns the Bible, stories and extracts from it. The first relation of the teacher to the pupil is based upon that book. Such a universal phenomenon is not accidental. My absolutely free relation to the pupils in the beginning of the Ydsnaya Poly^na school helped me to find an explanation for this phenomenon. A child, or man, entering school (I make no distinction between one of ten, thirty, or seventy years of age), brings with him his familiar and favourite view of things, as taken away by him from life. In order that a man of any age whatsoever should begin to learn, it is necessary that he should like learning. In order that he should hke learning, he must recognize the falseness and insuffi- ciency of his view of things and he must divine the new world conception, which the instruction is to open to him. Not one man or child would be able to learn, if the future of his learning presented itself to him only as an art of reading, writing, and counting; not one teacher would be able to teach, if he did not have in his power a higher world conception than what the pupils have. In order that the pupil may entirely surrender himself to the teacher, there must be lifted for him one side of the shroud which has been concealing from him all the charm of that WQrld of thought, knowledge, and poetry, to which iu- 310 THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLY^NA struction was to introduce him. Only by being under the spell of that brilliant world ahead of him is the pupil able to work over himself in the manner in which we want him to. What means have we, then, to lift that edge of the curtain for the pupil ? As I have said, I thought, just as many think, that, being myself in that world to which I am to introduce the pupils, I could easily do so, and I taught the rudiments, I explained the phenomena of Nature, I told them, as it says in the A B C's, that the fruits of learning are sweet, but the pupils did not believe me and kept aloof. I tried to read the Bible to them, and I completely took possession of them. The edge of the curtain was lifted, and they surrendered themselves to me unconditionally. They fell in love with the book, with the study, and with me. All I had now to do was to guide them on. After the Old Testament I told them the New, and they loved studying and me more and more. Then I told them universal, Russian, and natural history, when we were through with the Bible ; they listened to everything, believed everything, begged to go on and on, and ever new perspectives of thought, knowledge, and poetry were opened up to tkem. It may be this was an accident. It may be that in some other school the same results were obtained by beginning in an entirely different manner. Maybe. But this accidentalness was repeated too invariably in all schools and in all families, and the explanation of this phenomenon is too apparent to me to permit of any assumption that it is accidental. There is no book like the Bible to open up a new world to the pupil and to make him without knowledge love knowledge. I speak even of those who do not look upon the Bible as a revelation. At least, there is no produc- tion that I know of, which unites aU the sides of human THE SCHOOL AT t/sNAYA POLYANA 511 thought in such a compressed poetical form as is to be found in the Bible. All the questions from the phenomena of Nature are explained by this book; all the primitive relations of men with each other, of the family, of the state, of religion, are for the first time consciously recog- nized in this book. The geueralizations of ideas, wisdom, in a childishly simple form, for the first time spell the pupil's mind. The lyricism of David's psalms acts not only upon the minds of grown pupils, but everybody for the first time learns from this book the whole charm of the epos in its inimitable simplicity and streugth. Who has not wept over the story of Joseph and his meeting with his brothers ? Who has not narrated with a sinking heart the story of Samson bound and deprived of his hair, as he, taking vengeance on his enemies, himself perishes under the ruins of the fallen palace, and a hundred other impressions, on which we have been brought up as on our mothers' milk ? Let those who deny the educational value of the Bible, who say that the Bible has outlived its usefulness, invent such a book, such stories, which explain the phenomena of Nature, or the phenomena from universal history, or from their imagination, which will be as readily received as the Biblical accounts, and then we shall admit that the Bible has outlived its usefulness. Pedagogy serves as a verification of very many vital phenomena, and of social and abstract questions. Materiahsm will then only have the Tight to announce itself a victor when the Bible of materialism shall be written, and the children are educated by that Bible. Owen's attempt cannot be regarded as a proof of such a possibility, just as the growth of a lemon-tree in a Moscow hothouse is not a proof that trees can grow without the open sky and the sun. I repeat my conviction, which, perhaps, is deduced from a one-sided experience. Without the Bible the 312 THE SCHOOL AT YXsKAYA POLYXNA development of a child or a man is unthinkable ' in our society, just as it was unthinkable in Greek society with- out Homer. The Bible is the only book for the first reading of children. The Bible, both as to its contents and to its form, ought to serve as a model of all manuals and readers for children. An idiomatic translation of the Bible would be the best popular book. The appearance of such a translation in our time would be an epoch in the history of the Eussian nation. Now as to the instruction in sacred history. All the short sacred histories in the Eussian language I consider a double crime: against its holiness, and against poetry. All these rifacimentos, having in view the facihty of the study of sacred history, only make it more difficult. The Bible is read as a pleasure, at home, leaning the head on the arm ; the abbreviated stories are learned by heart with the aid of a pointer. Not only are these short stories dull and incomprehensible, they also spoil the abiUty to understand the poetry of the Bible. I have observed more than once that bad, unintelhgible language impairs the receptiveness of the inner meaning of the Bible. Unintelligible words, however, such as occur in the Bible, are remembered together with the incidents; they arrest the attention of the pupils by their novelty, and, as it were, serve as guide-posts in their stories. Very frequently a pupil speaks only in order to make use of a pretty phrase for which he has taken a liking, and then the simphcity of imbibing the contents only is gone. I have also observed that pupils from other schools always Eeel much less or not at all the charm of the Bibhcal stories, which is destroyed by the necessity of memorizing and by the rude methods of the teacher connected with it. These pupils have even spoiled the younger pupils and their brothers, in the manner of whose narration there were reflected certain trite methods of the abbrevi- ated sacred histories. Such trite stories have, by means THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLY ANA 313 of these injurious books, found their way among the masses, and frequently the pupils bring with them from home peculiar legends of the creation of the world, of Adam, and of Joseph the Beautiful. These pupils do not experience that which the fresh pupils feel when they listen to the Bible and with trepidation Catch each word and think that now, at last, all the wisdom of the world will be revealed to them. I have always taught sacred history from the Bible, and I regard any other instruction as injurious. The New Testament is similarly told according to the Gospel and is later written down in note-books. The New Testament is not comprehended so well, and there- fore demands more frequent repetitions. Here are a few specimens from the stories of the New Testament. From the copy-book of the boy I M , about the Lord's supper : " Once upon a time Jesus Christ sent His disciples to the city of Jerusalem and said to them : ' If you come across a man with water, follow him and ask him : Master, show us a room where we can prepare the pass- over. He will show you, and you prepare it there.' " They went and saw what He had told them, and they prepared it. In the evening Jesus Himself went there with His disciples. During the supper Jesus Christ took off His garment and girded Himself with a towel. Then he took the laver and filled it with water and went to each disciple and washed his feet. When He went up to Peter and wanted to wash his feet, Peter said : " ' Lord ! Thou wilt never wash my feet.' " And Jesus Christ said to him : ' If I am not going to wash thy feet, thou wilt not be with Me in the Kingdom of Heaven.' " Then Peter was frightened and says he : ' Lord ! Not only my feet, but even my head and my whole body.' 314 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA rOLYAKA " And Jesus said to him : ' Only the pure one has to get his feet washed.' " Then Jesus Christ dressed Himself and sat down at the table, took the bread, blessed it and broke it and began to give it to His disciples, and He said : ' Take it and eat it, — it is My body.' " They took it and ate it. Then Jesus took a bowl of wine, blessed it, and began to carry it around to the dis- ciples, and He said: 'Take it and drink it, — it is My blood of the New Testament.' " They took it and drank it. Then Jesus Christ said : • One of you will betray Me.' " And the disciples began to say : • Lord, is it I ? ' " And says Jesus Christ : ' No.' " Then Judas says : ' Lord, is it I ! ' " And Jesus Christ said half-aloud : ' Yes.' " After that Jesus Christ said to His disciples : ' He to whom I shall give a piece of bread will betray Me.' " Then Jesus Christ gave Judas a piece of bread. Then Satau took his abode in him, so that he was abashed and went out of the room." From the copy-book of the boy E B : " Then Jesus Christ went with His disciples into the garden of Gethsemane to pray to God, and He said to His disciples : ' Wait for Me and do not sleep.' "When Jesus came and saw that His disciples were asleep. He wakened them and said : ' You could not wait one hour for Me.' " Then He went again to pray to God. He prayed to God and said : ' Lord, cannot this cup pass by ? ' and He prayed so long to God that He began to sweat blood. An angel flew down from heaven and began to fortify Jesus. Then Jesus returned to His disciples and said to them: ' Why are ye sleeping ? The hour is coming when the Son of man wiU give Himself up into the hands of His enemies,' THE SCHOOL AT yXsNAYA POLyXnA 315 " And Judas said to the high priest : ' Whom I shall kiss, that one take.' " Then the disciples went after Jesus and they saw a crowd of people. Judas went up to Jesus and wanted to kiss Him. So Jesus says : " ' Art thou betraying Me by a kiss ? ' and to the people He says : ' Whom are ye seeking ? ' " They said to Him : ' Jesus of Nazareth.' " Jesus said : ' I am He.' " With that word all fell." HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY Having finished the Old Testament, I naturally thought of teaching history and geography, both because these subjects are taught in all children's schools, just as I had learned them, and because the history of the Jews of the Old Testament seemed naturally to lead the children to the questions where, when, and under what conditions certain incidents had taken place, what Egypt was, aadi Pharaoh, and the Assyrian king, and so forth. I began history, as is always done, with antiquity, But neither Mommsen, nor Duncker, nor all my efforts, were able to make it interesting. They felt no interest in Sesostris, in the Egyptian pyramids, and in the Phceni- cians. I had hoped that questions, such as who the nations were that had anything to do with the Jews and where the Jews lived and wandered, would interest them ; but the pupils were in no need of this information. The Pharaohs and Egypt and Palestine, which have existed sometime and somewhere, do not in the least satisfy them. The Jews are their heroes, all the others are unnecessary, superfluous persons. I did not succeed in making heroes out of the Egyptians and Phoenicians for lack of material. No matter how much in detail we may know how pyramids were built, in what condition and 316 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA relation to each other the castes were, — what good is all that to us ? — to us, that is, the children ? In those his- tories there is no Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samson. There were a few things which they remembered and Hked in ancient history, such as Semiramis, and so forth, but that was retained only incidentally, not because it explained anything, but because it was artistic and fairy- Hke. But such passages were rare; the rest was dull, aimless, and I was compelled to abandon the study of universal history. I was confronted with the same failure in geography as in history. I sometimes tell them anything that occurs to me from Greek, English, Swiss history, without any connection, and only as an instructive and artistic fable. After universal history I had to experiment on our native Eussian history, and I began that cheerless Eussian history, which we know so well as neither artistic nor instructive, in the many remodelUngs from Ishimova to Vodovdzov. I began it twice : the first time before hav- ing finished the whole Bible, and the second time after it. Before the Bible had been read, the pupils absolutely refused to remember the existence of the Igors and Ol^gs. The same thing is repeated now with the younger pupils. Those who have not yet learned to enter into the meaning of what is told them from the Bible, and to render it in their own words, will listen to it for five times and will remember nothing about Eiirik and YarosMv. The oldest pupils now remember Eussian history and make notes of it, but nowhere near so well as they did with the stories from the Bible, and they ask for fre- quent repetitions. We tell them the stories from Vodo- vozov and from Pogddin's " Norman Period." One of the teachers was somehow carried away in his zeal, and, pay- ing no attention to my advice, did not leave out the feudal period, and landed in the hopeless tangle and non- sepse of the Mstislavs, Bryachislavs, arid Boleslavs, I THE SCHOOL AT YASKAYA POLt/NA 317 entered the class just as they were to recite. It is hard to deiscribe what really happened. All were silent for a long time. Finally, those who were called out by the teacher began to speak, some of them more boldly and with a better display of memory. All their mental powers were directed toward recalling the " funny " names, but what each of them had done was a matter of secondary importance. " So he, — what is it ? — Barikav, is it ? " began one, " went to, what do you call it ? " " Muslav, Lev Nikolaevich ? " a girl helps him out. " Mstislav," I say. " And put him to rout," proudly says one. " Hold on, there was a river there." " And his son collected an army and smashed it to rout, what do you call him ? " " I can't make it out," says a girl who has a memory like a blind person. " It is such a funny thing," says S^mka. " What is it, anyway, — Mislav, Chislav ? The devil can't make out what it is good for ! " " Don't bother me if you do not know any better ! " " You know much ! You are awfully clever." " Don't push me ! " Those who have the best memories tried it once more and managed to say something if they were helped out. But all that was so monstrous, and it was such a pity to see these children (they were like hens to whom grain had been thrown out before and now sand is given, when they suddenly become perplexed, begin to cackle, are all in a flutter, and ready to pick each other's feathers), that the teacher and I decided never again to make such mis- takes. We passed beyond the feudal period in continuing Kussian history, and bere is what comes of it in the copy- books of the older pupils. From the copy-book of pupil V R : 318 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLtXnA " Our ancestors were called Slavs. They had neither tsars, nor princes. They were divided into families, attacked each other, and went to war. Once the Nor- mans fell upon the Slavs, and they conquered them, and levied a tribute. Then they say : ' Why are we living thus ? Let us choose a prince, that he may rule over us.' They chose Eurik, with his two brothers Sineus and Tru- vor. Rurik settled in LMoga, Sineus in Izborsk with the Kriviches, Truvdr at the Byeldzero. When those brothers died, Riirik took their places. " Then two of them went to Greece, — Askdld and Dir, — and they stopped in Kiev and said: 'Who is ruling here ? ' "The Kievans said: 'There were three here: Ki, Shchek, and Khoriv. Now they are dead.' " Ask<51d and Dir said : ' All right, we shall rule over you.' " The people agreed to it and began td pay tribute. " Then Riirik ordered cities and fortresses to be built, and he sent out the boyars to collect the tribute and bring it to him. Then Riirik made up his mind to go to war against Constantinople with two hundred boats. When he rode up to that city, the emperor was not there. The Greeks sent for him. The people prayed to God all the time. Then the archpriest brought out the garment of the Holy Virgin and dipped it in the water, and there rose a terrible storm, and all the boats of Rurik were scattered. Very few of them were saved. Then Rurik went home and there died. There was left one son, Igor. '" When he was small Ol^g took his place. He wanted to conquer Kiev; he took Igor with him and travelled straight down the Dnieper. On his way he conquered the cities of Lyiibich and Smolensk. When they reached Kiev, Ol^g sent his messengers to Askdld and Dir to say that merchants had come to see them, and himself hid THE SCHOOL AT YASN4YA POLYANA 319 half of the men in boats, and half he left behind. When Ask61d and Dir came ov.'j v/ith a small retinue, OMg's army jumped out from underneath the boats and rushed against them. Then OMg lifted up Igor and said : " ' You are no princes and not of a princely race, but here is the prince.' " Then Oldg ordered them to be killed and conquered Kiev. Ol^g remained there, made that city a capital, end called it the mother of all Eussian cities. Then he ordered cities and fortresses to be buUt, and sent the boyars to collect tribute, and they brought it to him. Then he went to wage war with the neighbouring tribes, and he conquered very many of them. He did not want to wage war with peaceful men, but with brave men, Then he got ready to go against Greece, and we went down the Dnieper. "When he had travelled down the Dnieper, he went over the Black Sea. When he reached Greece, his army leaped upon the shore and began to burn and pillage everything. Says Ol^g to the Greeks : ' Pay us a tribute, — a grivna for each boat.' They were glad and began to pay them the tribute. Here Ol^g col- lected three hundred puds and went home again." From the copy-book of pupil V M : " When OMg died, Igor, the son of Eurik, took his place. Igor wanted to get married. Once he went out to disport himself with his retinue, — he had to swim across the Dnieper. Suddenly he saw : a girl was swim- ming in a boat. When she reached the shore, Igor said : ' Put me in.' She put him in. Then Igor married her. Igor wanted to distinguish himself. So he collected an army and went to war, straight down the Dnieper, ■ — hot to the right, but to the left, from the Dnieper into ^the Black Sea, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. Igor sent messengers to the kagan to let him pass through the field ; when he should return from the war, he would give him half his booty. The kagan let him through. 8i!0 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLTXNA When they came near to the city, Igor ordered the people to come out on the shore, to burn and cut everything and to take prisoners. When they were through with their work, they began to rest. When they were through rest- ing, they went home in great joy. They came up to the city of the kagan, — Igor sent to the kagan what he had promised. The people heard that Igor was coming from the war, so they began to ask the kagan to allow them to avenge themselves on igor, because Igor had spilled the blood of their relatives. The kagan told them not to, but the people did not obey him and began to wage war, — there was a mighty battle. The Eussians were worsted, and everything was taken away from them which they had conquered." There is no vital interest in this, as the reader may see from the extracts quoted. Eussian history goes better than universal history, only because they were accus- tomed to assimilate and write down what had been told them, and also because the question, " What is this for ? " is less apphcable here. The Eussian people is their hero just as the Jewish nation has been. The Jewish, because it was God's favourite nation, and because its history is artistic. The Eussian, although it has no artistic right to be their hero, because the national feehng speaks for it. But this instruction is dry, cold, and tedious. Un- fortunately, the history itself very seldom gives occasion for the national sentiment to triumph. Yesterday I went out from my class to the class of history iu order to find out the cause of the animation which I could hear from the other room. It was the battle at Kulikdvo. All were agitated. " Now that is history ! It is great ! — Listen, Lev NikoMevich, how he scared away the Tartars ! — Let me tell it to you ! " " No, I ! " cried several children. " How the blood flowed in a stream ! " THE SCHOOL AT YASISTAYA POLTANA 321 Nearly all were able to tell it, and all were enthusiastic. But if only the national feeling is to be satisfied, what will there be left of the whole history ? The years 1612, 1812, and that is all. You cannot go through the whole of history by responding to the national feeling. I under- stand that it is possible to employ the historical tradition in order always to satisfy the artistic interest inherent in children, but that will not be history. For the instruc- tion of history we need the preliminary development of the historical sentiment in children. How is that to be done? I have frequently had occasion to hear that the teach- ing of history ought to be begun, not from the beginning, but from the end, that is, not with ancient, but with modern history. This idea is essentially true. How can a child be told and made interested in the beginning of the Russian realm, when he does not know what the Eussian realm, or realm in general, is ? He who has had anything to do with children ought to know that every Eussian child is firmly convinced that the whole world is just hke Eussia, in which he is hving ; the same is true of a French or a German child. Why are children, and even grown-up, childishly naive men, always surprised to hear that German children speak German ? The historical interest generally, makes its appearance after the artistic interest. It is interesting for us to know the history of the foundation of Eome because we know what Rome was in her flourishing time, just as the child- hood of a man whom we recognize as great is interesting. The antithesis of her might with an insignificant crowd of fugitives is for us the essence of history. We watch the evolution of Eome, having before our imagination the picture of that which she finally reached. We are inter- ested in the foundation of the Moscow tsardom, because we know what the Eussian Empire is. According to my observation and experience, the first germ of the historic 322 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA interest makes its appearance as the result of the knowl- edge of contemporaneous history, and frequently as the result of a participation in it, through pohtical interest, pohtical opinions, debates, reading of newspapers, and therefore the idea of beginning history with the present must naturally present itself to every thinking teacher. I made these experiments in the summer ; I then wrote them down, and shall adduce one of them here. The first lesson of history. 1 had the intention of explaining at the first lesson in what way Eussia differed from other countries, what its borders were, the characteristic of the governmental struc- ture, of telling them who was reigning now, and how and when the emperor ascended the throne. Teacher. Where do we live, in what country ? A pupil. In Yasaaya Polyana. Another pupil. In the field. Teacher. No, in what country is Yasnaya Polyana, and the Government of Tula ? Pupil. The Government of Tula is seventeen versts from us. Where is it? The Government is a Govern- ment and that is all there is to it. Teacher. No. That is the capital of the Government, but a Government is something different. WeU, what land is it ? Pupil (loho had heard geography hefore). The earth is round like a ball. By means of questions as to what country a German, whom they knew, had lived in before, and where they would get if they were to travel all the time in one direc- tion, the pupils were led up to answer that they hved in Eussia. Some, however, replied to the question where we should get if we travelled all the time in one direction, that we should get nowhere. Others said that we should get to the end of the world. Teacher (repeating the pupil's answer). You said that THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA rOLYANA '6T6 we should come to some other countries ; where will Eussia end and other countries begin ? Pupil. Where the Germans begin. Teacher. So, if you meet Gustav Ivanovich and Karl F^dorovich in Tula, you will say that the Germans have begun and that there is a new country ? Pupil. No, when the Germans begin thick. Teacher. No, there are places in Eussia where the Ger- mans are thick. Ivan Fdrmich is from one of them, and yet that is stiU Eussia. Why is it so ? Silence. Teacher. Because they obey the same laws with the Eussians. Pupil. One law ? How so ? The Germans don't come to our church and they eat meat on fast-days. Teacher. Not that law, but they obey one tsar. Pupil (skeptical SemJca). That is funny ! Why have they a different law, and yet obey the Tsar ? The teacher feels the need of explaining what a law is, and so he asks what is meant by " obeying a law, being under one law." Girl (independent manorial girl, hurriedly and timidly). To accept the law means " to get married." The pupils look interrogatively at the teacher. The teacher begins to explain that the law consists in putting a man in jail and in punishing him for stealing or killing. Skeptic Semka. And have not the Germans such a law ? Teacher. There are also laws with us about the gentry, the peasants, the merchants, the clergy (the word " clergy " perplexes them). Skeptic Semka. And the Germans have them not ? Teacher. In some countries there are such laws, and in others there are not. We have a Eussian Tsar, and in the German countries there is a German Tsar. This answer satisfies all the pupils and even skeptical S^mka. 324 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA Seeing the necessity of passing over to the e:tplanation of the classes, the teacher asks them what classes of society they know. The pupils begin to count them out : the gentry, the peasants, the popes, the soldiers. " Any more ? " asks the teacher. " The manorial servants, the burghers, the samovdr-makers." The teacher asks them to distinguish these classes. Pupils. The peasants plough, the manorial servants serve their masters, the merchants trade, the soldiers serve, the samovar-makers get the samovars ready, the popes serve mass, the gentry do nothing. The teacher explains the real distinction of the classes, but in vain tries to make clear the need of soldiers when there is no war on, — only as a protection of the state against attacks, — and the occupations of the gentry in government service. The teacher endeavours to explain to them in what way Eussia differs geographically from the other countries by saying that the whole earth is divided into different states. The Russians, the French, the Germans, divided up the whole earth and said to themselves : " So far is mine, and so far is thine," so that Eussia, like the other countries, has its borders. Teacher. Do you understand what boundaries are ? Let anybody explain them to me. Pupil (bright, hoy). Beyond Tiirkin Height there is a boundary (this boundary is a stone post standing on the road to Tula from Yasnaya Polyana and indicating the beginning of Tula County). ,111 the pupils are satisfied with this definition. The teacher sees the need of pointing out the bound- aries in a familiar locality. He draws the plan of two rooms and shows the boundary which separates them ; he brings a plan of the village, and the pupils themselves recognize certain boundaries. The teacher explains, that is, he thinks that he explains, that as the land of Yasnaya Polyana has its boundaries, even so Eussia has borders. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYi^NA 325 He flatters himself with the hope that all have understood him, but when he asks them how to find out how far it is from our locality to the boundaries of Eussia, the pupils answer, without the least hesitation, that that is easy, that all that is necessary is to measure the distance with a yardstick. Teacher. In what direction ? , Pupil. Just take it from here to the boundary and write down how much it is. We again pass over to the drawings-, plans, and maps. It is found that they need an idea of the scale, which is entirely absent from them. The teacher proposes to draw a plan of the village laid out along the street. We begin drawing on the board, but the village does not get on it because the scale is too large. We rub it out and begin anew on a small scale on a slate. The idea of scale, plan, boundary, is getting clearer. The teacher repeats all that has been said and asks what Russia is and where its ends are. Pupil. The country in which we live and in which Germans and Tartars live. Another Pupil. The country which is under the Rus- sian Tsar. Teacher. But where are its ends ? Girl. There where the infidel Germans begin. Teacher. The Germans are not infidels. The Ger- mans, too, beheve in Christ. (Explanation of rehgions and creeds.) Pupil (^zealously, apparently happy to have recalled something). In Eussia there are laws that he who kills is put in jail, and there are all kinds of people, clergy- people, soldiers, gentry. Semka. Who feeds the soldiers ? Teacher. The Tsar. That's why money is taken from everybody, for they serve for all. The teacher explains what the Grown J9, and maoagef! 326 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLYANA to make them repeat some way or other what bound- aries are. The lesson lasts about two hours. The teacher is con- vinced that the pupils have retained a great deal of what has been said, and continues his following lessons in the same strain, and convinces himself only much later that his method was wrong and that aU that which he has been doing was the merest nonsense. I involuntarily fell into the habitual error of the Socra,tic method, which in the German Anschauungsun- terricht has reached the highest degree of monstrosity. I did not give the pupils any new ideas in these lessons, thinking all the time that I was giving them, and it was only due to my moral influence that I made the children answer as I pleased. Russia, Russian, remained the same unconscious tokens of something hazy and indefinite be- longing to them, to us. Law remained the same unintel- ligible word. I made these experiments about six months ago and at first I was exceedingly well satisfied and proud of them. Those to whom I read them said that it was uncommonly good and interesting ; but after three weeks, during which time I was not able to work in the school, I tried to continue what I had begun, and I convinced my- self that what I had done before was nonsense and self- deception. Not one pupil was able to tell me what a boundary was, what Russia, what a law was, and what were the boundaries of Krapivensk County. Everything they had learned they had now forgotten, and yet they knew it all in their own fashion. I was convinced of my mistake ; but what is not determined by me is whether the mistake consisted in the wrong method of instruction or in the very thought ; maybe there is no possibility, up to a certain period of a general development and without the aid of newspapers and travel, of awakening in the child a historical and geographical interest ; maybe that method will be found (I am still endeavouring to find it) THE SCHOOL AT YA8NAYA POLYANA 327 by means of whicli it will be possible to do it. I know this much, that the method will in no way consist in what is called history and gepgraphy, that is, in studying out of books, which kills and does not rouse these inter- ests. I have also made other experiments in teaching modem history, and they have been very successful. I told them the history of the Crimean campaign, and the reign of Emperor Nicholas, and the year 1812. All this I told almost in a fairy-tale tone, as a rule, historically incor- rect, and grouping the events about some one person. The greatest success was obtained, as was to have been expected, by the story of the war with Napoleon. This class has remained a memorable event in our life. I shall never forget it. The children had long been prom- ised that I should tell them history from its end, while another teacher would begin from the beginning, so that we should finally meet. My evening scholars had left me, and I came to the class of Eussian history. They were talking about Svyatoslav. They felt dull. On a tall bench sat, in a row, as always, . three peasant girls, their heads tied with kerchiefs. One was asleep. Mishka pushed me : " Look there, our cuckoos are sitting there, — one is asleep." And they were like cuckoos ! " You had better tell us from the end," said some one, and all arose. I sat down and began to talk. As always, the hub- bub, the groans, the tussling, lasted about two minutes. Some were climbing uncler the table, some on the table, some under the benches, and on their neighbours' shoulders and knees, and all was silent. I began with Alexander I., told them of the French Revolution, of Napoleon's suc- cesses, of hi^ seizing the government, and of the war which ended in the peace of Tilsit. The moment we reached Eussia there were heard sounds and words of lively interest on all sides. S2S THE SCflOOL At tjfsKAtA POLT^NA " Well, is he going to conquer us too ? " " Never mind, Alexander will give it to him ! " said some one who knew about Alexander, but I had to disappoint them, — the time had not yet come for that, — and they felt bad when they heard that the Tsar's sister was spoken of as a bride for Napoleon, and that Alexander spoke with him on the bridge, as with an equal. "Just wait!" exclaimed P^a, with a threatening gesture. " Go on and tell us ! " When Alexander did not submit to him, that is, when Alexander declared war against him, all expressed their approbation. When Napoleon came against us with twelve nations, and stirred up the Germans and Poland, their hearts sank from agitation. A German, a friend of mine, was standing in the room. "Ah, you were against us, too," said P^tka (the best story-teller). " Keep quiet ! " cried the others. The retreat of our army tormented the hearers, and on all sides were asked questions why ? and curses were heaped on Kutiizov and Barclay. " Your Kutiizov is no good ! " " Just wait," said another. " Well, did he surrender ? " asked a third. When we reached the battle at Borodind, and when in the end I was obliged to say that we did not gain a victory, I was sorry for them, — it was evident that I gave them all a terrible blow. " Though our side did not win, theirs did not either ! " When Napoleon came to Moscow and was waiting for the keys and for obeisances, there was a clatter from a consciousness of being in conquerable. The conflagration of Moscow was, naturally, approved by all. Then came the victory, — the retreat. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLyXnA 329 •■' When he came out of Moscow Kuttizov rushed after him and went to fight him," I said. " He made him rear up ! " P^dka corrected me. F^dka, red in his face, was sitting opposite me, and from excitement was bending his thin, tawny fingers. That is his habit. The moment he said that, the whole room groaned from a feeling of proud ecstasy. A little fellow in the back row was being crushed, but nobody paid any attention to it. " That's better ! There, take the keys now ! " and so forth. Then I continued about our pursuit of the French. It pained the children to hear that some one was too late at the Berezina and that we let them pass ; P^tka even groaned with pain. " I should have shot him to death for being late." Then we even pitied a httle the frozen Frenchmen. Then, when we crossed the border, and the Germans, who had been against us, joined us, some one recalled the German who was standing in the room. " How is that ? At first you are against us, and when the power is losing, you are with iis ! " and suddenly all arose and shouted against the German so that the noise could be heard in the street. When they quieted down, I continued telling them about our following up Napoleon as far as Paris, placing the real king on the throne, cele- brating our victory, and feasting. But the recollection of the Crimean War spoiled our whole business. " Just wait," said P^tka, shaking his fist, " let me grow up and I will show them ! " If we had now had a chance at , the Shevardino redoubt and at Mount Malakhdv, we should certainly have taken it back. It was late when I finished. As a rule the children are asleep at that time. No one was sleeping, and the eyes of the Ijttk Quckoos were burniag. Just as I got up, 33U THE SCHOOL AT YiCSNAYA POLYXNA Tax&sksL crawled out from underneath my chair, to my great astonishment, and looked lively and at the same time seriously at me. " How did you get down there ? " " He has been there from the start," some one said. There was no need asking him whether he had under- stood, —that could be seen from his face. " Well, are you going to tell it ? " I asked. "I?" He thought awhile. "I will tell the whole thing." " I will teU it at home." " I too." "And I." "IsthataU?" " Yes." All flew down under the staircase, some promising to give it to the Frenchmen, others rebuking the German, and others repeating how Kutiizov had made him rear up. " Sie haben ganz Bussisch erzdhlt," the German who had been hooted said to me in the evening. " You ought to hear how they tell the story in our country! You have said nothing about the German struggles for freedom." I fully agreed with him that my narrative was not history, but a fanciful tale rousing the national sentiment. Consequently, as a study of history, this attempt was even less successful than the first; In teaching geographj' I did the same. I first began with physical geography. I remembier the first lesson. I began it, and immediately lost my way. It turned out, what I should never have suspected, that I did not know that which I wanted ten-year-old peasant boys to know. I could explain night and day to them, but was completely at a loss to explain summer and winter. Feeling ashamed of my ignorance, I studied up the matter ; later I asked many of my acquaintances, educated people, and nobody. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLyInA 331 except such as had lately left school or as were teachers, was ahle to explain it to me well without a globe. I ask all my readers to verify this statement. I aver that out of one hundred people only one knows it, although all the children leam it. Having studied it up well, I again began to explain it and, as I imagined, had, with the help of a candle and a globcj given them an excellent idea of it. I was listened to with great attention and interest. (It gave them especial pleasure to know that which their fathers did not believe, and to be able to make a display of their wisdom.) At the end of my explanation, skeptic S^mka, the most intelhgent of all, stopped me with the question : "How is it the earth is moving and our house is all the time stand- ing in the same spot ? It ought to get off its old place." I saw that I had in my explanations gone a thousand versts ahead of the most intelligent pupil ; what kind of an idea must those have formed who were least intelli- gent? I went hack, — talked, drew, and adduced aU the proofs of the sphericity of the earth : voyages around the earth, the appearance of the mast of a ship before the deck is seen, and so forth, and, consoling myself with the thought that now they must have understood, I made them write out the lesson. All wrote: " The earth is like a ball,' — first proof — second proof;" the third proof they had forgotten and asked me to tell them. It was quite ap- .parent that the main thing for them was to remember the " proofs." N"ot only once, or ten times, but a hundred times I returned to these explanations, and always with- out success. At an examination all pupils would answer the questions satisfactorily ; but I felt that they did not understand, and, considering that I myself did not get a good idea of the matter before the age of thirty, I gladly excused them for their lack of comprehension. As I had taken it on faith in my childhood, so they now took my 332 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA word that the earth was round, and so forth, though they did not comprehend a thing. It is even now easier for me to understand — as my nurse had impressed it upon me in my first childhood — that earth and sky meet at the end of the world, and that there, at the end of the earth, the women are wash- ing their linen, putting their beetles away upon the sky. Our pupils had long ago been confirmed, and they still persist in conceptions that are the very opposite to what I am trying to instil in them. It will be necessary for a long time to break down the explanations which they have, and all that world conception, which has not yet been impaired by anything, before they will be able to comprehend. The laws of physics and mechanics will be the first completely to shatter their old conceptions. But they, like me, like all the rest, began physical geography _before they had had physics. In the teaching of geography, as in all other subjects, the commonest, most serious and detrimental error is haste. We act as though we were so happy to have found out that the earth is round and moves around the sun that we hurry to inform the' pupil of the fact. But what is really worth knowing is not that the earth is round, but the manner in which that information was obtained. Very frequently children are told that the sun is so many billions of versts distant froin the earth, but that is not at all a matter of surprise or interest to the child. What he wants to know is how that was found out. If any one wants to talk about that let him tell about parallaxes. That is quite possible. The only reason why I dwelt so long on the roundness of the earth is because what is said about it refers to the whole of geog- raphy. Out of a thousand educated people, outside of teachers and pupils, one knows well why there is summer and winter, and where Guadeloupe is ; out of a thousand children not; one understands in his childhood the expla- Titfi SCHOOL AT tXsNAYA fOLt^NA 3S3 nations of the sphericity of the earth and not one helieves in the reahty of Guadeloupe, and yet all are persistently taught both from early childhood. After physical geography I began the parts of the world with their characterizations, and of that whole matter nothing was left but their vying in the ability to cry : " Asia, Africa, Austraha ; " and if I asked them : " In what part of the world is France ? " (having told them but a minute before that England and France were in Europe) somebody called out that France was in Africa. I could see the question " Why ? " in each dim vision, in every sound of their voices, whenever I began geography with them, — and there was no answer to that sad question " Why ? " Just as in history the simple thought was to begin with the end, so in geography the thought naturally oc- curred to begin with the schoolroom, with our native vUlage. I had seen these experiments in Germany, and I myself, discouraged by the failure of the usual geog- raphy, took up the description of the room, the house, the village. As drawings of plans, such exercises are not devoid of usefulness, but it is not interesting for them to know what land lies beyond our village, because they all know that there is the village of Telyatinki. And it is not interesting to know what lies beyond Telya- tinki, because there, no doubt, is just such a village as Telyatinki, and Telyatinki with its fields is absolutely uninteresting. I tried to put up for them geographical guide-posts, such as Moscow, Kiev, but all that arranged itself so dis- connectedly in their minds that they learned it by heart. I tried to draw maps, and that interested them and really aided their memories ; but again the question arose why their memories should be aided. I also tried to teU them about the polar and equatorial regions, — they listened with pleasure and recited well, but they memorized only 334 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYANA that which was not of a geographical nature in these stories. The main trouble was that the drawing of the plans of the village was drawing of plans, and not geog- raphy; the drawing of maps was drawing of maps, and not geography ; the stories about animals, forests, iceberigs, and cities were fairy-tales, and not geography. The geog- raphy was only a learning of something by heart. Of all the books, — Griibe, Biernadski, — not one was in- teresting. One little book, forgotten by all, which resembles a geography, was read with greater enjoyment than all the rest, and in my opinion is the best specimen of what ought to be done in order to prepare children for the study of geography and stir up the geographical interest in them. That book is " Parley," a Eussian translation of the year 1837. That book is read, but mainly serves as a guiding string for the teacher, who in accordance with it tells what he knows of each country and city. The children recite, but rarely retain a name or a place on the map, which refers to the event described, — there are mainly the events alone that are left. However, this class be- longs more properly to the category of conversations, of which we shall speak in their proper place. In spite of all the art with which the study of unnecessary names is masked in this book, in spite of all the care which we took with it, the children lately scented our purpose to inveigle them by prettj' stories, and have acquired a positive distaste for this class. I finally came to the conclusion that, in respect to history, there is not only no need of knowing the dull Eussian history, but that Cyrus, Alexander the Great, Csesar, and Luther are not necessary for the development of any child. All these persons and events are interesting for the student, not to the extent of their importance in history, but to the extent of the artistic composition of their activities, to the extent of the artistic treatment of THE SCHOOL AT TASNATA POLTiNA 335 them by the historian, and even more so — not by the historian, but by the popular tradition. The story of Eomulus and Eemus is interesting, not because these brothers were the founders of the mightiest empire in the world, but because it is entertaining, funny, and nice to hear about their having been nurtured by the she-wolf, and so forth. The story of the Gracchi is interestiug because it is as artistic as the history of Gregory VII. and the humiliated emperor, and it is possible to get the pupils' attention by it ; but the story of the migration of the nations will be dull and aimless, because its contents are not artistic, just as the story of the art of priating is not interesting, no matter how much we may try to im- press the pupils with the idea that it forms an epoch in history, and that Gutenberg was a great man. Tell them well how matches were invented, and they will never agree with you that the inventor of matches was a lesser man than Gutenberg ; in short, for the child, for the student in general, who has not yet begun to Hve, there does not exist the historical interest, let alone the iaterest of uni- versal humanity. There is only the artistic interest. It is said that when all the material has been worked out, it will be possible to give an artistic exposition of all the periods of history, — I do not see it. Macaulay and Thiers may no more be given into their hands than Tacitus and Xenophon. In order to make history popular, the artistic exterior is not sufficient; the historical phenomena have to be per- sonified, just as tradition, sometimes life itself, sometimes great thinkers and historians, personify them. Children like history only when its contents are artistic. There is no historical interest for them, nor ever can be, conse- quently there can be no such a thing as history for children. History sometimes serves only as material for an artistic development, and so long as the historical interest is not developed, there can be no history. Bertet, 336 THE SCHOOL AT t/sNAYA POLTANA Kayddnov, after all, remain the only manuals. There is an old anecdote that the history of the Medes is dark and fabulous. Nothing else can be made out of history for children, who do not understand the historical interest. The contrary attempts to make history and geography artistic and interesting, Grube's biographical sketches, Biernadski, satisfy neither the artistic nor the historical demands, nor do they satisfy consistency and the histor- ical interest, and at the same time with their details they expand to impossible dimensions. The same is true of geography. When Mitrof ^nushka ^ was being persuaded to study geography, his mother said : '' What is the use of teaching him all kinds of countries ? His coachman will know how to get him there, when there is any need." There has never been brought forward a stronger argument against geography, and all the learned men of the world are unable to make any reply to this imperturbable argument. I am quite serious. What use was there in my studying about the river and city of Barcelona if, having lived thirty-three years, I have not once needed that information ? But for the development of my mental powers, the most picturesque description of Barcelona and its inhabitants could do nothing, so far as I can see. What use is there in S^mka's and F^dka's knowing anything about the Mariinsk canal and the waterways if, as is to be supposed, they will never get there ; but if S^mka should have an occasion to go there, it will make no difference whether he has studied it or not, for he will find out in practice, and he will find out well, all about this waterway. I am quite unable to see how, for the development of his mental powers, he will be helped by the knowledge that hemp goes down the Vdlga, and tar comes up that river, that there is a harbour by the name of Dubdvka, and that a certain subterrajieau ' In Fou-Vfzin's comedy, " The Minor.'' THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLy/nA 33? layer goes to a certain place, and that the Samoydds travel on reindeer, and so forth. I have a whole world of mathematical and natural science information, of language and poetry, which time is too short to transmit; there is an endless number of questions from the phenomena of hfe surrounding me, to which the pupil demands an answer, and which I must answer before drawing for him pictures of the polar ice, of the tropical countries, of the mountains of Austraha, and of the rivers of America. In history and geography, experience tells us one and the same thing, and everywhere confirms our thoughts. Everywhere the teaching of history and of geography proceeds badly. In view of the examinations, the pupils memorize the names of mountains, cities and rivers, kings and emperors. The only possible text-books are, then, those by Arsdnev and Oboddvski, Kayddnov, Smaragdov, and Bertet, and everywhere one hears complaints about the instruction in these subjects, and all are seeking for something new which they do not find. It is curious to hear men recognize the incompatibihty of the demands of geography with the spirit of the students throughout the world, and in consequence of this invent a thousand ingenious means (such as Sidov's method) in order to make the children remember words ; but the simplest thought that the whole geography is unnecessary, that there is no need of knowing these words, never enters anybody's mind. All attempts at combining geography with geology, zoology, botany, ethnography, and I do not know with what else, and history with biography, remain empty dreams which result in such worthless books as that by Grube, which are of no use for the children, nor for youths, nor for teachers, nor for the public at large. Indeed, if the compilers of these seemingly new text- books of geography and history only thought what it is they want, and if they themselves were to apply theii 338 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYiClfA books to instruction, they would soon convince themselves of the impossibility of their undertaking. In the first place, geography in connection with the nat- ural sciences and ethnography would form such an exten- sive science that a whole life would not be sufficient for its study, and it would be even lesa a child study and much drier than geography. In the second, it is not likely that in another thousand years there will be enough material on hand for the writing of such a manual Teaching the geography of Krapivrensk County, I shall be compelled to give the pupils detailed information about the flora and the fauna and the geological structure of the earth at the north pole, and details about the inhabitants and the commerce of the kingdom of Baden, because I shall be in possession of this information ; and I shall hardly be able to say anything about the Byflev and Efr^mov Counties, because I shall have no material in respect to them. But the children and common sense demand of me a certain harmoniousness and regularity of instruction. There is left, then, nothing else but to teach geography from Obo- dovski's text-book, or not to teach it at all. Just as the historical interest must first be roused for history, so the geographical interest must be evoked for the study of geography. But the geographical interest, from my observations and experiments, is roused either by the study of the natural sciences, or by travel, more partic- ularly, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, by travel. As the reading of newspapers, and especially of biogra- phies, and the sympathy with the political life of the nation generally serve as the first step in the study of history, just so travels serve as the first step in the study of geography. Both are now exceedingly accessible to every one and are easy in. our day, — therefore we ought to be the less afraid of renouncing the old superstition about teaching history and geography. Our life is in our day so instructive in this respect that, if geographical and THE SCHOOL AT YA8NAYA POLYANA 339 historical knowledge is really as necessary for our general development as it seems to be, life will always supply that defect. Indeed, if we can renounce that old superstition, it will not appear so terrible to us that men may grow up with- out having learned in their childhood that there was such a man as Yaroslav, or Otho, and that there is such a place as Estremadura, and so forth. Have we not stopped teaching astrology, and dialectics, and poetics ? And are they not giving up the study of Latin, without the human race growing any more stupid ? New sciences are born, and in our time the natural sciences are being made pop- ular ; the old sciences have to drop off when they have outlived their utility, — not the sciences, but those sides of the sciences which with the birth of new sciences have become obsolete. To rouse the interest and to know how the human race has lived and formed itself and developed in various countries; to rouse interest for the discovery of those laws by which humanity eternally moves ; on the other hand, to rouse interest in the comprehension of the laws of the phenomena of Nature on the whole globe and of the distribution of the human race over it, — that is a different matter. Maybe the rousing of such interest is useful, but in order to attain this aim neither S^ur, nor Thiers, nor Oboddvski, nor Griibe will add anything. I know two elements for that, — the artistic feeling of poetry and patriotism. But, in order to develop both, there have not yet been written text-books, and so long as there are none, we must seek, or waste our time and strength in vain, and torment the younger generation, making it learn history and geography simply because we have learned them. U-p to tlie university I not only see no need of the study of history and geography, hut even a great injury in it. What is beyond that I do not know. 340 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYi!KrA THE AETS In the report for the months of November and Decem- ber of the Yasnaya Polyana school there now stand before me two subjects which have an entirely different character, and those are drawing and singing, — the arts. If I did not start with the opinion that I do not know what is to be taught, and why this or that is to be taught, I should have to ask myself : Will it be useful for peasant children, who are placed under the necessity of passing all their lives in care about their daily bread, to study art, and what good is it to them? Ninety-nine out of every hundred will answer in the negative. Nor can one answer otherwise. The moment such a question is put, common sense demands the following answer : He is not to be an artist, — he will have to plough the ground. If he is to have any artistic needs, it will be above his strength to carry that persistent, untiring work which he must carry, and without carrying which the existence of the state would be unthinkable. When I say "he," I mean the child of the masses. Of course, it is insipid, but I rejoice at this insipidity, do not stop before it, but try to discover its causes. There is another great insipidity. This same child of the masses, every child of the masses, has just such a right, — what do I say? — a greater right to enjoy art than we have, the children of a happy class, who are not placed under the necessity of that untiring work, who are surrounded by all the comforts of hfe. To deprive him of the right of enjoying art, to deprive me, the teacher, of the right of introducing him into that region of the better enjoyments, toward which his being strives with all the powers of his soul, is that greater insipidity. How are these two insipidities to be harmo- nized ? This is not lyricism, of which I was reproached in the description of the walk which I gave in the first THE SCHOOL AT YASNATA POLy/nA 341 number, — this is logic. Every harmonization is impossi- ble and is only a self-deception. I shall be told, and I have been, if drawing is needed in a popular school, it can be admitted only as drawing from Nature, technical drawing, to be applied to life ; the drawing of a plough, a machine, a building; free-hand drawing as a mere auxiliary for mechanical drawing. This common view of drawing is also held by the teacher of the Ydsnaya Poly^na school, whose report we offer. But it was the very experiment with teaching drawing in this manner which convinced us of the falseness and injustice of this technical programme. The majority of the pupils, after four months of careful, exclusively technical draw- ing, from which was excluded all drawing of men, animals, and landscapes, ended by cooling off considerably in respect to the drawing of technical objects and by develop- ing to such an extent the feeling and need of drawing as an art that they provided themselves with their secret copy-books, in which they' drew men, and horses with all four legs coming out of one spot. The same was true of music. The customary programme of the popular schools does not admit singing beyond the singing of church choirs. The same thing takes place here : either it is a very dull and painful memorizing for the children, where certain sounds are produced by them, as though they were regarded merely as so many throats taking the place of the organ pipes, or there will be developed in them the feeling for the artistic, which finds its satisfaction in the balalayka and the accordion and frequently in a homely song, which the pedagogue does not recognize, and in which he does not think it necessary to guide his pupils. Either one or the other : either art in general is injurious and unnecessary, which is not at all so, strange as it may appear at a first glance, or everybody, without distinction of classes and occupations, has a right to it and a right to 342 THE SCHOOL AT YXsNATA POLYANA devote himself to it, on the ground that art does not brook mediocrity. The insipidity is not in that, but in the very putting of such a question as a question : Have the children of the masses a right to art ? Asking this is Uke asking whether the children of the masses have a right to eat beef, that is, have they the right to satisfy their human needs? Now the question ought not to be in that, but whether the beef is good, which we offer the masses, or which we keep from them. Even thus, when I offer the masses certain knowledge which is in our power, and when I notice the evil influence produced by it upon them, I do not conclude that the masses are bad, because they do not receive this knowledge, nor that the masses have not yet developed sufficiently to receive this knowledge and make use of it as we are making use of it, but that this knowledge is not good, not normal, and that we must with the aid of the masses work out a new knowledge, which will be more in accord with us, and with society, and with the masses. I con- clude only that this knowledge and the arts live among us and do not seem injurious, but cannot live among the masses, and seem injurious to them only because this knowledge and the arts are not those which are needed in general, and that we live among them only because we are spoiled, because only those who harmlessly sit for five hours ^in the vitiated air of a factory or a tavern do not suffer from the air which would kill a newcomer. I shall be told : " Who said that the knowledge and the arts of our cultivated society are false ? How can you conclude from the fact that the masses do not receive them that they are false ? " All such questions are solved very simply : Because there are thousands of us, and there are millions of them. I continue the comparison with the well-known phys- iological fact. A man comes from the fresh air into a THE SCHOOL AT TiCsNATA POLY^NA 343 smoke-filled room, the air of which has been exhausted by breathing; his vital functions are still vigorous, for his organism has through breathing been fed by a large quantity of oxygen, which he has taken from the pure air. With the same habit of his organism he begins to breathe in the vitiated air of the room; the injurious gases are communicated to the blood in a large quantity, — his organism is weakened (frequently fainting and sometimes death ensue) ; at the same time hundreds of people continue to breathe and live in the foul air because their functions have become less vigorous, because, to express myself differently, they are weaker and live less. If I am to be told that both classes of people live, and that it would be hard to decide whose hfe is more normal and better ; that when a man comes out from a vitiated atmosphere into the fresh air he frequently faints, and vice versa, — the answer will be easy : not a physiologist, but a simple man with common sense, wUl ask himself where most people live, whether in the fresh air or in pestilential prisons, — and will follow the majority ; and the physiologist will make observations on the sum total of the functions of both and he will say that the functions are more vigorous and the alimentation fuller with him who lives in the fresh air. The same relation exists between the arts of the so-called cultured society and between the demands of the people's art : I am speaking of painting, and sculpture, and music, and poetry. Ivanov's painting will rouse in the people nothing but admiration for his technical mastery, but will not evoke any poetical, nor rehgious sensation, while this very poetical sentiment is evoked by a chap-book picture of John of Ndvgorod and the devil in the pitchers.^ The 1 We beg the readei- to direct his attention to this monstrous picture, which is remarlcable on account of the strength of the religio- poetic feeling expressed in it, and which bears the same relation to 344 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLtINA Venus de Milo will rouse only a legitimate loathing for the nakedness and shamelessness of the woman. Beetho- ven's quartette of the latest epoch will appear only as a disagreeable sound, interesting perhaps because one plays on a big fiddle and the other on a small fiddle. The best production of our poetry, a lyrical composition by Pushkin, wUl seem only a collection of words, and its meaning the veriest nonsense. Introduce a child from the people into this world ; you can do that and are doing that all the time by means of the hierarchy of the educational institutions, academies, and art classes : he will feel, and will sincerely feel, the beauty of Ivanov's painting, and of the Venus de Milo, and of the quartette by Beethoven, and of Pushkin's lyrical poem. But, upon entering into this world, he will no longer be breathing with full lungs, — the fresh air, whenever he has to go into it, will affect him painfully and inimically. As in the matter of breathing common sense and physi- ology will make the same reply, even thus in the matter of the arts the same common sense and pedagogy (not the pedagogy that writes programmes, but the one that endeavours to study the universal paths of education and its laws) will reply that he who is not living in the art- sphere of our educated classes lives better and fuller; that the demands made upon art, and the satisfaction which it gives, are fuller and more lawful with the masses than with us. Common sense will say that, because it sees a happy majority, mighty not merely in numbers, living outside that milieu; the pedagogian will observe the mental functions of the men who are living in our circles, and outside of them he will observe what happens when people are introduced into the vitiated air, that modern Russian painting thai the painting of Fra Beato Angelico has to the painting of the disciples of the school of Michelangelo. — Avihor''s Note. THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYAKA 345 is, during the transmission of our arts to the younger generations, and on the basis of those syncopes and of that loathing which fresh natures manifest upon being introduced into an artificial atmosphere, and on the basis of the limitation of their mental functions, he wiU con- clude that the demands that the people make upon art are more legitimate than the demands of a spoiled minor- ity of the so-called cultured class. I have made these observations in respect to the two branches of our arts, with which I am the more inti- mately acquainted and which I formerly loved very passionately, — music and poetry. Strange to say, I came to the conclusion that everything that we had been doing in those branches had been done along a false, excep- tional path, which had no meaning and no future, and which was insignificant ia comparison with those de- mands and even with those productions of the same arts, samples of which we find among the people. I convinced myself that a lyrical poem, for example, " I remember the charming moment," the musical productions, such as Beethoven's last symphony, were not as unconditionally and universally fine as the song of " Steward Vanka," and the tune of " Down the Mother Volga ; " that Pdshkin and Beethoven please us, not because there is any abso- lute beauty in them, but because we are as much spoilt as Pushkin and Beethoven were, because Pushkin and Beethoven alike flatter our freaky irritability and our weakness. How common it is to hear the trite paradox that for the comprehension of what is beautiful there is needed a certain preparation ! Who said that ? How has that been proved ? It is only an excuse, a way out from a hopeless situation, into which we have been brought by the falseness of the direction, by our art's belonging exclusively to one class. Why are the beauty of the sun, the beauty of the human face, the beauty of the sounds of a popular song, the beauty of an act of Ipv^ 346 THE SCHOOL AT TiCsKAYA FOLT/iTA and self-renunciation accessible to all, and why do they demand no preparation ? I know that for the majority everything I have said here will appear as the merest prattle, as the privilege of a boneless tongue, but pedagogy ^ free pedagogy — explains many questions by means of experiment, and by means of an endless repetition of one and the same phenomenon transfers the questions from the field of dreams and reflections into the territory of propositions based on facts. I have for years vainly endeavoured to transmit to the pupils the poetical beauties of Piishkin and of our whole literature; the same is being done by an endless number of teachers, — not in Eussia alone, — and if these teachers watch the results of their efforts, and if they want to be frank, they will all confess that the chief effect of developing the poetical feeling has been to kill it, that the, highly poetical natures have shown the greatest loathing for such explanations. I had struggled for years, I say, without being able to obtain any results, - — and it was enough for me accidentally to open Ejfbnikov's collection, and the poetical demand of the pupils found its full satisfaction, a satisfaction which, by calmly and without prejudice comparing any poem whatever with the best production of Pushkin, I could not help finding legitimate. The same happened to me in respect to music, of which I shall have to speak now. I shall try and make a r^sum^ of all said above. When the question is put whether thef fine arts are necessary for the masses, the pedagogues generally become timid and confused (Plato was the only one who boldly de- cided the question in the negative). They say that they are necessary, but with certain Hmitations ; that it is dan- gerous for the social structure to give all a chance to become artists. They say that certain arts and a certain degree of them may exist only in a certain class of society ; THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYJlNA 347 they say that the arts must have their own especial ser- vants who are devoted to but one matter. They say that the highly gifted natures must have the chance to get away from the mass of the people and to dtJvote them- selves exclusively to the service of art. This is the greatest concession which pedagogy makes to the right of each individual to make of himself what he pleases. All the cares of the pedagogues in respect to the arts are directed toward attaining this one aim. I regard all tliis as unjust. I assume that the neces- sity of enjoying art and serving art are inherent in each human personality, no matter to what race or milieu he may belong, and that this necessity has its rights and ought to be satisfied. Taking this assumption as an axiom, jjl say that if inconveniences and inconsistencies arise for each person in the enjoyment of art and its reproduction, the cause of these inconveniences lies not in the manner of the transmission, not in the dissemina- tion or concentration of art among many or among a few, but in the character and direction of the art, upon which we must look with doubt, in order not to foist anything false upon the younger generation, and also in order to give that younger generation a chance to work out some- thing new, both as to form and contents. I now present the teacher's report in drawing for the months of November and December. This method of instruction, it seems to me, may be considered con- venient for the manner in which the technical difficul- ties have been pleasantly and imperceptibly obviated for the pupils. The question of the art itself has not been touched upon, because the teacher, when beginning the instruction, had prejudged the question by deciding that it was useless for the children of peasants to become artists. 348 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLYXnA DRAWING When I nine months ago took up teaching drawing, I had no definite plan, neither as to how to distribute the matter of instruction, nor how to guide the pupils. I had neither drawings, nor models, except a few illus- trated albums, which, however, I did not make use of during my course of instruction, limiting myself to simple aids, such as one may find in any village school. A painted wooden board, chalk, slates, and little square sticks of various lengths, which were used for object illustrations in teaching mathematics, — those were all the means we had during our instruction, which did not prevent us from copying everything that fell into our hands. Not one of the pupils had studied drawing before; they had brought to me only their ability to pass judgments, and they were granted full liberty to express themselves whenever and however they wished, hoping thus to dis- cover what their needs were and then to form a definite plan of occupations. For the first lesson I formed a square out of four sticks and I tried to see whether the boys would be able without any previous instruction to draw that square. Only a few of the boys drew some very irregular squares, by expressing the solid sticks forming the square by means of straight Unes. I was quite satisfied with that. For the weaker pupils I drew with chalk a square on the blackboard. Then we com- posed a cross in the same manner, and we drew it. An unconscious, inborn feeling made the children gen- erally discover a fairly correct correlation of the lines, although they drew the lines quite poorly. I did not deem it necessary to try to obtain a regularity in the straight lines in every figure, in order not to torment them in vain, and demanded only that the figure be copied. I intended, at first, to give the boys a conception of the relatipn of lines from their length and direction, THE SCHOOL AT YifsKAtA POLYANA 349 rather than to trouble myself about their ability to make the libes themselves as regular as possible. A child will learn to comprehend the relation between a long and a short line, the difl'erence between a right angle and parallels, sooner than be able passably to draw a straight hne. By degrees we began, at the following lessons, to draw the corners of these square little sticks, and then we com- posed various figures out of them. The pupils paid no attention whatever to the slight thickness of these sticks, — the third dimension, — and we drew all the time only the front view of the objects composed. The difficulty of clearly presenting, with our insufficient material, the position and correlation of the figures com- pelled me, now and then, to draw figures on the board. I frequently united the drawing from Nature with the draw- ing of models, giving them some certain objects ; if the boys were unable to draw a given object, I drew it myself on the board. The drawing of figures from the board took place in the following manner: I first drew a horizontal or vertical line, divided it by points into different parts, and the pupils copied that hne. Then I drew another or several other lines, perpendicular or slanting to the first, standing in a certain relation to the first, and divided into units of the same size. Then we connected the points of division of these lines by straight hues or arcs, and thus formed a certain symmetrical figure, which, step by step as it grew up, was copied by the boys. I thought that that would be advantageous, in the first place, because the boy learned objectively the whole process of the formation of the figure, and, in the second, because through this drawing on the board there was developed in him the conception of the correlation of hues much better than through the copying of drawings and originals. With such a process 350 THE 3CH00L AT TASNAYA POLT^NA there was destroyed the possibility of copying directly, but the figure itself, as an object from Nature, had to be copied on a diniiiiished scale. It is nearly always useless to hang out before the pupils a large complete picture or figure, because the beginners will be positively confused before it, just as though they were before an object from Nature. But the very evolu- tion of the figure before their eyes has a great significance. The pupils, in this case, see the skeleton of the drawing, upon which the whole body is later formed. The pupils were constantly called upon to criticize the hnes and their relations, as I had drawn them. I frequently drew the lines wrong on purpose, in order to get an idea how much judgment they had formed about the correlation and reg- ularity of the lines. Then again I asked the children, when I drew some figure, where some line ought to be added in their opinion, and I even made now one boy, now another, suggest some figure. In this manner I not only roused a greater interest in the boys, but also a free participation iu the formation and development of the figure ; in this way the children's question, " Why ? " which every child naturally asks him- self in copying from an original, was obviated. Their greater or lesser comprehension and their greater or lesser interest had the chief influence on the progress and the method of instruction, and I frequently abandoned that which I had purposely prepared for the lesson, only because it was foreign or dull to the boys. So far, I had given them symmetrical figures to draw because their formation is easiest and most apparent. Then I, for experiment's sake, asked the best pupils them- selves to compose and draw figures on the board. Al- though nearly all drew only after one given manner, it was, nevertheless, interesting to watch the growing rivalry, the judgment which they passed on the others, and the peculiar structure of their figures. Many of these draw- THE SCHOOL AT Y^SNATA POLYANA 351 ings were peculiarly in harmony with the characters of the boys. In each child there is a tendency to be independent, which it is injurious to destroy in any instruction, and which especially finds its expression in the dissatisfaction with the copying of models. By the above mentioned method, this independence was not only not killed, but even developed and strengthened. If a pupil does not learn to create himself, he will always imitate and copy in life, because there are few who, having learned to copy, are able to make an inde- pendent application of such knowledge. By always keeping to natural forms in drawing, and by frequently changing the objects, as, for example, leaves of a characteristic from, flowers, dishes and objects fre- quently used in life, and instruments, I tried to keep out routine and mannerism from our drawing. With the greatest caution I approached the explana- tion of shades and shadows, because the beginner easily destroys the sharpness and regularity of figures by shad- ing them too much, and thus gets used to a disorderly and infinite daubing. In this manner I soon got more than thirty boys in a few months to learn quite thoroughly the correlation of lines in various figures and objects, and to render these figures in even, sharp lines. The mechanical art of line- drawing was soon evolved as if of its own accord. The greatest difficulty I had was to teach the children to keep their drawing-books and the drawings themselves clean. The convenience in rubbing out what has been drawn on a slate greatly enhances my difficulty in this respect. By giving the best, most talented boys copy-books, I obtained a greater cleanliness in the drawings themselves ; for the greater difficulty in rubbing out compels them to be more careful and tidy with the material on which they are dr9.wing. In a short time the best pupils reached 352 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLTANA such a clear and correct handling of the pencil that they cor}.d cleanly and regularly draw, not only straight-lined figures, but also the most fantastic compositions of curved lines. I made some of the pupils control the figures of the others, when they were through with their own, — and this teacher's activity greatly encouraged the pupils, for they were at once able to apply that which they had just learned. Of late I have been working with the oldest hoys try- ing to get them to draw objects in different positions in their perspective, without clinging exclusively to the well-known method of Dupuis. SINGING Last summer we returned from swimming. We were all in a happy mood. A peasant boy, the same that had been enticed by the manorial boy to steal books, a thick- set boy with protruding cheek-bones, all covered with freckles, with bandy legs turned inward, having all the aspect of a grown-up sturdy peasant, but an intelhgent, strong, and talented nature, ran ahead and seated himself in the cart that was driving in front of us. He took the lines, poised his cap jauntily, spit out sidewise, and started a drawn-out peasant song, and he sang with such feeling, such sobbing sounds, such lamentings ! The boys laughed. " S^mka, Sdmka ! What a fine singer he is ! " S^mka was quite serious. " Don't interrupt my song," he said, in a peculiar, feignedly hoarse voice, during an interval, and just as seriously and evenly proceeded to sing. Two of the more musical boys sat down in the cart with him, and fell in with him and carried the refraiu. One of them seconded BOW at an octave or sixth, another at a third, and it was THE SCHOOL AT YiCsNAYA POLyXnA 353 all charming. Then other hoys joined them, and they hegan to sing "As under such an apple-tree," and they made a noise, but there was not much music. With that evening the singing began. Now, after eight months, we sing " The angel lamented " and two cherubical songs, numbers four and seven, the whole com- mon mass, and small chorus songs. The best pupils (only two) take down in writing the tunes of the songs which they know, and almost read music. But up to the present what they sing is not anywhere near so good as the song which they sang when returning from the swim- ming. I say this with no ulterior purpose, nOt in order to prove anything, — I simply state a fact. Now I am going to tell how the instruction proceeded, with which I am comparatively satisfied. At the first lesson I divided all up into three voices and we sang the following chords : i Ih 1 =l=: It We succeeded in this very soon. Each sang what he pleased. One would try soprano, and then would pass over to tenor, and from tenor to alto, so that the best pupils learned the whole chord do-mi-sol, some of them even all three chords. They pronounced the notes as in French. One sang mi-fa-fa-mi, another do-do-re-do, and so forth. " I declare that is fine, Lev Nikolaevich ! " they said, " it even makes something shake in the ear. Let us have some more 354 THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLTJ^NA We sang these chords at school, and in the yard, and in the garden, and on the way home, until late into the night, and could not tear ourselves away from this occu- pation or have enough of our success. On the following day we tried the gamut, and the more talented went through it all, while the poorer ones could hardly get as far as the third. I wrote the notes on a staff in the alto-clef, the most symmetrical of clefs, and gave them the French names. The next five or six les- sons proceeded just as merrily; we also succeeded in getting new minor keys and the passes to the majors, — " Kyrie eleison," " Glory be to the Father and Son," and a song for three voices with piano accompaniment. One-half of the lesson was occupied with that, the other half with the singing of the gamut and the exercises, which the pupils themselves invented, " do-mi-re-fa-mi-sol," or " do- re-re-mi-mi-fa," or " do-mi-re-do-re-fa-mi-re," and so forth. I soon noticed that the notes on the staff were not clear to them, and I found it necessary to use figures instead. Besides, for the explanation of intervals and the variation of the tonic scale, the figures present greater conveniences. After six lessons some of them took the intervals by order, such as I asked them for, getting up to them by some imaginary gamut. They were particularly fond of exercises in fourths, — do-fa-re-sol, and so forth, up and do^/m. Fa (the lower dominant) struck them more especially by its force. « What a whopper of a fa ! " said S^mka. " It just cuts clean." The unmusical boys soon fell away, while with the musical boys the class lasted as much as three or four hours. I tried to give them an idea of tiine by the accepted method, but the matter proved so difficult that I was compelled to separate time from tune and, writing down the sounds without the measure, to analyze them, and then, having written down the time, that is, the THE SCHOOL AT yXsNATA POLyXnA 355 measure without the sounds, to analyze one beat by tap- ping the finger, and only then to combine the two proc- esses together. After a few lessons, when I tried to render myself an account of what I had been doing, I came to the conclu- sion that my method of instruction is almost the same as Chevet's method, which I had seen in practice at Paris, — a method which I had not adopted at once simply because it was a method. All those who are teaching singing cannot be urged too much to read that work, on the outer cover of which it says in large letters " Repousse d, I'unanimiU " and which now is sold in tens of thou- sands of copies throughout Europe. I saw in Paris striking examples of success with that method when taught by Chevet himself : an audience of from five to six hundred men and women, sometimes of between forty and fifty years of age, were singing in absolute harmony and it livre ouvert, whatever the teacher gave them to sing. In Chevet's method there are many rules, exercises, prescribed courses, which have no significance whatever, and the like of which every intelligent teacher will invent by the hundred on the battle-field, that is, during the class ; there is there a very comical, though it may be a very convenient, method of keeping time without the sounds, for example, at four fourths the pupil says ta-fa-te-fe, at three fourths the pupil says ta-te-ti, at eight eighths ta-fa-te-fe-te-re-li-ri. All that is interesting, as one of the means by which music may be taught, interesting as the history of a certain musical school, but these rules are not absolute and cannot form a method. But in Chevet there are thoughts remarkable on account of their sim- plicity, three of which form the essence of his method : (1) An old idea of expressing the musical signs by means of figures, first introduced by Jean Jacques Rous- seau in his " Bictionnaire de jnusigue." Whatever the 356 THE SCHOOL AT Y^SNAYA POLyXnA opponents of this method of writing may say, any teacher of singing may make this experiment, and he will always convince himself of the immense advantage of figures -oyer the staff, both for reading and writing. I taught with ~th^ staff about ten lessons, and only once pointed out the figures, telling them that it was the same, and the pupils always ask me to write the figures for them, and always themselves write the figures. (2) A remarkable idea, exclusively belonging to Chevet, which consists in teaching the sounds independently of time, and" vice versa. Having but once applied this method to instruc- tion, everybody will see that that which had appeared as an insuperable difficulty will now appear so easy that he will only marvel how it is such a simple thought had not occurred to any one before. How many torments the un- fortunate children would be saved, who sing in the archie- piscopal and other choirs, if the conductors only tried this simple thing, — to make the student, without singing, strike with a little stick or with his finger that phrase which he is to sing : four times a whole note, once a quar- ter note or two eighths, and so forth, then sing, without counting time, the same phrase, then again sing a measure, and then all together. For example, it is written : $ The pupil will first sing, without counting time, do-re-mi- fa-sol-mi-re-do ; then he, without singing, but only striking the note of the first measure, says, one, two, three, four ; theu, on the first note of the third . measure he strikes twice and says, one, two, and the second note of the third measure, saying, three, four, and so forth ; then he sings beating time, while the other pupils read aloud. THE SCHOOL AT TiCSKATA POLY^NA 367 That is my method which, like Chevet's, cannot be pre- scribed; it is convenient, but there may be discovered more convenient methods still. The main thing is to separate the study of time from sound, though there may be an endless number of ways to accomplish this. Finally, Chevet's third great idea consists in making music and its study popular. His method of instruc- tion fully realizes this aim. And that is not only Chevet's wish and my assumption, but an actual fact, 'y saw in Paris hundreds of labourers with horny hands, sitting on benches, underneath which lay the tools with which they were returning from their shops, singing from music, comprehending and enjoying the laws of music. As I looked at these labourers, I could easily imagine Russian peasants in their place, if Chevet but spoke Rus- sian : they would sing in just the same fashion, would just as easily understand everything he was saying about the common rules and laws of music. We hope to have an occasion to say something more about Chevet, and more especially about the importance of popularized music, especially singing, as a means for uplifting the decaying art. I now pass over to the description of the progress of instruction in our school. After six lessons the goslings were separated from the sheep; there were left only the musical natures, the amateurs, and we passed over to the minor scales, and to the explanation of intervals. The only difficulty was to find and distinguish the small second from tha large. Fa was called a " whopper " by the pupils, do was just such a "crier," and so I did not have to teach them, — they themselves felt the note into which the small second resolved itself, and so they felt the second itself. We easily found that the major scale consisted of a sequence of two large, one small, three large, and one small seconds. Then we sang " Glory be to Crod " in the minor scale, and by ear got up to the scale 358 THE SCHOOL AT YASNAYA POLY^NA which turned out to be minor; then we found in that scale one large, one small, two large, one small, one very large, and one small second. Then I showed them that it was possible to sing and write a scale beginning with any sound, that when it does not come to large or small second, when necessary, we may place a sharp or flat. For convenience' sake I wrote out for them a chromatic scale of the following kind : Along this staircase I made them write all kinds of major and minor scales, beginning with any note what- ever. These exercises amused them very much, and the progress was so striking that two of them frequently passed their time between classes in writing out the tunes of the songs which they knew. These pupils are contin- ually humming the motives of some songs which they cannot name, and they hum them sweetly and tenderly, and, above all, they now second much better and cannot bear to hear all the children sing inharmoniously together. We had hardly more than twelve lessons during the THE SCHOOL AT TASNAYA POLJTANA 359 winter. Our instruction was spoiled by ambition. The parents, we, the teachers, and the pupils themselves, wanted to surprise the whole village, — to sing in the church ; we began to prepare the mass and the cherubical songs of Bortnyanski. It seemed to be more amusing for the children, but it turned out quite differently. Although the desire to be in the choir sustained them, and they loved music, and we, the teachers, put forth our special effort in this subject and made it more compulsory than the rest, I often felt sorry, looking at some tiny Kiryushka in torn leg-rags, as he rolled off his part, " Secretly fo-o-o-o- orming," and was requested to repeat it ten times, which fiually vexed him so much that he beat the music with his fingers, insisting that he was singing right. We once travelled down to the church and -had a success; the enthusiasm was enormous, but the singing suffered from it: the lessons were growing tedious to them, and they fell out by degrees, and it was only at Easter that it was possible after great effort to get together a choir. Our singers began to resemble archie- piscopal singers, who frequently sing well, but with whom, on account of that skill, all desire for singing is killed, and who absolutely know nothing of notes, though they think they do know. I have frequently seen those who come out of such a school undertake to study themselves without knowing anything about notes, but they are quite helpless the moment they try to sing that which has not been shouted into their ears. From the small experience which I have had in the instruction of music, I have convinced myself: (1) That the method of writing the sounds down in figures is the most convenient. (2) That teaching time independently of sound is the most convenient method. (3) That, in order that the musical instruction should leave traces and should be cheerfully received, it is S60 TflE SCHOOL AT Y^SNAYA POLyAiJA. necessary from the very start to teach the art, and not the skill of singing and playing. Young ladies may be made to play Burgmiiner's exercises, but the children of the people it is better not to teach at all than to teach mechanically. (4) That the aim of the musical instruction for the pupils must consist in transmitting to them that knowledge of the common laws of music which we possess, but by no means in the transmission of that false taste which is developed in us. (5) That the aim of teaching the masses music must consist in transmitting to them such knowledge of the common laws of music as we possess, but by no means in transmitting to them that false taste which is devel- oped in us. V LINEN -MEASURER History of a Horse 1861 LINEN -MEASURER Dedicated to the Memory of M. A. Stakhovich ^ The sky rose higher and higher; the dawn spread farther and farther ; the dull silver of the dew grew whiter ; the sickle of the moon looked ever more lifeless ; the forest resounded more sonorously — People began to get up, and in the manorial horse-yard could be heard ever more frequently snorting, rummaging in the straw, and even the whining neigh of horses crowded together and fussing about something. " Hold on ! You will have time ! Are you hungry ? " said the old herdman, quickly opening the creaking gates. " Back ! " he shouted, swinging his arm toward the mare that was pushing her way through the gate. Herdman Master was dressed in a Cossack short coat, girded with an ornamented leather belt ; his whip was swung over his shoulder, and his bread was wrapped in a scarf stuck into his belt. ^He carried a saddle and a bridle in his hands. The horses were not in the least frightened and offended 1 This subject was under consideration by M. A. Stakh6vich, and communicated to the author by A. A. Stakh6vich. — Avihor'a Note. 363 364 LINEN - MEASURER by the frivolous tone of the herdman; they looked as though it did not make much difference to them, and leisurely walked away from the gate; only one bay, shaggy-maned mare dropped an ear and rapidly turned her back to him. Upon this occasion a young mare, who was standing behind her, and w^ho was not at all concerned in the matter, whined and kicked her hind legs at the first horse she ran across. " Hoa there ! " the herdman cried out even louder and more threateningly, marching toward the corner of the yard. Of aU the horses that were in the enclosure (there were more than one hundred of them), the least impatience was displayed by a piebald gelding, who was standing alone in the corner under a penthouse, and, blinking with his eyes, was licking the oak bark of the carriage shed. '^ It is impossible to tell what pleasure the piebald gelding found in this, but his expression was serious and thought- "■"^^^.Jjil while he was doing it. " Lazybones ! " the herdman turned to him, again in the same tone, as he walked up toward him and placed the saddle and the glossy saddle-cloth on the manure pile near by. The piebald gelding stopped licking and, without stir- ring, for a long time looked at N^ster. He did not laugh, nor get angry, nor frown, but only moved his own belly, drawing a very deep breath, and turned away. The herdman put his arm around his neck and put the bridle on him. " Why are you sighing so ? " said N4ster. The gelding switched his tail, as though to say : " Oh, nothing, N^ster." N^ster put the saddle-cloth on him, whereat the horse, evidently to express his dissatisfaction, dropped his ears, for which he was only scolded as a "good-for-nothing" and had his belly-band tightened At this the gelding puffed himself up with anger, but N^ster put his finger into the horse's mouth, and gave him such a kick in his belly with the foot that he had to let out his breath. And yet, when the girth was tightened on him, he once more dropped his ears and even looked around. Although he knew that it would do\ him no good, he considered it his duty to show that it \ was not agreeable to him, and that he would always ^ express his dissatisfaction with it. When he was sad- dled, he put forth his swollen right leg and began to chew the bit, again for some special reason, for he ought to) have known that there could be no taste to a bit. N^ster climbed on the gelding over a short stirrup, un- wound his whip, straightened out his coat from under his knee, seated himself in the saddle in a peculiar attitude, such as coachmen, gentlemen riders, and herdmen assume, and pulled the reins. The gelding raised his head, expres- sing his wilhngness to proceed when ordered, but he did not stir from the spot. He knew that before starting N^ster would make no end of fuss, giving orders to Vaska and calling out to the horses. Indeed, N^ster began to shout: " Vaska ! Oh, Vaska ! Have you let out the mares, eh ? Where are you going, devil ? Hoa there ! Are you asleep ? Open the gate ! Let the mares get out first ! " and so forth. The gate creaked. Vaska, angry and sleepy, holding a horse by the bridle, was standing near the gate-post and letting out the horses. The horses began to pass out one after another, cautiously stepping over the straw and sniffing at it : there were filUes, yearhng stallions, suckhng colts, and mares great with young, cautiously, one by one, carrying their bellies through the gate. The young mares crowded together, sometimes two and three at a time, placing their heads over each other's backs and tripping through the gate, for which they each time were rebuked 366 LINEN - MEASURER by the herdmen. The suckling colts now and then darted under the legs of strange mares, neighing sonorously in response to the short whinny of the mares. A young playful mare bent her head downward and sidewise the moment she got out of the gate, kicked up with her hind legs and whinnied ; but she did not dare to run ahead of old, dappled gray Zhuldyba, who, as always, was walking cautiously, in a slow and heavy step, at the head of all the horses. In a few minutes the animated enclosure was sadly deserted ; the pillars towered gloomily under the empty penthouse, and there could be seen nothing but crumpled and dung-covered straw. No matter how familiar this picture of desolation was to the piebald gelding, it must have affected him with melancholy. He slowly lowered and raised -his head, as though greeting some one, drew a sigh, as much as the girth permitted him to do so, and, dragging his crooked and stiff legs, shambled after the herd, carrying old IST^ster on his bony back. " I know : as soon as we get out on the road, he will strike fire and will light his wooden pipe with the brass trimming and with the little chain," thought the gelding " I am glad of it, because early in the morning, while the dew is on the ground, this odour is pleasant to me and reminds me of many pleasant things ; the only annoying thing is that the old man with his pipe becomes quite dashing, imagining that he is somebody, and sits down sidewise, by all means sidewise, — and it is there where it pains me. However, God be with him ! It is not the first time I have had to suffer, to afford somebody pleas- ure ; I have even come to derive a certain equine pleasure from it. Let the poor fellow put on style ! He feels "courageous only when nobody sees him. Let him sit sidewise ! " reflected the gelding, as he, stepping cautiously witl* his crooked legs, walked in the middle of the road. IL Having driven the herd to the river, near which the horses were to graze, Neater climbed down from the geld- ing and unsaddled him. The herd had in the meantime begun to scatter over the uutrampled meadow, which was covered with dew and with a mist rising ahke from the meadow and the encircling river. Having taken off the bridle from the piebald gelding, N^ster scratched him under his neck, in response to which the geldiug, to express his gratefulness and pleasure, closed his eyes. " He likes it, old dog ! " said N4ster. But the gelding did not like that scratching in the least, and only out of delicacy of feeling pretended thar'it"' pleased him ; he shook his head in sign of consent. But suddenly, N4ster, entirely unexpectedly and with- out any cause, perhaps supposing that too great a famil- iarity might give the piebald gelding a wrong idea about his importance, — N&ter, without any warning, pushed away from him the head of the gelding, and, swinging the bridle, struck the gelding a very painful blow on his lean leg with the buckle of the bridle and, without saying anything, went up a mound to the stump near which he generally sat. Though this deed grieved the piebald gelding, he did not show it, and, slowly swaying his scanty tail and sniff- ing at somethiag and browsing just for pastime, walked over to the river. He paid no attention to what the young mares, yearling stallions, and suckling colts, enjoying the early morning, 397 368 LINEN - MEASURER were doing all around him. Knowing that it was healthi- est, especially at his age, first to take a good drink on an empty stomach, and then only to go to eating, he selected a spot near the shore, where it was steepest and clearest, and, wetting his hoofs and fetlocks, dipped his muzzle in the water and began to suck in the water through his torn lips, to expand his full sides, and from pleasure to swing his scanty piebald tail on the bald stump. A quarrelsome bay mare, who always teased the old fellow and caused him all kinds of annoyances, even now came up to him in the water, as though attending to some affair of hers, but, in reality, only in order to roil the water before his very nose. But the piebald gelding had had his fill and', as though not noticing the intention of the bay mare, one after another drew out his feet which were sunk in the mud, tossed his head, and, walking away from the youthful crowd, began to eat. Sprawling his feet in all kinds of fashion, and trampling down no more grass than was necessary, he, without unbending himself, ate exactly three hours. When he had eaten so much that his belly hung down like a bag from his lean, steep ribs, he balanced himself on his four sore legs so as to experi- ence the least amount of pain, especially in his right fore Jjgg, which was weaker than the rest, and fell asleep. There is an old age which is majestic, and another jvhich is homely, and another still which is pitiful. And there is also an old age which is both homely and majestic. The old age of the piebald gelding was precisely of that order. The gelding was tall, not less than two arshms three vershdks^ in height. His hair was dappled black, that is, it had been, but now the black spots had become of a dirty bay hue. His piebaldness consisted of three spots : one, on the head, extending as a crooked white spot from one side of the nose down to the- middle of the neck.- Hia 1 Au arshln lis about 2 feet, 4 ipclies ; a, vershcjk is 1-16 arshta. LINEN - MEASURER 369 long bur-matted mane was white and brownish in spots. Another spot extended down the right side as far as the middle of his belly ; the third, on the crupper, took in the upper part of the tail and went down to the middle of the flanks. The rest of his tail was whitish and checkered. His large bony head, with deep hollows over the eyes and a peudent, torn, black lower hp, hung low and heavily on his emaciated and bent neck, which looked as though made of wood. Back of the pendent lower lip could be seen a blackish tongue turned to one side and the yellow stumps of the ground-down lower teeth. The ears, of which one was slit, hung low on both sides and lazily moved from time to time, in order to scare away the pestering flies. One tuft of his forelock, which was still long, hung behind his ears ; his open brow was sunken and curly ; on the spacious jowls the skin hung down in bags. On the neck and head the veins were connected in knots, which twitched and trembled at every touch of a fly. The expression of his face was that of' austere patience, deep thought, and suffering. His fore legs were bent archhke at the knee ; both hoofs were swollen, and on one leg, on which the piebald spot reached down to the middle, there was at the knee a swelling of the size of a fist. His hind legs were in a bettbr condition, but the hair was worn ofi' the haunches and refused to grow out again. All the legs looked dis- proportionately long on account of the thinness of the body. The ribs, though flat and declivitous, stood out from the body, and were so covered by skin that the skin seemed to have stuck fast to the intervals between the ribs. The withers and the back had a variegated appear- ance from old blows, and on the back there was a still freshly swollen and festering sore ; the black tail stump, with its clearly defined vertebrae, was long and almost 370 LINEN - MEASURER bare. On the bay crupper, near the tail, there was a scar of the size of the palm of the hand, as though from a bite, which was overgrown with white hair. Another scarred sore could be seen on the shoulder. His hocks and tail were soiled from the chronic dis- order of his stomach. The hair, though short, stood in tufts aU over his body. And yet, in spite of the hideous old age of this horse, one involuntarily stopped and reflected, looking at him, and a connoisseur would have said at once that he had been a fine horse in his day. A connoisseur would also have said that there was only one stock in Eussia which could produce such broad bones, such immense kneepans, such hoofs, such slender leg bones, such a well-built neck, and, above all, such a head bone, such large, black, bright eyes, and such thorough- bred ganglia of veins about the head and neck, and such sjjhin skin and such hair. Indeed, there was something majestic in the figure of that horse, and in the terrible combination of the repulsive signs of' his decrepitude, which was the more apparent through the variegated colour of his skin, and of his manner and expression of self-confidence and calm, which are peculiar to conscious beauty and strength. ' Like a hving ruin, he stood alone in the midst of the ' dew-drenched meadow, while not far from him could be heard the tramping, snorting youthful neighing 'and •vhinnying of the scattered herd. III. The sun had risen above the forest and now shone brightly on the grass and on the bends of the river. The dew was drying up, collecting in drops ; the last of the morning mist passed away as hght smoke. The cloudlets were becoming curly, but there was as yet no wind. Beyond the river stood green rye, curling into pipes, and there was an odour of fresh verdure and of blossoms. A cuckoo was calling hoarsely in the forest, and N^ster, lying on his back, was counting the number of years he was to live yet. The larks rose over the rye and the meadow. A belated hare lost his way among the herd, jumped out into the open, sat down near a bush, and began to listen. Vaska had fallen asleep, with his head in the grass ; the mares made a still larger circle about him and scattered over the meadow. The old mares, snorting, made a bright path over the dew and looked for places where they might remain unmolested ; they no longer ate, but only tasted some choice pieces of grass. The whole herd was imperceptibly moving in one direction. And again old Zhuldyba, walking with measured step in front of the rest, showed the possibility of going farther. Young black Fly, who had just had her first colt, kept whinnying all the time and, raising her tail, snorted at her lilac colt. Young Atlas, with smooth and glossy hair, lowered her head in such a way that the black, silky fore- lock covered her brow and eyes ; she was playing with the grass — now biting it off, now throwing it away — and striking the ground with her dew-drenched foot with shaggy fetlock. 371 372 LIKEN - MEASURER One of the older colts, no doubt imagining he was playing some game, was now running around his mother for the twenty-sixth time, raising his short, curly tail in the shape of a panache, while she calmly continued to browse, having become accustomed to her son'e character, and only occasionally looking at him awry with her large black eye. One of the smallest colts, a black, big-headed little fellow, with forelock towering surprised between his ears and a little tail turned to one side, as it had been in Ms mother's womb, stood with pricked ears and dull glance, without stiri-ing from the spot, looking fixedly at the colt who was frisking and prancing about, — it is hard to tell whether he was envying him or condemning him for what he was doing. Some of the colts were suckhng, hitting their mothers' teats with their noses ; some, without any apparent reason, did not respond to their mothers' calls, but ran in an awkward, mincing trot in this opposite direction, as though looking for something, and then, no one knew why, stopped and neighed in a despairingly penetrating voice; some lay stretched out in a row; some were learning to eat grass; and some again were scratching themselves behind their ears with a bind leg. J Two mares with young were walking apart from the rest and, slowly dragging their legs along, were still eat- ing. It was evident that their condition was respected by the rest, and none of the younger horses dared to ap- proach and disturb them. If some frisky colts happened, nevertheless, to come near to them, one motion of the ear and tail was sufficient to show them all the indecency of their behaviour. The yearling stallions and fillies pretended to be grown up and sedate, and but rarely leaped about or joined the jolly company. They ate the grass with all due propriety, stretching out their clipped swanlike necks, and switching LINEN - MEASUfiEE 373 their little tufts as though they were tails. Just like the grown-up ones, some of them lay down, rolled, or scratched each other. The jolliest company was composed of the two and three-year-old fillies and of the maiden mares. They, were going all together as a merry maiden crowd. Among them could be heard tramping, whinnying, neighing, and snorting. They came together, placed their heads over each other's shoulders, sniffed at each other, jumped about, and, now and then raising their tails with a trum- pet-like flourish, proudly and coquettishly raced in front of their companions in a half-trot, half-amble. The first beauty and the first instigator of fun among all this youth was the mischievous bay mare. Whatever she undertook to do, the others did ; wherever she went, a whole crowd of beauties followed her. The mischievous mare was in an unusually playful mood on that morning. The happy mood had come over her, just as it comes over people. Even at the watering-place, when she had played her prank on the old gelding, she ran down in the water, pretending to have been frightened by something, and with a loud snort raced down the field so that V^ska was compelled to gallop after her and after the others that had started off with her. Then, having eaten a bit, she began to roll, and then to tease the old mares by running up in front of them ; then she separated a suckling colt from his mother, as though wishing to bite him. The mother was frightened and stopped eating, while the little colt whinnied in a pitiful voice ; but the mis- chievous mare did not touch him at all : she only scared him some, thus affording a spectacle to her companions who were looking sympathetically at her tricks. Then she undertook to turn the head of a gray horse which a peasant was driving in a plough over the rye-field, fav away on the other side of the river. She took up a proud attitude, somewhat to one side, raised her head, shook 374 LINEN - MEASURER herself, and neighed in a sweet, tender, and drawn-out voice. In this neighing there was expressed mischief, and feeling, and a certain sadness. There was in it both the desire and the promise of love, and the pining for it. There a corn-crake, leaping from place to place in the thick reeds, was passionately calling for his mate ; there the cuckoo and the quail were singing love, and the flowers were sending their fragrant dust over the wind to each other. " I am young, and beautiful, and strong," said the neighing of the mischievous one, " but I have not been allowed so far to experience the sweetness of that feeling ; not only have I not been allowed to experience it, but not one lover, not one, has ever seen me." And the significant neighing resounded sad and full of youth and was borne over the meadow and over the field, and reached the gray horse in the distance. He raised his ears and stopped. The peasant struck him with his bast shoe, but the gray horse was spelled by the silvery sound of the distant neighing, and himself neighed. The peasant grew angry, jerked the lines, and gave him with the bast shoe such a kick in his belly that he stopped in the middle of the neighing and moved on. But the gray horse felt both happy and sad, and from the distant rye- field the sounds of an incipient passionate neighing and of the angry voice of the peasant were for a long time borne to the herd. If the mere voice could have turned the head _ of the gray horse so as to make him forget his duty, what would have happened to him if he could have seen the whole beautiful form of the mischievous mare as she, pricking her ears, expanding her nostrils, drawing in the air, ready to run, and trembling with her whole youthful and beautiful body, was calling him. But the mischievous one did not dwell long on her impressions. When the voice of the gray horse died away, LINEN - ME AS UEER 375 she gave another scornful neigh and, lowering her head, began to paw the earth, and then went away to waken and tease the piebald gelding. The piebald gelding was the constant martyr and butt of this happy youth. He suffered more from this youth than from people. He had done no wrong to either. People needed him, but why did the young horses tormeut bim ? rv. He was old*, they were young ; he was lean, they were plump ; he was sad, they were merry. Consequently he was an entire stranger to them, an entirely different being, and there was no reason for pitying him. Horses pity only themselves and only exceptionally those in whose hide they can imagine themselves. But was it the pie- Isald gelding's fault that he was old and haggard and homely ? One would think not, but according to equine sense he was blameworthy, and those only were right who were strong, young, and happy, those with whom everything, was still ahead, those whose every muscle quivered and whose tails rose up straight from every unnecessary tension. It may be that the piebald gelding himself understood that, and in his quiet moments agreed with them that he was blameworthy for having lived his life and that he had to pay for that life ; but still he was a horse, and so he frequently could not repress a consciousness of insult, sadness, and provocation, whenever he looked at the youth tormenting him for that to which they themselves would be subject at the end of their lives. Another cause of "the pitilessness of the horses was an aristocratic feehng. ^11 of them, on their father's or mother's side, derived their genealogy from the famous stud Cream, while the piebald gelding was of an unknown origin, having come from the outside, where three years before he had been bought in the market-place for eighty roubles in assignats. The bay mare, pretending to be taking a walk, went up "376 LINEN - MEASURER 377 to the very nose of the piebald gelding and pushed him. He knew what it was, and, without openiug his eyes, dropped his ears and showed his teeth. The mare turned her back to him and looked as though she was going to kick him. He opened his eyes and went away. He was no longer asleep, and so began to eat. Again the mis- chief-maker, accompanied by her companions, walked over to the gelding. A tyi^o-year-old, white-spotted mare, a very stupid beast, who in everything and always imi- tated the bay mare, went with her and, as is always the case with imitators, put on too thick that which the mis- chief-maker had been doing. The bay mare generally walked over to him as though attending to her own busi- ness, and passed in front of his nose, without looking at him, so that he was positively unable to tell whether he ought to get angry or not, and so it was really funny. This she did even now, but the white-spotted mare, who was following her and who was in an unusually frisky mood, struck the gelding with her breast. He again showed his teeth, screeched, and with an agility which one could not have expected of him made for her and bit her in the flank. The white-spotted mare kicked up her hind legs with all her might and gave the old gelding a painful blow on his lean, bare ribs. The geld- ing groaned and wanted to rush at her once more, but changed his mind and, drawing a deep sigh, went away. No doubt all the youth of the herd regarded as a personal insult the impudence which the piebald gelding had. allowed himself to offer to the white-spotted mare, for they positively gave him no chance to eat the rest of the day, nor did they give him a moment of rest, so that the herdman had to bring them several times to their senses, and he was unable to make out what the matter with them was. The gelding was so much insulted that he himself went up to N^ster when the old man was getting ready to 378 LINEN - MEA SURER drive the herd home, and felt himself happier and calmer when he was saddled and mounted. God knows what the old gelding was thinking of as he was carrying old N^ster on his back. Whether he was resentfully thinking of the impudent and cruel youth, or whether, with a contemptuous and taciturn pride, charac- teristic of old persons, he forgave his offenders, — he in no way manifested his reflections on his whole way home. That very evening friends had come to see N^ster, and, as he was driving the herd past the huts of the manorial servants, he noticed a cart with a horse, tied to his porch. Having driven in. the herd, he was in such a hurry that he did not take off the saddle, but let the gelding out into the yard, called out to YSska. to unsaddle the herding- horse, closed the gate, and went to his friends. Whether on account of the insult offered to the white- spotted mare, Cream's great-grandchild, by the "mangy trash," bought at a horse-market and knowing neither his father nor his mother, and the consequent offended aristo- cratic feeling of the whole enclosure, or whether the , gelding in his high saddle, without the rider, presented an odd and fantastic spectacle to the horses, — certainly something unusual took place that evening in the en- closure. All the horses, young and old, ran after the gelding, with grinning teeth, driving him about the yard ; there were heard the sounds of hoofs striking against his lean sides and heavy groans. The gelding could stand it no longer,- — he could no longer escape the blows. He stopped in the middle of the yard ; in his face there was expressed the disgusting, feeble fury of impotent old age, then despair ; he dropped his ears, and suddenly some- thing happened which made all the horses grow silent. The eldest of the mares, Vyazopiirikha, went up to the gelding, sniffed at him, and drew a sigh. The gelding, too, drew a sigh. In the middle of the yard lighted up by the moon stood the tall, lean figure of the gelding with the high saddle, with the big knob of its bow. The horses stood motionless and in profound silence all about him, as though they had found out something new and unusual from him. Indeed, they did find out from him something new and unusual. This is what they learned from him. FIRST NIGHT " Yes, I am the son of Darling I. and of Baba. My name according to the pedigree is Muzhik I. I am Muzhik I. according to the pedigree, but nicknamed Linen-measurer, called so by thq- crowd for my long and flowing gait, the like of which there was not in all Eussia. There is no more thoroughly bred horse iu the whole world than I am. I should never have told you so. What good would it do ? You would never have recognized me, just as Vyazopurikha, who was with me at Khry^nov, has not recognized me before this. You would not have believed me even now if Vyazopurikha were not my witness. I should never have told it to you. I do not need your equine compassion. But you asked for it. Yes I am that Linen-measurer whom the connoisseurs of horse-fiesh are looking for and cannot find, that Linen-measurer whom the count himself knew and whom he got rid of from his stud for having outran his favourite. Swan. 379 380 LINEN - MEASURER "When I was born, I did not know what 'piebald' meant, — I thought I was a horse. The first remark about my hair, I remember, startled me and my mother. " I must have been born at night ; in the morning I was all licked clean by my mother and could stand on my feet. I remember, I was all the time wanting something, and everything seemed exceedingly wonderful and, at the same time, exceedingly simple. Our stalls were in a long, warm corridor, with grated doors, through which every- thing could be seen. " My mother offered me her teats, but I was still so innocent that I nudged her with my nose, now between her forelegs, and now at her udders. Suddenly my mother looked back at the grated door, and, putting her leg over me, stepped aside. The groom of the day was looking at us through the grate. " ' I declare, B^ba has had a colt,' he said, and began to draw back the door-bolt. " He walked over the fresh bedding and embraced me. " ' Look here, Taras,' he called out, ' and see how pie- bald he is, — just like a magpie.' " I darted away from him and fell on my knees. " ' What a little devil ! ' he said. " My mother was anxious, but did not defend me ; she only drew»a deep, deep breath and walked a little aside. The grooms came to look at me. One ran away to announce the fact to the keeper of the stable. " All laughed, looking at my piebald spots, and gave me all kinds of names. Neither I nor even my mother understood the meaning of these words. Up till then there had not been among us or among all my relatives a single piebald horse. We did not think there was any- thing wrong about it. All then praised my build and my strength. "'See how quick he is!' said a groom. 'You can't bold hi«i.' LINEN - MfiASt^EER S81 "After awhile the keeper came, and he marvelled at my colour ; he even seemed to be aggrieved. " ' I wonder after whom this monster takes/ he said. ' The general will not leave him in the stud. Bd.ba, you have played me a nice trick.' He turned to my mother. ' If you had had a white-spotted one, I should not have minded it so, but no, this one is all piebald ! ' "My mother made no reply and, as always in such cases, again drew a sigh. " ' What devil does he take after ? Just like a muzhik ! ' he continued. 'He can't be left in the stud! It is a shame ! And yet he is a fine colt, he is fine ! ' said he, and so said all, looking at me. " A few days later the general himself came ; he looked at me, and again all seemed to be horrified and rebuked me and my mother for the colour of my hair. " ' And yet he is a fine colt, he is ! ' said all who saw me. " Until spring we all lived separated in the mare stable, each with his mother ; occasionally, when the snow began to melt in the sun on the roofs of the stables, mother and I were let out in a broad yard bedded with fresh straw. Here I for the first time became acquainted with all my near and distant relatives. Here I saw all the famous mares of that time come out with their young from different doors. Here was old Dutchy, Fly, Cream's daughter, Eeddy, riding-horse Complaint, — all the famous mares of that time, all were gathered there with their young, walking about in the sun, rolling on the fresh straw, and sniffing at each other, like any common horses. " The sight of that enclosure, filled with the beauties of that time, I have never been able to fofget. There was also that very Vyazopurikha, who then was a yearling filly, — a sweet, Idvelj, merry little horse ; but, no insult being meant to her, although now she is regarded by you as a remarkable thoroughbred, she then was only one 382 LINEN - MEASUEER of the worst horses of that breed. She will herself tell you so. " My variegated colour, which had so displeased the men, found great favour with the horses; they all sur- rounded me, admired me, and played with me. I began to forget the words of the men and felt happy. Soon I learned the first sorrow of my life, and the cause of it was my mother. When it began to melt, and the sparrows twittered under the roofs, and spring could be felt more strongly in the air, my mother began to change her treat- ment of me. "All her manner was changed. Now she suddenly without any cause began to play, running about in the yard, which did not at all comport with her respectable age ; now she fell to musing and started to neigh ; now she bit and kicked her sister mares ; now she began to sniff at me and snort out in dissatisfaction ; and now, as she went out into the sun, she put her head over the shoulder of her cousin Tradeswoman, and for a long time scratched her back while lost in thought, and kept driv- ing me away from her teats. " Once there came the keeper of the stable, who ordered that a halter be put on her and that she be taken out of the stall. She neighed, and I answered her and made a dart for her, but she did not even look back at me. Groom Tards put his arms around me just as they were closing the door after my mother had been led out. "I bolted and threw the groom down on the straw, but the door was closed, and I only heard the receding neighing of my mother. But in that neigh I no longer heard a call for me, but something different. To her voice there came in response a mighty voice, that of Good I,, as I later learned, who, with two grooms by his sides, was going to meet my mother. " I do^ not remember how Taras got out of my stall : I was too sad, for I felt that I had for ever lost the love LINEN - MEASUKER 383 of my mother. And it was all becau se I vy-aa-^dfibald. L I thought, recalling the words of the people about the C/ colour of my hail', and I became so infuriated that I began to beat my head and my knees against the wall of the stall, and continued doing so until I began to per- spire and had fo stop from exhaustion. "After awhile my mother returned to me. I heard her run up the corridor to our stall in a trot, and with an unusual gait. The door was opened for her, and I did not recognize her, — she looked so much younger and prettier. She sniffed at rne, snorted, and began to whinny. I could see by her whole expression that she did not love me. " She told me about Good's beauty and abdut her love of him. These meetings were continued, and the rela- tions between me and my mother grew colder and colder. " Soon we were let out to grass. Then I learned new joys, which took the place of my mother's lost love. I had companions and friends. We learned together to eat grass, to neigh like grown horses, and, raising our tails, to gallop in circles about our mothers. That was a happy time. I was forgiven everything; all loved me, admired me, and looked condescendingly at everything I did. That did not last long. " Soon after something terrible happened to me." The gelding heaved a terrible sigh, and walked away from the horses. The dawn had long crimsoned the sky. The gate creaked, and N^ster came in. The horses scattered. The herdman fixed the saddle on the gelding and drove out the herd. VI. SECOND NIGHT The moment the horses were all driven home, they again gathered about the piebald gelding. " In the month of August mother and I were sepa- rated," began the gelding, " and I did not experience any special grief. I saw that my mother was heavy with a younger brother, famous Usan, and I was no longer to her what I had been. I was not jealous, but I felt that I was getting colder toward her. Besides, I knew that, leaving my mother, I was going to enter into the common division of colts, where we were stationed two and three at a time, and whence a whole lot of us young colts were let out into the open. I stood in the same division with Dear. Dear was a riding-horse, and later on the emperor rode him, and he was represented in paintings and in statues. But at that time he was still a simple colt, with soft, glossy hair, a swanlike neck, and legs as straight and thin as strings. He was always jolly, good-natured, and kind ; he was always ready to play, to lick, and to joke, either horse or man. " We involuntarily became friends, living together, and that friendship lasted during the whole time of our youth. " He was cheerful and frivolous. He even then began to fall in love and play with the mares, and he laughed at my innocence. To my misfortune, I from egotism began to imitate him, and soon was carried away by love, "^hat early weakness of mine was the cause of the great- ■^ 384 LINEN - MEASUEER 385 est change in my fate. It happened so that I was carried away Vyazopiirikha was one year older than I ; we were specially friendly with each other, but toward the end of autumn I noticed that she began to be shy of me. " But I will not tell all that unfortunate story of my first love ; she herself remembers my senseless transport which ended for me in the most important change in my life. " The herdmen began to drive her away and to strike me. In the evening I was driven into a special stall, where I neighed all night long as though having a pre- sentiment of what was to happen on the following day. " In the morning the general, the keeper, the grooms, and the herdmen came to the corridor where my stall was, and there was raised a terrible hubbub. The gen- eral shouted to the keeper ; the keeper vindicated himself by saying that he had given no order to let me out, but that the grooms had done so on their own account. The general said that he should have them all flogged, but that the young stallions should not be kept. The keeper promised that everything would be done. They grew quiet and went away. I did not comprehend a thing, but I saw that something was to be done with me. " On the following day I for ever stopped neighing, — I became what I now am. The whole world was changed in my eyes. Nothing gave me any pleasure : I pondered over myself and began to brood. At first everything annoyed me. I even ceased to eat, to drink, and to walk, and, of course, play was out of the question. Now and then it would occur to me to give a kick, take a run, start a neigh ; but immediately the terrible question arose before me : What for ? Why ? and my last strength was gone. " Once I was being led around in the evening, as the herd was driven from the field. At a distance I saw a 386 LINEN - MEASURER cloud of dust with the indistinct familiar contours of all our mares. I heard a merry whinnying and tramping. I stopped, although the rope of the halter, by which the groom was pulling me, was cutting the nape of my neck, and began to look at the approaching herd, as one looks at the happiness which is for ever lost and will not return. " They were coming nearer, and I could tell one after another all the beautiful, majestic, healthy, well-fed horses whom I knew so well. Some of them also looked at me. I did not feel any pain from the jerking of the groom's halter. I forgot myself and involuntarily neighed from old habit and ran in a trot; but my neighing sounded sad, ridiculous, and insipid. ^^— " They did not laugh in the herd, but I noticed that many of them turned away from me out of politeness. They were obviously disgusted, and sorry, and ashamed, and, above all, I appeared so ridiculous to them. What they found so ridiculous was my thin, inexpressive neck, big head (I had grown lean in the meantime), my long, clumsy legs, and the stupid trotting gait, with which I, from old habit, started to make evolutions about the groom. Nobody rephed to my neighing, — all turned away from me. I suddenly understood all ; I understood how I had once and for all become a stranger to them, — I do not remember how I reached home with the groom. " I had even before begun to show an inclination toward seriousness and reflection, and now a complete transfor- mation took place in me. My piebald spots, which had produced such a strange contempt in people for me, and my peculiar position in the stud, which I began to feel but was quite unable to explain to myself, caused me to brood over myself. " I pondered on the injustice of men, who condemned me because I was piebald ; I pondered on the inconstancy of maternal and, in general, of woman's love, and its LINEN - MEASURfiR 387 dependence on physical conditions ; and, above all, I pon- dered on the qualities of that strange race of animals, with whom we are so intimately connected and whom we call men, — those qualities from which sprang that pecul- iar position of mine in the stud, which I felt but could not understand. " The meaning of that peculiarity and of the human qualities on which it was based was revealed to me on the following occasion : " It was in winter, during the holidays. I had not been given anything to eat or drink during the whole day. As I later learned, this was due to the fact that our groom was drunk. On that day the keeper of the stable came in to my stall and, upon seeing that I had no feed, began to call the absent groom all kinds of bad names. " On the next day the groom came with a companion of his to our stall to give us hay. I saw that he was unusually pale and sad ; especially in the expression of his long back was there something significant and provok- ing compassion. " He angrily threw the hay over the railing. I stuck my head over his shoulder, being eager to eat; but he struck me with his fist such a blow on the point of my nose that I jumped away. Then he kicked me in the belly with his boot. " ' If it had not been for that mangy one,' he said, ' nothing would have happened.' " ' What is the matter ? ' asked the other. '"The devil knows whether they have sold him or have given him away. If I had starved the count's horses, it would not have mattered, but how did I dare to give no feed to his colt. " Lie down," says he, and then , they started walloping me ! What has become of Christi- anity? They pity an animal more than a man. He must be an infidel : he himself did the counting, the bar- barian ! The general has never flogged me like that ! 388 LINEN - MEASUEEK He has made swales on my whole back, — he evidently has uo Christian soul ! ' "What they were saying about flogging and Christi- anity, I understood well, but at that time I could not make out what was meant by the words ' his colt,' from wliich I saw that people assumed a certain connection between me and the keeper. Wherein this connection consisted I could not understand then. Only much later, when I was separated from the rest of the horses, did I comprehend what it meant. At that time I was abso- lutely unable to understand what was meant by calling me the property of a man. The words 'my horse' had reference to me, a hving horse, and seemed as strange to me as the words ' my land,' ' my air,' ' my water.' " But these words had an enormous influence upon me. I never stopped thinking of them, and oidy much later, after the most varied relations with men, did I filially come to understand the meaning ascribed by people to these strange words. " People are guided in life, not by deeds, but by words. They love not so much the abiUty to do or not do some- thing, as the ability to apply certain conventional words to all kinds of objects. Such words, which are regarded as very important by them, are ' my, mine,' which they say about different objects, beings, and things, even about the earth, about people, and about horses. About any one thing they have agreed to let just one man call it ' mine.' And he who, according to this game, agreed among them, is able to say ' mine ' about the greatest number of things is regarded as the happiest. Why it is so, I do not know, only it is so. Formerly I used to attempt to explain it by some advantage which they derive from it, but that has proved to be unjust. " Many of those people who, for example, called me their horse, did not ride on me, but entirely different per- sons rode on me. Nor did they, but others, feed me. LINEN - MEASURER 389 And again, it was not those who called me their horse who did kindnesses to me, but coachmen, veterinarians, and, in general, strangers. " Having later expanded the circle of my observations, I convinced myself that even in respect to things other than horses the idea of ' mine ' had no other foundation than a low, animal, human instinct, called by them the feeling or right of property. A man says 'my house,' and never lives in it, but only cares about the build- ing and the maintenance of the house. A merchant says ' my shop, my draper's shop,' for example, and has not any clothes of the best cloth that there is in his shop. " There are people who call the land their own, though they have never seen that land, and have never walked over it. There are people who call other people their own, and who have never seen those men ; and the only relation which they bear to these people is to do them harm. " There are people who call wOmen their own women, or wives ; but these women live with other men. And people strive in life not after doing good, but after calling as many things -as possible 'theirs.' " I am now convinced that in this lies the essential difference between men and us. Therefore, not to men- tion other advantages which we have over men, we by . tliis alone may say that we stand higher than men in the scale of living beings ; the activity of men, at least of those with whom I have had any relations, is guided by words, while ours is guided by deeds. " It was this right to "speak of me as ' my ' horse which the keeper had acquired, and for which he had the groom flogged. That discovery affected me powerfully and, com- bined with those thoughts and reflections, which my piebald appearance called forth in men, and with the melancholy, called forth in me by the treason of my 390 LINEN - ME ASUEER mother, caused ine to become the serious and thoughtful gelding that I am. " I was thrice unhappy : I was piebald, I was a geld- ing, and people imagined about me that I did not belong to God and to myself, as is proper for aU living beings, but that I belonged to the keeper. " There were many consequences of this belief of theirs. The first of these was that they kept me separate, fed me better, oftener took me out by the line, and hitched me up much earlier. " I was hitched up the first time in my third year. I remember how the keeper himself, who imagined that I belonged to him, the first time began to hitch me up with a crowd of grooms, expecting violence or resistance from me. They tied me up with ropes as they took me down between the shafts ; they put on my back a broad cross of leather straps and tied it to the shafts, so as to keep me from kicking, whereas I was only waiting for a chance to show them my wilhngness and love of work. " They were surprised to see me go like an old horse. They began to drive me, and I began to exercise trotting. I made ever greater progress with every new day, so that in three months the general himself, and others, praised my gait. But, strange to say, even because they imagined . that I was not theirs, but the keeper's, my gait had for them an entirely different meaning. " My brother colts were driven in races, their records were kept, and people came out to see them, and they were driven in gilt sulkies, and expensive horse blankets were thrown over them. I travelled in the common carts of the keeper to help him attend to his business at Ches- m^nka and other hamlets. All that was caused by the fact that I was piebald, and, chiefly, because I was, in their opinion, not the count's, but the keeper's own. " To-morrow, if we are alive, I will tell you the chief LINEN - MEASUIIeR 391 consequence that this right of property, which the keeper imagined he had, had for me." All that day the horses treated Linen-measurer with respect. But N^ster's treatment was as rude as before. The gray horse of the peasant, coming up to the herd, again neighed, and the bay mare again flirted with him. VIL THIRD NIGHT The moon arose, and its narrow sickle illuminated the figure of Linen-measurer, who was standing in the middle of the yard ; the horses were crowding around him. " The chief wonderful consequence of my being not the count's or God's, but the keeper's," continued the piebald gelding, " was that that which forms our main desert, — namely our rapid gait, — became the cause of my expul- sion. Swan was being driven on the track, as the Ches- m^nka keeper drove up to the track with me. Swan went past us. He was a fine trotter, but he was showing off a great deal, and did not have that agihty which I had worked out in myself, which was that at the touch of one foot the other should immediately be lifted, so that not the slightest effort should be lost in vain, but that every exertion should send me ahead. " ' Well, shall I try my piebald ? ' he called out ; and when Swan came abreast with me he let me go. He had already the impetus ahead of me, and so I fell behind at the first turn ; but in the second I began to gain on him, came nearer to his vehicle, came abreast of him, ran ahead, — and outstripped him. " They tried a second time, — and the same took place. I was even in better trim, and this terrified all. The general asked to have me sold as far from him as possible, so that he might never hear of me. " ' For if the count finds out, there will be trouble,' he said. 392 LINEN - MEASURER 393 " And so I was sold to a horse dealer as a centre horse. I did not stay long with the horse dealer. A hussar, who came to huy remounts, took me with him. All that was so unfair, so cruel, that I was glad when I was taken away from Khry&ov, and when I for ever parted from that which was familiar and dear to me. I felt too pain- fully my situation among them. For them there was love, honour, freedom ; for me labour, humiliation, work to the end of my life ! Why ? Because I was piebald, and because for that reason I had to become somebody's horse — " ; linen-measurer was unable to proceed with his storj- upon that evening. In the enclosure there happened something that stirred up all the horses. Tradeswoman, a mare late with young, who had been listening to the beginning of the story, suddenly turned around and slowly walked over to the shed; there she began to groan so loud that all the horses directed their attention to her; then she lay down, then rose again, and again lay down. The old mares understood what the matter was, but the young horses were agitated, and, leaving the gelding, sur- rounded the sick mare. On the morrow there was a new colt who was quiver- ing on his legs. N^ster called the keeper, and the mare with her colt was taken to a stall, while the horses were driven out without them. ^11. FOUETH NIGHT In the evening, when the gate was closed and all quieted down, the piebald continued as follows : " I have had opportunity to make many observations, both on men and on horses, during the time that I passed from hand to hand. Longest of all I stayed with two masters, with a prince, an officer of hussars, and later with an old woman who Hved near the Church of St, Nicholas, the miracle- worker, " With the officer of hussars I passed the best time of my life. / " Although he was the cause of my ruin, although he '^ never loved any one or anything, I have always loved him for that very reason. > "What I liked in him was that he was handsome, happy, rich, and therefore loved nobody. " You must understand that exalted equine feeling of ours ! His coldness, my dependence on him, added special strength to my love for him. 'Kill me, drive me to death,' I used to think in our good days, ' I will only be the happier for it.' " He had bought me of the horse dealer, to whom the keeper had sold me for eight hundred roubles. He bought me for the reason that nobody had any piebald horses. " That was my best time. " He had a mistress. I knew it because I took him to her every day, and sometimes drove them out together. LINEN - MEASURER 395 " His mistress was a beauty, and he was handsome, and his coachman was handsome. And I loved them all for it. And I had an easy life with them. " My Hfe passed like this : In the morning the groom came to groom me — not the coachman, but the groom. The groom was a young boy taken from the village. He opened the door, let the horse evaporations go out, threw out the dung, took off the blankets, and began to curry my body, and to deposit white rows of the dandruff on the deals of the floor, which was all knocked up by my sponges. " I jestingly bit his sleeve and pawed the ground. " Then we were led, one after another, to a vat filled with cold water, and the lad took deHght in his work, in the smooth piebald spots, the leg, as straight as an arrow, with its broad hoof, and the glossy crupper and back, which looked smooth enough to lie down upon. " Hay was put in behind the high railing, and oats were poured into the oak crib. Then Feofan and the chief coachman. came. " The master and the coachman were very much alike. Neither the one nor the other was afraid of anything rrdf loved anybody, but himself, and for this both were loved by all. Feofdn wore a red shirt and plush trousers and a sleeveless coat. I used to be glad to see him come into the stable on a hoUday, all pomaded and wearing his sleeveless coat, and call out: " ' Well, beast, have you forgotten me ? ' and he would strike me with the fork-handle on my flank, not painfully, but just as a joke. " I immediately saw that it was a joke and, dropping my ears, gritted my teeth. "We had a black staUion who went in a span. At night I was hitched with him. This beast did not know what a joke was and was as mean as a devil. I stood by his side, one stall from him, and be frequently bit me. 396 LINEK -MEASURER not in jest. FeoMn was not afraid of him. He simply walked up straight to him and shouted so loud that I thought he would kill him, but no, he would go on and would put the halter on him. " Once he and I, driving in a span, drove down Black- smith Bridge. Neither the master nor the coachman was frightened : they laughed, shouted to the people, and checked us in, and turned — and he did not crush any one. " In their service I lost my hest qualities and half of my hfe. Here they ruined me by watering me too much, and they foundered me. Still, in spite of it aU, that was the best part of my life ! They would come at midnight, harness me up, grease my hoofs, wet my mane and fore- lock, and put me between the shafts. " The sleigh was of woven reed with velvet cushions ; the harness had small silver buckles, the lines were of silk, and so was the netting. The harness was such that when all the traces and straps were in place and hitched, it was impossible to make out where the harness ended and the horse began. "I was generally harnessed up in the shed. Then Feof^n, broader at his hips than at his shoulders, came out, carrying a red belt under his armpit; he examined the harness, sat down, fixed his caftan, put his foot in the stirrup, made some joke, hung his whip over his wrist, just for appearances, for he never gave me the whip, and said : ' Come now ! ' " Playiug at every step, I moved out of the gate ; and the cook, who came out to throw out the swill, stopped on the threshold, and a peasant, who brought wood into the yard, opened wide his eyes. He drove me out and some distance away, and stopped. Then lackeys came out, and other coachmen came up. And they began to chat. There they all waited : we frequently had to stand for three hours at the entrance ; sometimes we would be LINEN - MEASURER 397 driven about and brought back to the same place to wait. " Then there was a stir in the vestibule, and gray Tikhon, wearing a dress coat over his paunch, came out and called out : ' The carriage ! ' Then there was not that stupid manner of saying ' Forward ! ' as though I did not know that we drove forward and not backward ; Feofan smacked his tongue and drove up. " And the prince stepped out leisurely, carelessly, as though there was nothing remarkable in that sleigh, nor in the horse, nor in Feofan, who bent his back and stretched out his arm in an attitude in which he could not, it seemed, persevere long. The prince came out in his helmet and military overcoat with a gray beaver collar, which concealed the ruddy, black-browed, beautiful face that ought never to have been concealed. He came out clattering with his sabre, his spurs, and the brass heels of his galoshes, stepping over the carpet, as though in a hurry and paying no attention to me or to Feofan, though all but him looked at us and admired us. "Feof^ smacked his tongue, I pulled at the traceS; and we moved . up, as was proper, at an amble, and stopped; I looked sidewise at the prince, and shook my thoroughbred head and fine forelock. " The prince was in a good mood ; now and then he jested with Feofan. Feofdn replied to him, barely turn- ing toward him his handsome head, and, without dropping his hands, made a barely perceptible movement with the lines, which I understood well, and one, two, three — I ran ahead, quivering with every muscle and throwing up the snow and the mud against the front part of the sleigh. " They did not have, then the stupid manner of calling ' Oh ! ' as though the coachmen were in pain, but they called out the intelHgible ' Come now ! Look out ! ' " ' Come now ! Look out ! ' Feofan called, and the 398 LINEN - MEASURER people stepped aside and stopped, and craned their necks, looking at the beauty of the horse, and at the handsome coachman, and at the handsome master. " I was particularly fond of running ahead of a trotter. When Feofan and I saw some harness ahead of us, which seemed to be worthy of our effort, we, flying like a whirlwind, began slowly to gain on the vehicle. Already I, throwing the mud on the back of the sleigh, am even with the passenger and snort right over his head, and now I am even with the horse's saddle-cloth, with the arch, and I do not see him and only hear behind me his receding voice. " And the prince and Feofan and I, we were all silent, and pretended to be simply driving, attending to our business, and not noticing those whom we met on the way driving quiet horses. "I loved to outstrip a good trotter, but I also liked to meet such a horse. One moment, a sound, a glance, and we were driving in different directions, and again we were off all alone, each attending to his business — " The gate creaked and the voices of N^ster and Vaska were heard. FIFTH NIGHT The weather began to change. It looked gloomy ; there had been no dew in the morning, and it was hot, and the gnats were very pestering. The moment the herd was driven in, the horses gathered about the piebald gelding, and he finished his story as following:- "My happy life soon came to an end. I lived thus only two years. Toward the end of the second winter there happened the most joyful incident for me, and soon after my greatest misfortune. " It was during Butter- week. I took the prince to the races. Atlas and Steer were racing. I do not know what LINEN - MEASUEEK 399 they were doing in the booth, only he came out and ordered' Teof an to drive into the track. "I remember I was placed on the track by Atlas's side. Atlas was driving with a sulky, while I was pull- ing a city sleigh. I outstripped him in turning. Laughter and a roar of applause greeted me. " When I was led out, a crowd followed me up. Some five men offered the prince thousands for me. He only laughed, displaying his white teeth. "'No,' he said, 'that is not a horse, but a friend of mine ; I sha'n't take mountains of gold for him. Good- bye, gentlemen ! ' " He opened the boot, and seated himself in the sleigh. "'To the Ostozhenka!' " There was the house of his mistress. And we flew — "That was our last happy day. We arrived there. He called her ' his own.' But she loved another, and had gone away with him. He learned that at her house. It was five o'clock, and he, without unhitching me, went after her. They did to me what they had never done before : they gave me the whip, and made me gallop. "For the first time I took a wrong step, and I felt ashamed and wanted to redeem myself; but suddenly I heard the prince calUng out in a strange voice, ' Go ! ' and the whip swished and struck me, and I darted for- ward striking my foot against the iron of the sleigh front. " We caught up with her twenty-five versts away. I brought him there, but I trembled all night long and could not eat anything. In the morning I was given water to drink. I drank it and I ceased for ever to be the horse I had been. '' I was ailing, and they tormented and maimed me, — people call it curing. My hoofs came off, I had swell- ings, and my legs bent, my chest sank in, and there appeared a weakness and indolence in all my limbs. 400 LINEN - MEASURER " I was sold to a horse dealer. He fed me on carrots and sometMng else, and made something of md^which was not like myself, but which Could deceive one who was not experienced. I had no longer any strength, and all my trotting quahties were gone. " Besides, the horse dealer tormented me every time when purchasers came, by coming into my stall and beating me unmercifully with a whip and frightening me, so that he nearly drove me mad. Then he rubbed down the whip-marks and led me out. "An old woman bought me from the horse dealer. She drove all the time to the Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle-worker, and flogged the coachman. The coach- man wept in my stall. And I learned that tears have an agreeable salt taste. Then the old woman died. "Her 'clerk took me to the country and sold me to a shopkeeper ; then I ate too much wheat and grew more ailing still. "Then I was sold to a peasant. There I ploughed, getting hardly anything to eat, and I got my leg hurt by the ploughshare. I was again ill. " I was swapped off to a gipsy. He tormented me fear- fully, and finally he sold me to the clerk here, and here lam — " All were silent. It began to sprinkle. IX. Upon returning home the next evening, the herd came upon the master with a guest. When near the house Zhuldyba looked askance at two male figures : the one was the young master in a straw hat, — the other, a tall, fat, bloated military. The old mare looked awry at the men and, bearing off to one side, passed by them ; the others — the young horses — were confused and at a loss what to do, especially when the master purposely went with his guest among the horses, and they talked and pointed something out to each other. "This one here I bought of Vo^ykov, — the dappled gray horse," said the master. " And this young black mare with the white legs, whose is she ? She is nice," said the guest. They looked over a number of horses, running ahead of them and stopping them. They also noticed the little bay mare. " This breed is left with me from the Khry^nov rid- ing-horses," said the master. They were not able to examine all the horses as they walked by. The master called out to Nfeter, and the old man, hurriedly urging up the piebald gelding by striking his sides with the heels of his boots, galloped forward. The piebald gelding limped on one leg, but he ran in such a way that it was evident that he would under no consideration murmur, even though he should be asked to run to the end of the world with the expen- diture of all his strength. He was even ready to gaUop 401 402 LINEN - MBASUKER at full speed, and made the attempt at it with his right leg. " Now this mare here, I dare say, is such that you will hardly find a better one in all of Eussia," said the master, pointing to one of the mares. The guest praised her. The master ran in agitation, now ahead of the horses, now to one side of them, point- ing all the time to them and telling their story and the pedigree of each horse. The guest was apparently tired of listening to the host, and he invented questions just to show that he was in- terested ia all such things. " Yes, yes," he said, absent-mindedly. "You look at her," said the host, without replying. " Look at her legs ! — She cost me a lot, but I have a three-year-old one from her that is already trotting." '' Does he trot well ? " asked the guest. In this manner they took up nearly a,ll the horses, and there was nothing more to show. " Well, shall we go now ? " '• Yes." They went through the gate. The guest was glad that the show was over and that he was going to the house where there would be something to eat, drink, and smoke, and he looked visibly happier. Passing by N^ster, who, sitting on the piebald horse, was still waiting for orders, the guest struck the piebald's crupper with his big fat hand. " He is a beauty," he said. " I had just such a pie- bald horse, — do you remember my telling you about him?" The host heard that it was not his horse he was talking about, so he paid no attention, and continued to look at his herd. Suddenly he heard a stupid, weak, old neighing right above his ears. Ifc was the piebald that was neighing ; LINEN - MEASUKEK 403 as though confused, he stopped without finishing his neigh. Neither the host nor the guest paid any attention to this neighing and they went to the house. Linen-measurer had in the bloated old man recognized his favourite master, Serpuliovskdy, the one that had been so immensely rich and 'handsome. It continued to sprinkle. The enclosure looked gloomy, but in the master's house it was quite different. There the table was set for a luxurious evening tea in a luxu- rious drawing-room. The host, the hostess, and the guest were sitting at the table. The hostess was pregnant, which was quite apparent from the size of her abdomen, from her straight and strained attitude, from her fulness, and, especially, from her large eyes, which were meekly and solemnly turned inward. She was sitting at the samovar. The host held in his hands a box of ten-year-old, extra fine cigars, such as, according to his words, no one else had, and was getting ready to boast of them to his guest. The host was a handsome man of about twenty-five years, — fresh-looking, well-fed, well-groomed. He was dressed at home in a new, loose, strong suit made in London. Large, expensive trinkets hung down from his watch-chain. The shirt-studs were of massive gold, with turquoises. He wore a beard k la Napoleon IIL, and the mouse-tails were pomaded and stuck out as well as though they had been fixed in Paris. The hostess wore a dress of silk gauze, with large bouquets of various colours ; she had large golden hair- pins of a peculiar pattern in her thick, blond, beautiful, though not all her own, hair. On her hands there were many bracelets and rings, all of them expensive ones. The samovar was of silver, and the tea service was fine. A lackey, magnificent in his dress coat and white waist- 404 LINEN - MEASURER 405 coat and neckerchief, stood like a statue at the door, wait- ing for orders. The furniture was of bent wood and bright in colouring; the wall-paper was dark, with a large flower design. Near the table, a remarkably fine greyhound tinkled with his silver collar ; they called him by an uncommonly difficult Enghsh name, which was badly pronounced by both, as neither of them knew any English. In the corner an inlaid piano stood among flowers. Everything gave an impression of novelty, luxury, and rarity. Everything was good, but on everything there was an imprint of superabundance, wealth, and absence of spiritual interests. The host was a high-flier, of an extremely sanguine temperament, one of those who never give out, who travel about in sable fur coats, who throw expensive bouquets to actresses, drink the most expensive wines with the newest labels in the most expensive hotels, offer prizes in their name, and keep the most expensive — The guest, Nikita Serpukhovskdy, was a man of more than forty years, tall, fat, bald-headed, with large mous- tache and side-whiskers. He must have been very hand- some. Now he seemed to have fallen physically, morally, and monetarily. He had so many debts that he was compelled to serve, in order not to be put in a hole. He was now on his way to the capital of a Government as a chief of a stud. Distinguished relatives had obtained this place for him. He was dressed in a military blouse and blue trousers. The blouse and trousers were such as only a rich man would have made for himself ; the same was true of his linen ; his watch was of an Enghsh make. His boots had strange soles a finger's width in thickness. Nikfta Serpukhovskdy had in his lifetime squandered a fortune of two millions, and was still 120,000 in debt. 406 LINEN - MEASURER From such a performance there is always left that swing of Mfe which gives one a chance to get things on credit and to pass almost in luxury another ten years. The ten years were coming to an end, and the buoy- ancy was giving out, and Nikita was beginning to find it hard to live. He was beginning to take to drinking, that is, to get drunk on wine, which had never happened to him before. As a matter of fact, he never began or ended drinking. Most perceptible was his fall in the restlessness of his glance (his eyes were beginning to flit unsteadily) and in the lack of firmness in his intonations and move- ments. This restlessness was the more striking in that it had evidently come to him within a short time, for it was obvious that he had long been accustomed not to be afraid of anybody or anything, and that now he had, within but a very short time, through heavy suffering, reached: that dread which was so much out of keeping with his nature. The host and the hostess noticed it; they exchanged glances which showed that they understood each other and only delayed until bedtime a detailed discussion of the subject, and that they endured poor Nikita. They treated him with great attention. The 'sight of the happiness of the young host humbled Nikita and made him morbidly envy the host, as he recalled his irretrievable past. " Mary, does not the cigar incommode you ? " he said, turning to the lady, in that peculiar tone which is acquired only through experience, that polite, friendly, but not quite respectful tone, which people, who know the world, use toward mistresses in distinction from their wives. He did not exactly want to offend her ; on the contrary, he just now wished rather to curry the favour of the host and the hostess, though he would not have acknowledged the fact to himself. It was simply because he had be- come accustomed to speak to women in that tone. He LINEN - MEASUEEE 407 knew that she herself would have been surprised, even offended, if he had treated her as a lady. Besides, he had to preserve a certain shade of a respectful tone for the real wife of his equal. He always treated such women with respect, not because he shared any of those so-called convictions that were preached in periodicals (he never read such trash) about the respect due to the personality of each man, about the raeaninglessness of marriage, and so forth, but because all decent people did so, and he was a decent, though a fallen, man. He took a cigar. But the host awkwardly took a whole handful of cigars and offered them to him. " No, you take this ! You will see how they are." Nikita brushed aside the cigars with his hand, and in his eyes there was something Hke a gleam of offence and shame. "Thank you." He took out his cigar-holder. "Try mine ! " The hostess was quick-witted. She noticed it and has- tened to talk to him. " I am very fond of cigars. I should smoke myself, if all about me did not smoke." And she smiled her beautiful, kindly smile. In re- sponse he gave her a weak smile. Two of his teeth were lacking. "No, you take this one," continued the dull-witted host. "I have others that are weaker. Fritz, bringen Sie noch eine Kasten," he said, " dort zwei." The German lackey brought him another box. " What kind do you like ? Big ones ? Strong cigars ? These are very good. Take them all." He kept pushing them into his hand. He was evidently glad that he had some one to whom he could make a boast of the rare things which he pos- sessed, and he did not notice anything. Serpukhovskdy 408 LINEN - MEASURER lighted his cigar and hastened to continue the fionvetsa- tion which they had begun. " So, how much was it you paid for Atlas ? " he asked. "He cost me a great deal, — not less than five thou- sand. At least I am secure on him. What colts he gets, I tell you!" " Do they trot ? " asked Serpukhovskdy. " They trot well. His colt took three prizes this year : in Tula, in Moscow, and in St. Petersburg ; he raced with Vo^ykov's Eaven. The rascal of a jockey made four missteps, or else he would have left him behind the flag." " He is a Httle raw. There is too much Dutch blood in him, that's what I will tell you," said Serpukhovskdy. " Well, and what about the mares ? I will show them to you to-morrow. I gave three thousand for Dobr^nya. For Amiabihty I gave two thousand." The host began once more to figure up his wealth. The hostess saw that it was painful to Serpukhovskoy and that he only feigned to be listening. " Won't you have another glass of tea ? " asked the hostess. " No," said the host, continuing to talk. She arose ; the host stopped her, and embraced and kissed her. Serpukhovskoy began to smile as he looked at them with what to them appeared as an unnatural smUe, but when the host arose and, embracing her, went with her up to the portifere, Nikita's face suddenly changed; he heaved a deep sigh, and on his puffed-up face there was suddenly expressed despair. Even malice could be seen on it. The host returned and, smiling, sat down opposite Nikita. They were silent for awhile. XI. " Yes, you said you bought it of Vo^ykov," said Serpu- khovskdy, as though carelessly. " Yes, Atlas, I told you so. I wanted to buy some mares from Dubcvitski, but there was nothing but trash left." "He has gone up the flue," said Serpukhovskdy. He suddenly stopped and looked about him. He recalled that he himself owed twenty thousand to that man who had gone up the flue. And when it came to talking about people who had gone up, he was certainly one of whom they would say that. He J9iH^bed)=«"-^*s.'v\tvvA- ' Both were again silent. The host was rummaging through his brain for something to brag of before his guest ; Serpukhovskdy was trying to say something which would show that he had not yet gone up the. flue. But / the minds of both were dulled, although they tried to' brace themselves with cigars. " How would it be if I had a drink of something ? " thought Serpukhovskdy. " I must by all means have something to drink, or else the tedium he is causing me will kill me," thought the host. " Are you going to stay here for a long time yet ? " asked Serpukhovskdy. " About another month. Well, are we going to have supper, eh ? Fritz, is it ready ? " They went into the dining-room. Here a table was placed under a hanging lamp. On it stood candles and all kinds of unusual things : siphonsj unusual wine in decanters, unusual appetisers, and brandy. They drank 409 410 LINEN - MEASURER and ate, and drank again, and ate again, and then they struck up a conversation. Serpukhovskdy grew red in his face, and began to talk without timidity. They were talking about women, mentioning the gip- sies,' ballet-dancers, and French women that this or that one had. " Well, have you given up Matier ? " asked the host. " I have not given her up, but she has given me up. Ah, my friend, it makes me feel bad to think what I have spent in my lifetime. Nowadays I am really happy when I have one thousand roubles at a time, and I am really glad to get away from everybody. I can't stand it in Moscow. What is the use of mentioning it ? " It annoyed the host to hear Serpukhovskdy talk. He wanted to talk about himself and to brag, while Serpu- khovskdy wanted to talk about himself, about his brilliant past. The host filled a glass of vsdne for him and was waiting for him to finish it, so as to tell him all about himself, about how much better his stud was arranged than anybody else's, and how his Mary loved him not for his money merely, but with her whole heart. " I wanted to tell you that in my stud — " he began. But Serpukhovskdy interrupted him. " There was a time, I must say," he began, " when I loved to live well, and when I knew how to do it. You are talking about trotting, — tell me which is your liveli- est horse ? " The host was glad to have an. opportunity to tell him something about his stud, and so he began to speak ; but Serpukhovskdy again interrupted him. "Yes, yes," he said. "You keepers of the stud are doing it all for vanity's sake, and not for pleasure, for life's sake. It was not so with me. I told you to-day that I had a carriage-horse, one that had the same kind of spots that your herdman's piebald horse has. Oh, what a horse he was ! You can't possibly know : that LINEN - MEASUKER -411 was in the year forty-two, — I had just arrived in Mos- cow ; I went to a horse dealer where I saw the piebald gelding. He had good qualities. I liked him. The price? One thousand roubles. I liked him, so I took him and began to drive him out. I have never had such a horse, nor will you ever have such a one. I. have nev6r known a better horse in size, in strength, and in beauty. You were a boy then, so you cannot have seen him, but you may have heard of him, I suppose. All Moscow knew him." " Yes, I have heard of him," the host said, unwillingly, " but I wanted to tell you about my — " " So you have heard. I bought him just as he was, without his pedigree, without his record ; only later I learned what he was. Vo^ykov and I made it out. He was a colt by Darling I., Linen-measurer, he just meas- ured linen. On account of his piebald spots he was taken out of the Khry^uov stud and given to the keeper of the stable, who castrated him and sold him to a horse dealer. There are no such horses nowadays, my friend ! Ah, what a time that was! Oh, my youth!" He sang a line of a gipsy song. He was getting- under the influ- ence of the liquor. " Ah, it was a fine time ! I was twenty-five years old, had eighty thousand roubles yearly income, not a gray hair on my head, and my teeth hke pearls — Whatever I undertook came out well for me, and now all is ended — " " There was not that mettle then," said the host, mak- ing use of the interruption. "Let me tell you that my first horses have begun to trot without — " " Your horses ! There was more mettle in them in those days — " " How so ? " " There simply was. I remember how I once drove out to the races with him. I had put up no horses. I did not like trotters, — I had thoroughbreds: Count Cho- 412 • LINEN - MEASURER let, Mohammed. I drove the piebald gelding. I had a fine lad of a coachman, — I loved him. Well, he has ruined himself by drinking. So I arrived. ' Serpukhov- skdy,' they said, ' when will you provide yourself with trotters V - — ' The devil take your lubbers ! I have a car- riage piebald that will outrun all your trotters.' — ' No, he won't.' — ' I will wager one thousand roubles.' They took the wager, and we let them run. He beat them by five seconds. I won the one thousand rouble wager. That is nothing ! I once made one hundred versts in three hours with a troyka of thoroughbreds. All Mos- mw knows about it." And Serpukhovskdy began to lie so glibly and so un- interruptedly that the host was not able to put in a single Vord, and remained sitting opposite him with a melan- choly countenance ; to divert himself he now and then filled his guest's glass and his own with wine. Day was beginning to break. They were still sitting. The host felt unspeakably dull. He arose. " It is time to go to bed," said Serpukhovskdy, rising and tottering. He went, puffing, into the room set aside for him. The host was lying with his mistress. " No, he is impossible. He is drunk and keeps lying without interruption." " And he is making court to me." " I am afraid he will ask me for some money." Serpukhovskdy was lying undressed on his bed and puffing away. " It seems to me I have been telling him a lot of lies," he thought. " Well, it does not make much difference ! The wine is good, but he is a big swine. There is some- thing of the merchant in him. I, too, am a big swine," he said to himselfj bursting out into a laugh. " First I kept LINM- MEASURER 41S her, now she keeps me. Yes, the Winkler woman keeps me, — I take money from her. Serves him right. Still, I must undress myself. 1 can't get my hoots off." "Hoa there!" he called out; but the man who was given him as an attendant had gone to bed long before. He sat down, puUed off his blouse, his waistcoat, and somehow managed to get his trousers off ; but he was for a long time unable to get his boots off, because his soft belly was in his way. Finally he somehow managed to pull one off; on the other he worked and worked, and puffed, and became exliausted. He kept that one boot on and foiled down on his bed and began to snore, filling the room with the odour of tobacco, wine, and nasty old age. XII. If Linen-measurer recalled anything that night, Vaska distracted him. He threw a blanket over him, and gal- loped away. He kept him until morning at the door of a tavern, near a peasant horse. They licked each other. In the morning he went to the herd and kept scratching himself all the while. " It itches dreadfully," he thought. Five days passed. The veterinary surgeon was called. He joyfully said : " The itch, — be pleased to sell him to the gipsies." '' What is the use ? Cut his throat and make an end of him this very day." It was a calm, clear morning. The herd went into the field. Linen-measurer was left behind. There came a strange, lean, black, dirty man in a black caftan with some kind of stains upon it. It was the flayer. He took hold of the strap of the halter which was on Linen-meas- urer, and, without looking at him, led him away. Linen- measurer went calmly, without looking around, dragging his legs along as always, and catching his hind feet in the straw. Upon emerging from the gate, he wanted to make for the well, but the flayer jerked him by the halter and said : " What is the use ? " The flayer and Vaska, who was walking behind, came to a ravine back of the brick-kiln and stopped, as though there was anything pecuhar in that very common place ; the flayer gave the lines to Vdska, took off his caftan, 414 LINEK - MEASURER 415 rolled up his sleeves, and fetched a knife and a whetstone out of his boot-leg. The gelding turned his head to the haltef line, wishing to chew it from tedium, but he could not reach it. He drew a sigh and closed his eyes. His lower lip hung down ; his ground-down yellow teeth could be seen, as he fell asleep under the sound produced by the grinding of the knife. Only his swollen leg, spread sidewise, kept quivering. Suddenly he felt that he was seized by his jowls and that his head was raised up. He opened his eyes. There were two dogs before him. One was sniffing in the direction of the flayer ; the other was sitting and watching the gelding, as though expecting something from him. The gelding looked at them and began to rub his cheek-bone against the hand which was holding him. " No doubt they want to cure me," he thought. . " Let them ! " And, indeed, he felt that they were doing something to his throat. It pained him ; he shuddered and gave a kick with his foot, but repressed himself and waited to see what was coming — Tlie next he felt was a liquid mass coming doWn in a ^"■ stream over his neck and breast. He heaved a deep sigh {^ and felt' better, much better. The whole weight of his life was taken from him! n. He closed his eyes and began to lower his head, — \j nobody was holding him. Then his feet quivered, his whole body tottered. He was not so much frightened as surprised — Everything was so new to him. He Was surprised, darted forward, upward — But, instead,' his legs, moving from the spot, got entangled, — and he began to fall side- wise. He tried to straighten himself, but only rushed forward and fell on his left side. The flayer waited until the convulsions all stopped; he drove away the dogs, which had moved up, took bold 416 LINEN - MEASURER of the gelding's legs, turned him on his back, and, telling Vdska to hold one leg, began to flay him. " And it was a horse, too," said Vaska. " If it had been fed better, the hide would have been all right," said the flayer. The herd came up hill in the evening, and those who were walking on the left side could see something red down below, and near it the dogs busy about something, and crows and vultures flying about. One dog, pressing its paws against the carrion and shaking its head, was with a crackling noise tearing away that which it had taken hold of. The bay mare stopped, stretched her head and neck, and for a long time kept sniffing the air. It was with difficulty that sfee was driven away. At dawn, big-headed wolf cubs howled joyfully in a ravine of the^ old forest, in an overgrown wold. There were live of them : four of them were of nearly the same size, and one little one had his head larger than his body. A lean, moulting she-wolf, dragging her full belly with the flabby teats on the ground, came out of the bushes and sat down opposite the wolf cubs. The cubs stood in a semicircle around her. She went up to the smallest one and, lowering and bending down her snoiit, made several convulsive motions and, opening her sharp-toothed jaws, strained herself and vomited up a large piece of horse- flesh. The larger cubs rushed up to her, but she moved threateningly toward them and offered everything to the little one. The little one, as though in anger, grabbed the horse-flesh with a growl and, holding it under him, began to devour it. The she-wolf in the same manner vomited up to the second, the third, until all five had some, and then lay down opposite them to rest herself. A week later only a large skull and two femurs were lying about near the brick-kiln -^ everything else had been devoured. In the summer, a peasant, who collected LINEN - MEASUKER 417 bones, carried away the bones and the skull and put them to use. SftTpukhovskdy's dead body, which had been walking about and eating and drinking in the world, was put—-, away much later. Neither his skin, nor his flesh, nor his ,/ bones were of any use to anybody. / Just as for twenty years his walking dead body had been a great burden to everybody, even so the putting away of his body in the earth was only an unnecessary trouble to the people. He had long ceased to be of any use to anybody, and was only a nuisance to everybody ; and yet the dead that bury the dead found it necessary to clothe the puffed-up decaying body in a good uniform and good boots, to place him in a new, good cof&n, with new tassels on its four corners,. then to put tljis new coffin in another coffin of lead, and to take him down to Moscow, and there to -dig up old human bones, and in that very spot to put away his rotting and worm-eaten body, in the new uniform and clean boots, and to cover all up with earth. THE END. ! I IlllllllllliffllllOtl