Gorki went up like the sky-rocket, and seems to have had thetraditional descent. From 1900 to 1906 everybody was talking abouthim; since 1906 one scarcely hears mention of his name. He wasridiculously overpraised, but he ought not to be forgotten. As anartist, he will not bear a moment's comparison with Andreev; but someof his short stories and his play, "The Night Asylum," have thegenuine Russian note of reality, and a rude strength much too greatfor its owner's control. He has never written a successful long novel,and his plays have no coherence; but, after all, the man has the realthing--vitality.
Just at the moment when Chekhov appeared to stand at the head of youngRussian writers, Gorki appeared, and his fame swept from one end ofthe world to the other. In Russia, his public was second in numbersonly to Tolstoi's; Kuprin and Andreev both dedicated books to him; inGermany, France, England, and America, he became literally a householdword. It is probable that there were a thousand foreigners who knewhis name, to one who had heard of Chekhov. Compared with Chekhov, hehad more matter and less art.
His true name, which comparatively few have ever heard, is AlexeiMaximovich Peshkov. "This name," said M. de Vogue, "will remainforever buried in the parish register." He chose to write under thename Gorki, which means "bitter," a happy appellation for this modernIshmaelite. He was born in 1869, at Nizhni Novgorod, in a dyer's shop.He lost both father and mother when he was a child, but his realmother was the river Volga, on whose banks he was born, and on whosebroad breast he has found the only repose he understands. The littleboy was apprenticed to a shoemaker, but ran away, as he did from asubsequent employer. By a curious irony of fate, this atheist learnedto read out of a prayer-book, and this iconoclast was for a timeengaged in the manufacture of ikons, holy images. As the aristocratTurgenev learned Russian from a house servant, Gorki obtained his lovefor literature from a cook. This happened on a steamer on the greatriver, where Gorki was employed as an assistant in the galley. Thecook was a rough giant, who spent all his spare moments reading,having an old trunk full of books. It was a miscellaneous assortment,containing Lives of Saints, stories by Dumas pere, and fortunatelysome works by Gogol. This literature gave him a thirst for learning,and when he was sixteen he went to Kazan, a town on the Volga, whereTolstoi had studied at the University. He had the notion thatliterature and learning were there distributed free to the famished,like bread in times of famine. He was quickly undeceived; and insteadof receiving intellectual food, he was forced to work in a baker'sshop, for a miserable pittance. These were the darkest days of hislife, and in one of his most powerful stories he has reflected thewretched daily and nightly toil in a bakery.
Then he went on the road, and became a tramp, doing all kinds of oddjobs, from peddling to hard manual labour on wharves and railways. Atthe age of nineteen, weary of life, he shot himself, but recovered.Then he followed the Volga to the Black Sea, unconsciously collectingthe material that in a very few years he was to give to the world. In1892, when twenty-three years old, he succeeded in getting some of hissketches printed in newspapers. The next year he had the good fortuneto meet at Nizhni Novgorod the famous Russian author Korolenko.Korolenko was greatly impressed by the young vagabond, believed in hispowers, and gave timely and valuable help. With the older man'sinfluence, Gorki succeeded in obtaining the entree to the St.Petersburg magazines; and while the Russian critics were at a loss howto regard the new genius, the public went wild. He visited the capitalin 1899, and there was intense curiosity to see and to hear him. Agreat hall was engaged, and when he mounted the platform to read, theyoung people in the audience went into a frenzy.
Gorki has been repeatedly imprisoned for his revolutionary ideas andefforts; in 1906, at the very apex of his fame, he came to the UnitedStates to collect funds for the cause. The whole country was eager toreceive and to give, and his advent in New York was a notableoccasion. He insisted that he came, not as an anarchist, but as asocialist, that his mission in the world was not to destroy, but tofulfil. At first, he was full of enthusiasm about America and NewYork, and American writers; he was tremendously impressed by thesky-scrapers, by the intense activity of the people, and by the HudsonRiver, which, as he regarded from his hotel windows, reminded him ofthe Volga. He said America would be the first nation to give mankind atrue government, and that its citizens were the incarnation ofprogress. He declared that Mark Twain was even more popular in Russiathan in America, that it was "a part of the national Russianeducation" to read him, and that he himself had read every translationof his books.
Incidentally he spoke of his favourite world-authors. Shakespeare heput first of all, saying he was "staggering," an opinion quitedifferent from that of Tolstoi. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were thephilosophers he liked the best. Byron and Heine he read in preferenceto most other poets, for there is an invincible strain of lyricromanticism in this Russian tramp, as there was in his master Gogol.Flaubert, Goethe, and Dumas pere he read with delight.
A literary dinner was arranged in honour of the distinguished guest,and inasmuch as all present were ignorant of the next day'scatastrophe, the account given of this love-feast in the New York"Sun" is worth quoting. "Mark Twain and Gorki recognised each otherbefore they were introduced, but neither being able to understand thelanguage of the other, they simply grasped hands and held on more thana minute. . . . Gorki said he had read Mark Twain's stories when hewas a boy, and that he had gotten much delight from them. Markdeclared that he also had been a reader and admirer of Gorki. Thesmile of Gorki was broader and not so dry as the smile of Mark, butboth smiles were distinctly those of fellow-humorists who understoodeach other. Gorki made a little speech which was translated by aRussian who knew English. Gorki said he was glad to meet Mark Twain,'world famous and in Russia the best known of American writers, a manof tremendous force and convictions, who, when he hit, hit hard. Ihave come to America to get acquainted with the American people andask their aid for my suffering countrymen who are fighting forliberty. The despotism must be overthrown now, and what is needed ismoney, money, money!' Mark said he was glad to meet Gorki, adding, 'Ifwe can help to create the Russian republic, let us start in right awayand do it. The fighting may have to be postponed awhile, but meanwhilewe can keep our hearts on the matter and we can assist the Russians inbeing free.'"
A committee was formed to raise funds, and then came the explosion,striking evidence of the enormous difference between the American andthe Continental point of view in morals. With characteristic Russianimpracticability, Gorki had come to America with a woman whom heintroduced as his wife; but it appeared that his legal wife was inRussia, and that his attractive and accomplished companion wassomebody else. This fact, which honestly seemed to Gorki an incidentof no importance, took on a prodigious shape. This single mistake costthe Russian revolutionary cause an enormous sum of money, and may havealtered history. Gorki was expelled from his hotel, and refusedadmittance to others; unkindest cut of all, Mark Twain, whose absenceof religious belief had made Gorki believe him to be altogetheremancipated from prejudices, positively refused to have anything moreto do with him. As Gorki had said, "When Mark Twain hit, he hit hard."Turn whither he would, every door was slammed in his face. I do notthink he has ever recovered from the blank amazement caused by theAmerican change of front. His golden opportunity was gone, and hedeparted for Italy, shaking the dust of America off his feet, androundly cursing the nation that he had just declared to be theincarnation of progress. The affair unquestionably has its ludicrousside, but it was a terrible blow to the revolutionists. Many of thembelieved that the trap was sprung by the government party.
Gorki's full-length novels are far from successful works of art. Theyhave all the incoherence and slipshod workmanship of Dostoevski,without the latter's glow of brotherly love. His first real novel,"Foma Gordeev," an epic of the Volga, has many beautiful descriptivepassages, really lyric and idyllic in tone, mingled with an incredibleamount of drivel. The character who plays the title-role is a typicalRussian windbag, irresolute and incapable, like so many Ru
ssianheroes; but whether drunk or sober, he is destitute of charm. He isboth dreary and dirty. The opening chapters are written with greatspirit, and the reader is full of happy expectation. One goes fartherand fares worse. After the first hundred pages, the book is aprolonged anti-climax, desperately dull. Altogether the best passagein the story is the description of the river in spring, impressive notmerely for its beauty and accuracy of language, but because the Volgais interpreted as a symbol of the spirit of the Russian people, withvast but unawakened possibilities.
"Between them, in a magnificent sweep, flowed the broad-breastedVolga; triumphantly, without haste, flow her waters, conscious oftheir unconquerable power; the hill-shore was reflected in them like adark shadow, but on the left side she was adorned with gold andemerald velvet by the sandy borders of the reefs, and the broadmeadows. Now here, now there, on the hills, and in the meadows,appeared villages, the sun sparkled in the window-panes of thecottages, and upon the roofs of yellow straw; the crosses of thechurches gleamed through the foliage of the trees, the gray wings ofthe mills rotated lazily through the air, the smoke from the chimneysof a factory curled skyward in thick black wreaths. . . . On all sideswas the gleaming water, on all sides were space and freedom,cheerfully green meadows, and graciously clear blue sky; in the quietmotion of the water, restrained power could be felt; in the heavenabove it shone the beautiful sun, the air was saturated with thefragrance of evergreen trees, and the fresh scent of foliage. Theshores advanced in greeting, soothing the eye and the soul with theirbeauty, and new pictures were constantly unfolded upon them.
"On everything round about rested the stamp of a certain sluggishness:everything--nature and people--lived awkwardly, lazily; but in thislaziness there was a certain peculiar grace, and it would seem thatbehind the laziness was concealed a huge force, an unconquerableforce, as yet unconscious of itself, not having, as yet, created foritself clear desires and aims. And the absence of consciousness inthis half-somnolent existence cast upon its whole beautiful expanse ashade of melancholy. Submissive patience, the silent expectation ofsomething new and more active was audible even in the call of thecuckoo, as it flew with the wind from the shore, over the river."*
*Isabel Hapgood's translation.
The novel Varenka Olessova is a tedious book of no importance. Thehero is, of course, the eternal Russian type, a man of good educationand no backbone: he lacks resolution, energy, will-power, and willnever accomplish anything. He has not even force enough to continuehis studies. Contrasted with him is the girl Varenka, a simple childof nature, who prefers silly romances to Russian novels, and whosevirgin naivete is a constant puzzle to the conceited ass who does notknow whether he is in love with her or not. Indeed, he asks himself ifhe is capable of love for any one. The only interesting pages in thisstupid story are concerned with a discussion on reading, betweenVarenka and the young man, where her denunciation of Russian fictionis, of course, meant to proclaim its true superiority. In response tothe question whether she reads Russian authors, the girl answers withconviction: "Oh, yes! But I don't like them! They are so tiresome, sotiresome! They always write about what I know already myself, and knowjust as well as they do. They can't create anything interesting; withthem almost everything is true. . . . Now with the French, theirheroes are real heroes, they talk and act unlike men in actual life.They are always brave, amorous, vivacious, while our heroes are simplelittle men, without any warm feelings, without any beauty, pitiable,just like ordinary men in real life. . . In Russian books, one cannotunderstand at all why the men continue to live. What's the use ofwriting books if the author has nothing remarkable to say?"
The long novel "Mother" is a good picture of life among theworking-people in a Russian factory, that is, life as seen throughGorki's eyes; all cheerfulness and laughter are, of course, absent,and we have presented a dull monotone of misery. The factory itself isthe villain of the story, and resembles some grotesque wild beast,that daily devours the blood, bone, and marrow of the throng ofvictims that enter its black jaws. The men, women, and children arerepresented as utterly brutalised by toil; in their rare moments ofleisure, they fight and beat each other unmercifully, and even thelittle children get dead drunk. Socialist and revolutionary propagandaare secretly circulated among these stupefied folk, and much of thenarrative is taken up with the difficulties of accomplishing thisdistribution; for the whole book itself is nothing but a revolutionarytract. The characters, including the pitiful Mother herself, are notvividly drawn, they are not alive, and one forgets them speedily; asfor plot, there is none, and the book closes with the brutal murder ofthe old woman. It is a tedious, inartistic novel, with none of therelief that would exist in actual life. Turgenev's poorest novel,"Virgin Soil," which also gives us a picture of a factory, isimmensely superior from every point of view.
But if "Mother" is a dull book, "The Spy" is impossible. It is full ofmeaningless and unutterably dreary jargon; its characters are soddenwith alcohol and bestial lusts. One abominable woman's fat bodyspreads out on an arm-chair "like sour dough." And indeed, this novelbears about the same relation to a finished work of art that sourdough bears to a good loaf of bread. The characters are poorlyconceived, and the story is totally without movement. Not only is itvery badly written, it lacks even good material. The wretched boy,whose idiotic states of mind are described one after the other, andwhose eventual suicide is clear from the start, is a disgusting whelp,without any human interest. One longs for his death with murderousintensity, and when, on the last page, he throws himself under thetrain, the reader experiences a calm and sweet relief.
Much of Gorki's work is like Swift's poetry, powerful not because ofits cerebration or spiritual force, but powerful only from thephysical point of view, from its capacity to disgust. It appeals tothe nose and the stomach rather than to the mind and the heart. Fromthe medicinal standpoint, it may have a certain value. Swift sent alady one of his poems, and immediately after reading it, she was takenviolently sick. Not every poet has sufficient force to produce sosudden an effect.
One man, invariably before reading the works of a famous Frenchauthor, put on his overshoes.
A distinguished American novelist has said that in Gorki "seems thebody without the soul of Russian fiction, and sodden with despair. Thesoul of Russian fiction is the great thing." This is, indeed, the maindifference between his work and that of the giant Dostoevski. In thelatter's darkest scenes the spiritual flame is never extinct.
Gorki lacks either the patient industry or else the knowledgenecessary to make a good novel. He is seen at his best in shortstories, for his power comes in flashes. In "Twenty-six Men and aGirl," the hideous tale that gave him his reputation in America, oneis conscious of the streak of genius that he undoubtedly possesses.The helpless, impotent rage felt by the wretched men as they witnessthe debauching of a girl's body and the damnation of her soul, isclearly echoed in the reader's mind. Gorki's notes are always the mostthrilling when played below the range of the conventional instrumentof style. This is not low life, it is sub-life.
He is, after all, a student of sensational effect; and the short storyis peculiarly adapted to his natural talent. He cannot developcharacters, he cannot manage a large group, or handle a progressiveseries of events. But in a lurid picture of the pit, in a flash-lightphotograph of an underground den, in a sudden vision of a heap ofgarbage with unspeakable creatures crawling over it, he is impressive.
I shall never forget the performance of "The Night Asylum, Nachtasyl,"which I saw acted in Munich by one of the best stock companies in theworld, a combination of players from the "Neues" and "Kleines"theaters in Berlin. In reading this utterly formless and incoherentdrama, I had been only slightly affected; but when it was presented onthe stage by actors who intelligently incarnated every singlecharacter, the thing took on a terrible intensity. The persons areall, except old Luka, who talks like a man in one of Tolstoi's recentparables, dehumanised. The woman dying of consumption before our eyes,the Baron in an advanced stage of pares
is who continually rollsimaginary cigarettes between his weak fingers, and the alcoholic actorwho has lost his memory are impossible to forget. I can hear thatactor now, as with stupid fascination he continually repeats thediagnosis a physician once made of his case: "Mein Organismus istdurch und durch mit Alcool vergiftet!"
Gorki, in spite of his zeal for the revolutionary cause, has no remedyfor the disease he calls Life. He is eaten up with rage at the worldin general, and tries to make us all share his disgust with it. But heteaches us nothing; he has little to say that we can transmute intoanything valuable. This is perhaps the reason why the world hastemporarily, at any rate, lost interest in him. He was a newsensation, he shocked us, and gave us strange thrills, after themanner of new and unexpected sensations. Gorki came up on the literaryhorizon like an evil storm, darkening the sky, casting an awful shadowacross the world's mirth and laughter, and making us shudder in thecold and gloom..
Gorki completely satisfied that strange but almost universal desire ofwell-fed and comfortable people to go slumming. In his books men andwomen in fortunate circumstances had their curiosity satisfied--allthe world went slumming, with no discomfort, no expense, and no fearof contagion. With no trouble at all, no personal inconvenience, welearned the worst of all possible worsts on this puzzling andinteresting planet.
But we soon had enough of it, and our experienced and professionalguide failed to perceive the fact. He showed us more of the samething, and then some more. Such sights and sounds--authentic visionsand echoes of hell--merely repeated, began to lose their uncannyfascination. The man who excited us became a bore. For the worst thingabout Gorki is his dull monotony, and vice is even more monotonousthan virtue, perhaps because it is more common. Open the pages ofalmost any of his tales, it is always the same thing, the samecriminals, the same horrors, the same broken ejaculations and brutishrage. Gorki has shown no capacity for development, no power of varietyand complexity. His passion for mere effect has reacted unfavourablyon himself.*
*His play "Die Letzten" was put on at the "Deutsches Theater," Berlin,6 September 1910. The press despatch says, "The father is a policeinspector, drunkard, gambler, briber, bribe-taker, adulterer, androbber."
Is it possible that success robbed him of something? He became apopular author in conventional environment, surrounded by books andmodern luxuries, living in the pleasant climate of Italy, with noanxiety about his meals and bed. Is it possible that wealth, comfort,independence, and leisure have extinguished his original force? Has helost something of the picturesque attitude of Gorki the pennilesstramp? He is happily still a young man, and perhaps he may yet achievethe masterpiece that ten years ago we so confidently expected from hishands.
He is certainly not a great teacher, but he has the power to askawkward questions so characteristic of Andreev, Artsybashev, andindeed of all Russian novelists. We cannot answer him with a shrug ofthe shoulders or a sceptical smile. He shakes the foundations of ourfancied security by boldly questioning what we had come to regard asaxioms. As the late M. de Vogue remarked, when little children sit onour knee and pelt us with questions that go to the roots of ourphilosophy, we get rid of the bother of it by telling the children togo away and play; but when a Tolstoi puts such questions, we cannotget rid of him so easily. Russian novelists are a thorn in the side ofcomplacent optimism.
And yet surely, if life is not so good, as it conceivably might be, itis not so darkly bitter as the Bitter One would have us believe. In ashort article that he wrote about one of the playgrounds of America,he betrayed his own incurable jaundice. In the New York "Independent"for 8 August 1907, Gorki published a brilliant impressionistic sketchof Coney Island, and called it "Boredom." Gorki at Coney Island islike Dante at a country fair. Thomas Carlyle was invited out to asocial dinner-party once upon a time, and when he came home he wrotesavagely in his diary of the flippant, light-hearted conversationamong the men and women about the festive board, saying, "to methrough those thin cobwebs Death and Eternity sat glaring." What acharming guest he must have been on that particular occasion!
Gorki speaks poetically in his article of the "fantastic city all offire" that one sees at night. But as he mingles with the throng,disgust fills his lonely heart.
"The public looks at them silently. It breathes in the moist air, andfeeds its soul with dismal ennui, which extinguishes thought as a wet,dirty cloth extinguishes the fire of a smouldering coal."
Describing the sensations of the crowd before the tiger's cage, hesays:--
"The man runs about the cage, shoots his pistol and cracks his whip,and shouts like a madman. His shouts are intended to hide his painfuldread of the animals. The crowd regards the capers of the man, andwaits in suspense for the fatal attack. They wait; unconsciously theprimitive instinct is awakened in them. They crave fight, they want tofeel the delicious shiver produced by the sight of two bodiesintertwining, the splutter of blood and pieces of torn, steaming humanflesh flying through the cage and falling on the floor. They want tohear the roar, the cries, the shrieks of agony. . . . Then the crowdbreaks into dark pieces, and disperses over the slimy marsh ofboredom.
". . . You long to see a drunken man with a jovial face, who wouldpush and sing and bawl, happy because he is drunk, and sincerelywishing all good people the same. . .
"In the glittering gossamer of its fantastic buildings, tens ofthousands of grey people, like patches on the ragged clothes of abeggar, creep along with weary faces and colourless eyes. . . .
"But the precaution has been taken to blind the people, and they drinkin the vile poison with silent rapture. The poison contaminates theirsouls. Boredom whirls about in an idle dance, expiring in the agony ofits inanition.
"One thing alone is good in the garish city: you can drink in hatredto your soul's content, hatred sufficient to last throughout life,hatred of the power of stupidity!"
This sketch is valuable not merely because of the impression of adistinguished foreign writer of one of the sights of America, butbecause it raises in our minds an obstinate doubt of his capacity totell the truth about life in general. Suppose a person who had neverseen Coney Island should read Gorki's vivid description of it, wouldhe really know anything about Coney Island? Of course not. The crowdsat Coney Island are as different from Gorki's description of them asanything could well be. Now then, we who know the dregs of Russianlife only through Gorki's pictures, can we be certain that hisrepresentations are accurate? Are they reliable history of fact, orare they the revelations of a heart that knoweth its own bitterness?
VII
CHEKHOV
Essays on Russian Novelists Page 6