Contemporary Russian Novelists :: VI LEONID ANDREYEV

VI LEONID ANDREYEV

Leonid Andreyev was born of a humble bourgeoise family in Orel, in 1871. "It was there that I began my studies," he says. "I was not a good pupil; in the seventh form I was last in my class for a whole year, and I had especially poor reports as to my deportment. The most agreeable part of my schooling, which I still remember with pleasure, was the intervals between the lessons, the 'recesses,' and the times, rare as they were, when the instructor sent me from the class-room for inattention or lack of respect. In the long deserted halls a sonorous silence reigned which vibrated at the solitary noise of my steps; on all sides the closed doors, shutting in rooms full of pupils; a sunbeam—a free beam—played with the dust which had been raised during recess and which had not yet had time to settle; all of it was mysterious, interesting, full of a particular and secret meaning."

Andreyev's father, who was a geometrician, died while he was still at school, and the family was without resources. The young man did not hesitate, however, in setting out for St.Petersburg, where he entered the university, hoping to gain a livelihood by giving lessons. But it was hard to secure what he wanted. "I knew what terrible misery was," Andreyev tells us; "during my first years in St.Petersburg I was hungry more than once, and sometimes I did not eat for two days."

His first literary productions date from this sombre epoch. Andreyev gives us remarkably graphic details of this misery. One day, he gave a daily paper a story about the tribulations of an ever-hungry student: his own life!

"I wept like a child in writing these pages," he confesses. "I had put down all of my sufferings. I was still affected by my great sadness when I took the manuscript to the editor. I was told to come back in a few weeks to find out whether it had been accepted. I returned with a light heart, keeping down my anguish in expectation of the decision. It came to me in the form of a loud burst of laughter from the editor, who declared that my work was absolutely worthless...."

Nevertheless, he energetically pursued his studies, which he completed at the University of Moscow. "There," he tells us, "life was, from a material standpoint, less unbearable; my friends and the aid society came to my assistance; but I recall my life at the University of St.Petersburg with genuine pleasure; the various classes of students are there more differentiated and an individual can more easily find a sympathetic surrounding among such distinct groups."

Some time after that, Andreyev, disgusted with life, attempted suicide. "In January, 1894," he writes, "I tried to shoot myself, but without any appreciable result. I was punished by religious penance, imposed upon me by authority, and a sickness of the heart which, although not dangerous, was persistent. During this time I made one or two equally unsuccessful literary attempts, and I gave myself up with success to painting, which I have loved since childhood; I then painted portraits to order for from 5 to 10 rubles....

"In 1897, I received my counsellor's degree and I took up that profession in Moscow. For want of time I did not succeed in getting any sort of a 'clientele'; in all, I pleaded but one civil case, which, however, I lost completely, and several gratuitous criminal cases. However, I was actively working in reporting these cases for an important paper."

Finally, two strangely impressionistic stories: "Silence," and "He Was...," published in an important Petersburg review, brought the author into prominence. From that time, he devoted himself entirely to literature.

Andreyev is considered, to-day, as one of the most brilliant representatives of the new constellation of Russian writers, in which he takes a place immediately next to Tchekoff, whom he resembles in the melancholy tone of his work. In him, as in Tchekoff, the number of people who suffer from life, either crushed or mutilated by it, by far exceed the number of happy ones; moreover, the best of his stories are short and sketchy like those of Tchekoff. Andreyev is then, so to speak, his spiritual son. But he is a sickly son, who carries the melancholy element to its farthest limit. The grey tones of Tchekoff have, in Andreyev, become black; his rather sad humor has been transformed into tragic irony; his subtle impressionability into morbid sensibility. The two writers have had the same visions of the anomalies and the horrors of existence; but, where Tchekoff has only a disenchanted smile, Andreyev has stopped, dismayed; the sensation of horror and suffering which springs from his stories has become an obsession with him; it does not penetrate merely the souls of his heroes, but, as in Poe, it penetrates even the descriptions of nature.

Thus, the "near and terrible" disk of the moon hovers over the earth like the "gigantic menace of an approaching but unknown evil"; the river congeals in "mute terror," and silence is particularly menacing. Night always comes "black and bad," and fills human hearts with shadows. When it falls, the very branches of the trees "contract, filled with terror." Under the influence of the disturbing sounds of the tocsin, the high linden-trees "suddenly begin to talk, only to become quiet again immediately and lapse into a sullen silence." The tocsin itself is animated. "Its distinct tones spread with rapid intensity. Like a herald of evil who has not the time to look behind him, and whose eyes are large with fright, the tocsin desperately calls men to the fatal mire."[9]

Most of Andreyev's characters, like those of Dostoyevsky, are abnormal, madmen and neurasthenics in whom are distinguishable marked traces of degeneration and psychic perversion. They are beings who have been fatally wounded in their life-struggle, whose minds now are completely or partially powerless. Too weak to fight against the cruel exigencies of reality, they turn their thoughts upon themselves and naturally arrive at the most desolate conclusions, and commit the most senseless acts. Some, a prey to the mania of pride, despairing because of their weakness and their "nothingness," look—as does Serge Petrovich—for relief in suicide. Others, who have resigned themselves to their sad lives, become passive observers, become transformed into living corpses whose sole desire is peace; such a one is the hero of "At the Window." Others still instinctively choke in themselves the best tendencies of their characters and are passionately fond of futile and senseless amusements, by means of which they enjoy themselves like children, until a catastrophe makes them "come back to themselves." This is the idea of the original story called "The Grand Slam." In "The Lie" Andreyev depicts the pathological process in the soul of a man who, crushed by the falsehood of his own solitary existence, becomes insane at the idea that truth is inaccessible to human reason and that the reign of the Lie is invincible. The hero of "The Thought"[10] reveres but one thing in the world—his own thought. Wrapped up in this one idea, he admires the force and finesse of it, while his reason, detached from reality and having only him for an end, begins to weaken, becomes gradually perverted to the point where this man, harassed by a terrible doubt, begins to ask himself whether he is insane. In the long and pathetic story, "The Life of a Priest," we are shown the disturbance of the religious feelings of a country priest who, although he has an ardent and strong soul, is crushed by his moral isolation among the ignorant people of a miserable village. It is again this moral isolation that is analyzed in "Silence," in which story it is the cause of a domestic tragedy. The same cause provokes a rupture between a father and a son in "The Obscure Distance," and brings with it in some way the death of the neurasthenic student.

In general, the stories of Andreyev, after passing through various catastrophes, lead the reader back to this theme,—the moral isolation of a human being, who feels that the world has become deserted, and life a game of shadows. The abyss which separates Andreyev's heroes from other men makes them weak, numb, and miserable. It seems, in fact, that there is no greater misfortune than for a man to feel himself alone in the midst of his fellow-creatures.

Finally, in "The Gulf," a somewhat imaginary thesis is developed, based on the terrible vitality which certain vile instincts keep even in the purest and most innocent minds, while the story "He Was ..." shows us the inside of a clinic, in which there are two dying men whose illusions of life persist till the supreme moment.

If we carefully study a few of Andreyev's characters we can more easily understand his feelings and his style. Here is, for instance, Serge Petrovich, a student. Although he is not very intelligent, he is above the average. His mind is preoccupied with all sorts of questions; he reads Nietzsche, he ponders over many things, but he does not know how to think for himself. The fact that there are people who can find a way to express themselves appears to him as an inaccessible ideal; while mediocre minds have no attraction for him at all. It is from this feeling that all his sufferings come. So "a horse, carrying a heavy burden, breathes hard, falls to the ground, but is forced to rise and proceed by stinging lashes from a whip."

These lashes are the vision of the superman, of the one who rightfully possesses strength, happiness, and liberty. At times a thick mist envelops the thoughts of Serge Petrovich, but the light of the superman dispels this, and he sees his road before him as if it had been drawn or told him by another.

Before his eyes there is a being called Serge Petrovich for whom all that makes existence happy or bitter, deep and human, remains a closed book. Neither religion nor morality, neither science nor art, exists for him. Instead of a real and ardent faith, he feels in himself a motley array of feelings. His habitual veneration of religious rites mingles with mean superstitions. He is not courageous enough to deny God, not strong enough to believe in Him. He does not love his fellow-men, and cannot feel the intense happiness of devoting himself to his fellow-creatures and even dying for them. But neither does he experience that hate for others which gives a man a terrible joy in his struggle with his fellow-men. Not being capable of elevating himself high enough or falling low enough to reign over the lives of men, he lives or rather vegetates with a keen feeling of his mediocrity, which makes him despair. And the pitiless words of Zarathustra ring in his ears: "If your life is not successful, if a venomous worm is gnawing at your heart, know that death will succeed." And Serge Petrovich, desperate, commits suicide.

The hero of "At the Window" is quite different. This man has succeeded in building for himself a sort of fortress, "in which he retires, sheltered from life." Like Serge Petrovich, although not as often, he is tormented by restless thoughts, and, from time to time, he is obliged to defend his "fortress." But usually he is contented with watching life, that is to say, that part which he can see from his window. Nothing troubles the tranquillity of his mind, not even the desire to live like other men. One day, he speaks of his theories to a simple, uneducated young girl whom he thinks of marrying. She is astonished and stupefied by them. She perceives that he leads an insipid and morose life. Andrey Nikolayevich does not take into account or understand the stupefaction of the young girl.

"This then is your life?" she asks, incredulously.

"This is it. What more could you want?"

"But it must be terribly monotonous to live in that way, apart from the world."

"What good does one find in mankind? Nothing but tedium. When I am alone, I am my own master, but among men you never know what attitude to take to please them. They drag you into drunkenness, into gambling; then they denounce you to your superiors. I, however, love calmness and frankness. Some of them accept bribes and allow themselves to become corrupt; I do not like that.... I adore tranquillity."

Moreover, he does not marry the young girl. He gives her up because he is afraid of the incumbrances that housekeeping will bring.

In "The Grand Slam" four provincial "intellectuals" are locked up in the same fortress, and, by playing cards, they escape the terrible problems of a life which is inimical to them. Their existence has been passed among these cards, which, by a mysterious phenomenon, have become real living creatures to them. One of the players has dreamed all through his life of getting a grand slam, when, one evening, he sees he has the necessary cards in his hand. He has but to take one more card, the ace of spades, and his dream will be realized. But at the very moment when he is stretching forth his hand to take it, he falls down dead. His partners are terrified. One of them, a timorous and exact old man, named Jacob Ivanovich, is particularly struck. A thought comes to him; he quickly rises, after making sure that it was the ace of spades that the dead man was going to take, and cries:

"But he will never know that he was going to get the ace of spades and a grand slam! Never.... Never...."

"Then it appeared to Jacob Ivanovich that, up to this moment, he had never understood what death was. Now he understood, and what he saw was senseless, horrible, and irreparable!... The dead man would never know!"

The poignant irony of this story is not unusual with Andreyev.

It is again found in the short and symbolic story "The Laugh." A student, profiting by the fact that it is carnival time, disguises himself as a Chinaman and goes to the house of the girl he loves. The mute, immobile, and stupidly calm mask, and the whole "get-up" are so funny, that the unfortunate man rouses irresistible laughter wherever he goes. The young girl cannot help herself, and, while listening to his very touching and sincere declaration, which, at any other time, would have brought tears to her eyes, she bursts out laughing and cannot again become serious, although she realizes that a living and unhappy being is hidden under this impassive and foolish Chinaman's mask.

In "The Lie" we see a man who, by isolating himself from life, has lost the feeling of reality, and all capacity of discerning the true from the false. He suffers terribly from the feeling that something unknown is happening around him. This man, who would be ready to sacrifice everything, even his life, in order to know truth, guesses the lie that comes between him and the person who is dearest to him. He falls into a despair that soon turns to fury. In order to recover his calm, he begs the girl he loves, whom he suspects of having deceived him, to reveal the whole truth to him. But he cannot believe her protestations of innocence. One word bursts from his being, breaks forth from the depths of his soul: "Lies! Lies! Lies everywhere!"

"In looking at her beautiful pure forehead," he writes, "I dreamed that truth was there, on the other side of that thin barrier, and I felt a senseless desire to break that barrier and at least to see the truth. Lower down, beneath her white breast, I heard the beating of her heart, and I had a mad desire to open her breast so that I could read, at least once, what there was at the bottom of her heart."

He ends by killing that which he loved, and thinks that he is satisfied: he believes he has killed the lie.

In "The Thought" we see the gradual development of insanity during the period when it is doubtful, when the will is almost entirely annihilated and replaced by a fixed idea, and when conscience is not entirely abolished. Dr. Kerzhenzev kills his friend, obeying a mental suggestion, which now forbids him to do it, now urges him on. Then, like the "half-insane" or those sick people who feign madness in order more easily to attain their end, this man suggests to himself that he is in reality insane. This idea gets a hold on him after the murder and fills his soul with mortal terror, the exposure of which forms the most supremely pathetic part of the whole story. All this drama of a foundering intelligence, complicated by bizarre contradictions, is developed with a penetrating power of analysis.

Andreyev tells us that on the day of judgment the alienists are divided as to the insanity of Kerzhenzev. The story ends at this place. But the principal interest of the story does not lie in this or that solution of the problem, which is not mysterious, for the doctor is doubtlessly abnormal, and it is only as to the degree of insanity that there can be any question. The main interest lies in another direction, in the subtle analysis of this special mental condition, which is done with consummate art.

This story had the honor of occupying an entire meeting of the psychiatrists attached to the Academy of Medicine of St.Petersburg. According to the report of Dr.Ivanov, the assembly was almost unanimous in declaring the murderer insane. Another psychiatrist, who thought he saw proofs of an abnormal mentality in all the stories of Andreyev, pronounced the same verdict against Dr.Kerzhenzev, in a meeting of doctors.

"All of priest Vassily Fiveyisky's life was weighed down by a cruel and enigmatic fatality,"—it is thus that the story, "The Life of a Pope," opens. "As if struck by an unknown malediction, he had from his youth been made to carry a heavy burden of sorrows, sickness and misfortunes; he was solitary among men as a planet is among planets; a peculiar and malevolent atmosphere surrounded him. Son of an obscure, patient, and submissive village priest, he also was patient and submissive, and he was a long time in recognizing the particular rancour of destiny. He fell rapidly and arose slowly. Twig by twig he restored his nest. Having become a priest, the husband of a good woman, the father of a son and a daughter, he thought that all was going well with him, that all was solidly established, and that he would remain thus forever. And he blessed God."

But fate was always on the watch for him. It had showed him happiness only to take it away again. After seven years of prosperity, his little son is drowned one summer's day in the river. Death and nameless misfortunes again invade the home of Vassily. One does not live there any more, one prowls around gropingly in a mournful stupor. From morning till evening, his wife comes and goes, silent and indifferent to everything, as if she were looking for some one or something.

In losing his son, poor Vassily has also lost his wife, his helpmate and friend, for the unfortunate woman takes to drink. The faith of the priest holds in this terrible trial. But his misery increases immeasurably. The vice of his wife, his own sick weakness, excite the meanness of the people. Insults have to be borne in silence, tears hidden. At home, the priest's wife has no rest. She has the idea that she can have another son who will take the place of the dead one and be a balm to her broken heart. In her alcoholic desire, a prey to savage fury, she demands that her husband gratify her desire.

"Give him to me, Vassily! Give him back to me, I tell you...."

At last her desire is realized: a son is born to her; but the child, conceived in madness, is born half-witted. The mother takes to drink again, and the despair of Vassily increases. One day the unfortunate woman hangs herself. The pope comes in, however, in time to save her; but now another noose has tightened itself about the priest's heart. One question oppresses him:

"Why these sufferings? If God exists, and if God is love, how is such misery possible?"

Vassily's faith trembles. He decides to leave his cassock, to fly, to put his idiot son out to board and to start life over again. This resolution relieves him. His wife breathes easier. It seems to him that she also can begin a new life. But fate does not loosen its reins.

One day, on coming back from the harvest, he finds his house burned. His wife, in a drunken stupor, had probably set fire to it. She is dying of her burns. Vassily can only sigh. This new misfortune does not put an end to the priest, but rather inspires him. His old faith comes back, he sees in this supreme test a predestination. He kneels down and cries:

"I believe! I believe! I believe!"

From that time on he devotes himself entirely to prayer and macerations. He lives in perpetual ecstasy. The people around him understand nothing of this change and are astounded. Every one of them is waiting for something unusual. And their waiting is not in vain. One day, when he is delivering the funeral oration of a workingman, who has been suddenly killed, Vassily abruptly interrupts the ceremony, approaches the corpse, which has begun to decay, and addresses it thus three times:

"I tell you: arise!"

But the dead man does not move. Then the priest looks at this inert and deformed corpse. He notices the fetid odor that arises from it, the odor of the slow but sure decomposition, and he has a sort of sudden revelation. The scepticism which, for a long time, has been brooding in his heart suddenly is transformed into absolute negation, and addressing himself to Him in whom he had believed, Vassily cries out:

"Thou wishest to deceive me? Then why did I believe? Why hast Thou kept me in servitude, in captivity, all of my life? No free thought! No feeling! No hope! All with Thee! All for Thee! Thee alone! Well, appear! I am waiting! I am waiting!... Ah! Thou dost not want to? Very well...."

He does not finish. In a burst of savage madness he rushes forth from the now empty church. He rushes straight ahead and finally falls in the middle of the road. Death has put an end to his miseries.

"Silence" also shows us a priest, stubborn in his prejudices. This man, Father Ignatius by name, is a sort of rude and authoritative Hercules. All tremble before his stern air, except his daughter, who has decided to continue her studies in St.Petersburg, against the will of her father. Coming back to her home after a long absence, she wanders about, sad and silent. For days at a time she wanders about, pale and melancholy, speaking little, seeking solitude. She hides what oppresses her; she keeps her secret from all. One night, she throws herself under a train, taking her secret with her.

Her grief-stricken mother gets a paralytic stroke which transforms her into a sort of living corpse. The father, crushed by these two catastrophes, which have destroyed all the joy of his life, becomes the prey of a singular mental state: his conscience revolts against the severe maxims and the pitiless prejudices that he has always defended. Tender love, which he has hitherto concealed under his pride, now softens him; he needs affection, and a vague feeling suggests to him that he himself is to blame for all of these misfortunes. His past life, his daughter, and his wife appear to him as so many enigmas which raise anguishing questions in his heart. He calls out, but no one answers. A death-like silence has invaded the presbytery, and this silence is especially dreadful near the paralyzed wife, who is dying without speaking. Even her eyes do not betray a single thought. Gradually, a terrible desire to know why his daughter committed suicide seizes him. At twilight, softly, in his bare feet, he goes up to the room of his dead daughter and speaks to her. He entreats her to tell him the truth, to confess to him why she was always so sad, why she has killed herself. Only the silence answers him. Then he rushes to the cemetery, where his daughter's tomb irresistibly attracts him; again he implores, begs, threatens. For a moment he thinks that a vague answer arises from the earth; he places his ear on the rough turf.

"Vera, tell me!" he repeats in a loud and steady voice.

"And now Father Ignatius feels with terror that something sepulchrally cold is penetrating his ear and congealing his brain; it is Vera, who is continually answering him with the same prolonged silence. This silence becomes more and more sinister and restless, and when Father Ignatius arises with an effort, his face is as livid as death."

Crushed by the same blind destiny which annihilated the powerful personality of Father Ignatius, the piteous and tearful hero of "The Marseillaise" moves us even more than does the old priest. The poor fellow cannot grasp the reason for the ferocity of stupid fate, which unrelentingly preys upon him. Arrested by mistake as a revolutionist and condemned to deportation, he becomes an object of derision to his comrades. However, gradually, he finds the strength to share the severe privations of his companions who have sacrificed themselves to their ideal of justice and liberty. And, on his death-bed, he is elated by all that he has endured; he dreams of liberty, which, up to this time, had been indifferent to him, and asks them to sing the Marseillaise over his grave.

"He died, and we sang the Marseillaise. Our young and powerful voices thundered forth this majestic song of liberty, accompanied by the noise of the ocean which carried on the crests of its waves towards 'dear France,' pale terror and blood-red hope.

"It became our standard forever, the picture of this nonentity with the hare's body and the man's heart.

"On your knees to the hero, friends and comrades!

"We sang. The guns, with their creaking locks, were pointed menacingly at us; the steel points of the bayonets were pointed at our hearts. The song resounded louder and louder, with increasing joy. Held in the friendly hands of the 'strugglers,' the black coffin slowly sank into the earth.

"We sang the Marseillaise!"

The two main characters of "The Gulf," a student and a school-girl, are walking and discussing rather deep things, such as immortality and the beauty of pure and noble love. They feel some sadness in speaking about these things, but love appears more and more luminous to them. It rises before their eyes, as large as the world, bursting forth like the sun and marvelously beautiful, and they know that there is nothing so powerful as love.

"You could die for the woman you loved?" asked Zinochka.

"Of course," replies Nemovetsky unhesitatingly, in a frank and sincere voice, "and you?"

"I too!" She remains pensive a moment. "To die for the one you love, that is a great happiness! Would that that were to be my destiny!"

Gradually night falls. Nemovetsky and his companion lose their way in the woods; they finally arrive in a clearing, where three filthy-looking men are seated about an empty bottle. These intoxicated men, whose wicked eyes light up with a brutal envy of enjoyment and love of destruction, try to quarrel with Nemovetsky, and one of them ends by striking him full in the face with his fist. Zinochka runs away. His heart full of terror, Nemovetsky can hear the shrieks of his friend, whom the vagabonds have caught. Then a feeling of emptiness comes over him, and he loses consciousness. Two of the men throw him into a ravine.

An hour later, Nemovetsky regains consciousness; he gets up with great pain, for he is badly wounded. He remembers what has happened. Fright and despair seize him. He begins to run and call for help with all his strength, at the same time looking among all the bushes, when at his feet, he sees a dim, white form. It is his companion, who lies there motionless. He falls down on his knees and touches her. His hand encounters a nude body, damp and cold, but still living. It seems to grow warm at his touch. He pictures to himself with abominable clearness what the men have done. A feeling of strange strength circulates in his members. On his knees in front of the young girl, in the obscurity of the forest, he tries to bring her back to life, calling her sweet names, caressing her hair, rubbing her cold hands.

"With infinite precautions, but also with deep tenderness, he tries to cover her with the shreds of her torn dress, and the double sensation of the cloth and the nude body are as keen as a sword and as inconceivable as madness. And now he cries for help, now he presses the sweet and supple body to his breast. His unconscious abandonment unchains the savageness of his passion. He whispers in a low voice, 'I love you, I love you.' And throwing himself violently upon her lips, he feels his teeth entering her flesh.

"Then, in the sadness and impetuousness of the kiss, the last bit of his mind gives way. It seems to him that the lips of the young girl tremble. For an instant, a terrible terror fills his soul and he sees a horrible gulf yawning at his feet.... And he hurls himself into the mad throes of his insane passion."

The account of the collegian, which forms the plot of the story "In the Fog," is even more daring in its realism. It actually oppresses the reader, not so much by certain details that provoke disgust, as by the analysis of the sufferings of an unfortunate young man, whose mind is pure, but who has let himself be dragged into excesses which are followed by a sickness of ill name. Severely reprimanded by his father, the poor young fellow, overcome with sorrow, the victim of an instinct which he could not conquer, ends his days in a most horrible way: one evening, he leaves home and goes out into the streets in an adventuresome spirit. A half-intoxicated prostitute touches him in passing; he follows her. As they go along, a conversation starts up, and the young man, although she is repugnant to him, goes home with her. Once in her room, a violent quarrel starts up and he kills her, and then commits suicide.

These two stories, especially "The Gulf," caused many lively discussions on the part of the public, and then in the newspapers. Mr. Bourenine, the well-known critic of the "Novoye Vremya," says that he received from several correspondents a series of letters which blamed Andreyev vehemently and requested that this "skunk" of literature be called to order according to his deserts. These protestations were reËnforced by an ardent letter from Countess Tolstoy, the wife of the great author, who reproached Andreyev for having so complacently painted such sombre pictures, with such low and violent scenes, all of which tended to pervert youth. The writers were not the only ones to take offence. Two important Russian newspapers organized a sort of inquiry, and they published many of the answers received from the young people of both sexes, but these were all favorable to Andreyev.

In truth, all these judgments are too passionate. It is true that "most of the critics have understood Andreyev only in a superficial manner," as Tolstoy rightfully asserted. The double impression, for instance, produced by "The Gulf," is the result of a simple misunderstanding. Those who think that the adventure of young Nemovetsky is a slice of life and characterizes certain psychological states, have, without a doubt, the right to judge this story as an indiscretion, and to reproach the author with a deviation from morality; but Andreyev has not taken his hero from reality; he has not tried to give us a picture of manners, but has expressed an idea, born in his brain under the influence of the philosophy of Nietzsche. It illustrates the terrible power and the brutality of a dormant instinct lurking in the purest minds.

Besides, "The Gulf" and "In the Fog" are compositions which are exceptional in the work of Andreyev. The idea that he mostly presents is not the power of bestial instincts, but rather the indestructible vitality of human feelings and aspirations towards a better existence, which sometimes comes to light among the most miserable and depraved people, and even among those who are in the most abject material condition.

In the destiny of these beings, there are, however, rays of hope. The slightest incident serves to transform them; suddenly their hearts begin to beat happily, tears of tenderness moisten their eyes, they vaguely feel the existence of something luminous and good. A profound sensibility, an ardent love of life bursts forth in their souls. This sensibility, this attachment to existence, form the theme of four touching stories: "He Was," "Petka in the Country," "The Cellar," and "The Angel."

The action of "He Was" takes place in a hospital, where a deacon, a foolishly debonair man, who is attached to his stunted existence, and a pessimistic merchant, thoroughly satiated, are at the point of death. The deacon has an incurable sickness, and his days are numbered. But he does not know it, and speaks with enthusiasm of the pilgrimage he is going to make after he is cured, and of the apple-tree in his garden, which he expects will bear a great deal of fruit. The fourth Friday of Lent he is taken into the amphitheatre. He comes back, very much moved and making the sign of the cross.

"Ah! my brothers," he says, "I am all upset. The doctor made me sit down in a chair and said to the students: 'Here you see a sick man.' Ah! how painful it was to hear him add: 'He was a deacon!'"

"The unfortunate man stopped, and continued in a choking voice: '"He was a deacon," the doctor told them. He told them the story of my whole life, he even spoke about my wife. It was terrible! One would have said that I was dead already, and that he was talking over my coffin.'

"And as the deacon is thus speaking, all of the others see clearly that he is going to die. They see it as clearly as if death itself was standing there, at the foot of the bed...."

The merchant is a very different sort of man: he does not believe in God; he has had enough of life and is not afraid of death. All of his strength he has spent unnecessarily, without any appreciable result, without joy. When he was young he had stolen meat and fruit from his master. Caught in the act, he had been beaten, and he detested those who had struck him. Later on, having become rich, he crushed the poor with his fortune and scorned those who, on falling into his hands, answered his hate with scorn. Finally, old age and sickness had come; people now began to steal from him, and he, in turn, beat those whom he caught terribly. And thus his life had been spent; it had been nothing but a series of transgressions and hatreds, where the flames of desire, in dying out, had left nothing but cold ashes in his soul. He refuses to believe that any one can love this existence, and he disdainfully looks at the sallow face of the deacon, and mutters: "Fool!" Then, he looks at the third man in the room, a young student who is asleep. This student never fails to embrace his fiancÉe, a pretty young girl, whenever she comes to see him. As he looks the merchant, more bitterly than before, repeats: "Fool!"

But death approaches; and this man who thinks himself superior and who scorns the deacon because he dreams of light and the sun, now feels disturbed in his turn. In making up the balance-sheet of this existence which, up to this time, he believed he hated, he remembers a stream of warm light which, during the day, used to come in through the window and gild the ceiling; and he remembers how the sun used to shine on the banks of the Volga, near his home. With a terrible sob, beating his hands on his breast, he falls back on his bed, right against the deacon, whom he hears silently weeping.

"And thus they wept together. They wept for the sun which they were never to see again, for the apple-tree with fruit which they were not going to eat, for the shadow that was to envelop them, for dear life and cruel death!"

Petka—the hero of "Petka in the Country"—is, at ten years of age, a barber's apprentice. He does not yet smoke as does his thirteen year old friend Nicolka, whom he wants to equal in everything. Petka's principal occupation, in the rare moments when the shop is empty, is to look out of the window at the poorly dressed men and women who are sitting on the benches of the boulevard. In the meantime, Nicolka goes through the streets of ill fame, and comes back and tells Petka all his experiences. The precocious knowledge of Nicolka astonishes the child, whose one ambition is to be like his friend one of these days. While waiting, he dreams of a vague country, but he cannot guess its location nor its character. And no one comes to take him there. From morning till evening he always hears the same jerky cry: "Some water, boy!"

But one morning his mother, the cook Nadezhda, tells the barber that her master and mistress have told her to take Petka to the country for a few days. Then begins for him an enchanted existence. He goes in bathing four times a day, fishes, goes on long walks, climbs trees, rolls in the grass. When, at the end of a week, the barber claims his apprentice, the child does not understand: he has completely forgotten the city and the dirty barber-shop; and the return is very sad. Again is heard the jerky cry: "Some water, boy!" followed by a menacing murmur of "Come! Come!" if the child spills any of the water, or has not understood the orders.

"And, during the night, in the place where Petka and Nicolka sleep side by side, a weak little voice speaks of the country, of things that do not exist, of things that no one has ever heard of or seen!..."

"The Cellar" is inhabited by absolutely fallen people. A baby has just been born there. With down-bent necks, their faces unconsciously lighted up by strangely happy smiles, a prostitute and a miserable drunkard look at the child. This little life, "weak as a fire in the steppe," calls to them vaguely, and it seems to promise them something beautiful, clear, and immortal. Among the inhabitants of this cellar, the most unfortunate of all, is a man named Kizhnakov; he is pale, sickly, worn by work, almost devoured by suffering and alcohol; death already lies in wait for him. The most terrible thing for this man is the necessity of having to begin to live again each day. He would like to lie down all day and think of suicide under the heap of rags that serve him as a covering. He would like best to have some one come up back of him, and shoot him. He fears his own voice and his own thoughts. And it is on him that the baby produces the deepest impression. Since the birth of the child Kizhnakov does not sleep any more; he tries to protect himself from the cold, and weeps softly, without sadness and without convulsions, like those who have pure and innocent hearts, like children.

"'Why do I weep?' he asks himself.

"Not finding a suitable answer, he replies: 'It is thus....'

"And the meaning of his words is so deep that a new flood of tears come to the eyes of the man whose life is so sad and solitary."

We find the same theme again in "The Angel." A child who also lives in a cellar comes back from a Christmas-tree; he brings with him a toy, and a pretty little wax angel, which he shows to his father. The latter has seen better days, but in the last few years he has been sick with consumption, and now he is awaiting death, silent and continually exasperated by the sight of social injustice. However, the delight of the child infects the father, and both of them have a feeling "of something that joins all hearts into one, and does away with the abyss which separates man from man, and makes him so solitary, unfortunate, and weak." The poor dying man seems to hear a voice from this better world, where he once lived and from which he had been sent forever.

But these are only the dreams of a dying man, the last rays of light of the life which is being extinguished. The ray, penetrating this sick soul, is like the weak sunlight which passes through the dirty windows of a dark hovel.

In his two stories, "The Stranger" and "The Obscure Future," Andreyev shows us two men of entirely different character, animated by generous feelings and a firm will. One of them, a young student, being disgusted with the miseries of Russian life and having decided to expatriate himself, suddenly changes his mind, as a result of the patriotism of one of his friends, a Servian, named Raiko. He makes it his duty never to leave his country, although life there is so terrible and hopeless. There is, in this new feeling, an immense joy and a terrible sadness. The other, the hero of the second story, having one day expressed to his father the hatred he has for the bourgeois life that he is leading, leaves his family, who love him, in order to penetrate the "obscure future."

Evidently, these are people who are fitted to struggle. However, these strugglers, so infrequent in the work of Andreyev, have, in spite of all, something sickly and savage in them; instead of real fighting courage, they possess only extreme audaciousness, mystical rapture, or nervous exaltation. The "obscure future" toward which their eyes are turned is not lighted up by the rays of faith and hope.

The question is whether Andreyev himself believes in the triumph of the elements of life over the elements of death, the horror of which he excels in portraying for us. It is in the following manner that he expresses himself in one of his essays entitled, "Impressions of the Theatre": "In denying everything, one arrives immediately at symbols. In refuting life, one is but an involuntary apologist. I never believe so much in life as when I am reading the father of pessimism, Schopenhauer! As a result, life is powerful and victorious!... It is truth that always triumphs, and not falsehood; it is truth which is at the basis of life, and justifies it. All that persists is useful; the noxious element must disappear sooner or later, will inevitably disappear."

What, then, constitutes the essence of Andreyev's talent is an extreme impressionability, a daring in descriptions of the negative sides of reality, melancholy moods and the torments of existence. As he usually portrays general suffering and sickness rather than definite types, his heroes are mostly incarnations and symbols. The very titles of some of his stories indicate the abstract character of his work. Such are: "Silence," "The Thought," and "The Lie." In this respect he has carried on the work of Poe, whose influence on him is incontestable. These two writers have in common a refined and morbid sensibility, a predilection for the horrible and a passion for the study of the same kind of subjects,—solitude, silence, death. But the powerful fantasy of the American author, which does not come in touch with reality, wanders freely through the whole world and through all the centuries of history. His heroes take refuge in half-crumbled castles, they look at the reader from the top of craggy rocks, whither their love of solitude has led them; even death itself is not a repulsive skeleton, but rather a majestic form, full of grandiose mystery. Andreyev, on the other hand, but rarely breaks the bounds which unite him to reality. His heroes are living people, who act, and whose banal life ends with a banal death. This realism and this passionate love of truth make the strength and the beauty of all his work.

A certain harmony between the imaginative and the real element is characteristic of the best of Andreyev's productions, especially his last stories: "The Red Laugh," "The Governor," "The Shadows," and "The Seven Who Were Hanged."

"The Red Laugh" is the symbol, the incarnation, of the bloody and implacable cynicism of war. The psychologist of the mysterious has, in these pages, recorded the terrifying aspects of the Manchurian campaign, which one could not have foreseen in all of its horror. He has shown in a lasting manner the poor human creature torn from his home, debased to the rÔle of a piece of mechanism. Not knowing where he is being led to, he goes, making murderous gestures, the meaning of which he does not know, without even having the illusory consolation of possible personal bravery, being killed by the shots of an invisible enemy, or, what is worse, being killed by the shots of his own comrades—and all of this, automatically, stupidly. The feeling of terror, the somewhat mystical intuition of events which, at times, seem to be paradoxes in the other works of Andreyev, are perfectly adapted to this terribly real representation of the effects of war.

The inner drama which Andreyev analyzes in "The Governor" makes a bold contrast with the violent pages of "The Red Laugh," the savage powers of which attain the final limits of horror.

The governor has during his whole life been a loyal and strict servant of the Tsar. On the day of an uprising he mercilessly beat the enemies of his master; he blindly accomplished what he thought was his duty. But, since that bloody day, a new and unceasing voice speaks in his conscience. The irreparable act has forever isolated him from his fellow-creatures, and even from his friends who congratulate him upon his fine conduct. A stranger to all that is happening around him, he is left alone to fight with his conscience, which soon crushes him with all the weight of remorse. He knows that he has been condemned by a revolutionary tribunal. A young girl who is a stranger to him writes him a compassionate letter: "You are going to be killed," she says, "and that will be justice; but I have great pity for you." This discerning and youthful sympathy penetrates his heart, which finally opens—alas, too late,—to justice and pity.

This marks the beginning of a terrible agony. The governor makes no effort to escape from the fatal judgment. Always alone, he contemplates his terrible distress and awaits the coming of the judiciary. He feels that he has incurred universal blame, and at times he comes to wish for death, which surprises him suddenly as he is turning the corner of a street:

"The whole thing was short and simple, like a scene from a moving-picture play. At a cross-ways, close by a muddy spot, a hesitating voice called to the governor:

"'Your honor!'

"'What?'

"He stopped and turned his head: two men who had come from behind a wall were crossing the street, and were shuffling along in the mud towards him. One of them had in his left hand a piece of folded paper; his other hand was in his pocket.

"And immediately, the governor knew that death had come; and they knew that the governor knew.

"While keeping the paper in his left hand the unknown man took a revolver out of his pocket with difficulty.

"The governor glanced about him; he saw a dirty and deserted square, with bits of grass growing in the mud, and a wall. But what did it matter, it was too late! He gave a short but deep sigh, and stood erect again, fearless, but without defiance.... He fell, with three shots in his body."

This drama of conscience is set forth with admirable sureness of analysis, and the author has been able to represent with impressive intensity the mysterious fatality which demands the death of the guilty one.

It is this same fatality, under whose hand all men are equal, which makes the hero of "The Shadows," a young terrorist who has taken refuge in a house of ill-fame, obey the strange desire of his bed-companion.

"Stay with me!" cries the young girl, in whom is incarnated his destiny, at the moment that he is going to leave the establishment in order to escape from the spies who are following him. "You are an honest man! And I've been waiting five years to meet an honest man.... Stay with me, because you belong to me."

After a terrible internal combat the man yields to this unknown will which is oppressing him. A traitor to his party, he decides to become the companion of this painted girl, with whom he then gets drunk.

"As long as I am in the shadows," he murmurs with the sombre resignation of an Andreyev hero, "I might as well remain there."

At dawn, the police come to arrest him. And while his friend tries desperately to resist the agents of the force, he contemplates the brutal scene with an ironic smile.

"The Seven Who Were Hanged," written in 1908, right after the executions at Kherson and Warsaw, shows us pictures of terror and fright aptly described by the genius of Andreyev. This work has prodigious color and strength, and one experiences deep emotions on reading it. Five terrorists, captured at the very moment when they are going to assassinate a minister, and two criminals, are condemned to be hanged on the same day. The writer shows them to us tortured by the most horrible anguish, that which immediately precedes death. The word "madness" appears on every page: mystical madness of hallucination that hears music and voices, such is that of the young revolutionary Moussya; then there is the brutal madness of her comrades Kashirine and Golovine, who are ready to scream with terror; the madness of the victims, the frenzy of the executioners.

The night before the execution the prisoners are visited by their relatives. The farewell which Serge Golovine takes of his family is rightly considered one of the most poignant and most cleverly constructed scenes that Andreyev has ever written.

Followed by his mother, who totters along, Serge's father, a retired colonel, enters the room where visitors are received. Serge does not know that the colonel spent the whole night in preparing for this meeting. He has told his wife what to do: embrace her son, keep from crying, and say nothing. But the unhappy mother in the presence of her son cannot control her emotions; her eyes are strained and she breathes faster and faster.

"Don't torture him!" commands the colonel.

Several stupid and insignificant words are exchanged in order to hide the terrible suffering that they all are going through. The visit ends: the parents must bid their son good-bye forever. The mother gives her son a short kiss, then she shakes her head and murmurs, trembling:

"'No, it is not that! It is not that!'

"'Good-bye, Serge,' says his father.

"They shake hands, and give each other a brief but hearty kiss.

"'You...' begins Serge.

"'What's that?' asks his father in a jerky voice.

"'No, not like that. No, no! What was I going to say?' repeats his mother, shaking her head.

"She was again seated, trembling.

"'You...' continues Serge.

"Suddenly, his face took on a pitiful expression, and he made a grimace like a child. The tears then came to his eyes.

"'Father, you are a strong man!'

"'What are you saying? What are you saying?' the colonel cries, frightened.

"Then, as if he had been struck, the colonel's head sank down upon his son's shoulder. And they kissed each other, again and again, the one with white hair and the other with the prisoner's 'capote.'

"'And I?' a hoarse voice brusquely asked.

"They looked: the mother was standing, her head thrown back, and she was watching them with anger, almost hate.

"'What is the matter, dear?' cried the colonel.

"'And I?' she repeated. 'You two kiss each other, and I? You are men, aren't you? And I?'

"'Mother!'

"And Serge threw himself into his mother's arms....

"The last words of the colonel were:

"'I consecrate you to death, my boy! Die with courage, like a soldier!'"

These few lines retrace one of the thousands of daily dramas which compose modern Russian history. The work of Andreyev brings to us a sad vibrant echo of the sobs which ring out in Russian dungeons. And this faithful portrayal of events, events so frequent that they no longer move us from our indifference, when we find the echo of them in the press, will raise in the conscience of Andreyev's readers a cry of horror and pity.

It is principally in the dramas which he has written in the last few years[11] that Andreyev has developed with most force and clearness his favorite themes: the fear of living and dying, the madness of believing in free-will, and the nonsense of life, the weakness and vanity of which he depicts for us.

The first of these works to appear was "The Life of Man," which is a tragic illustration of this pessimism.

When the curtain rises, "some one in grey," holding a torch, informs the audience that Man is about to be born. From this time on, his life, lighted like a lamp, will burn until death extinguishes it. And Man will live, docile and obedient to the orders that come to him from On-High, through the intermediary of this "some one," whom he does not know. Each act of the play represents a period in the life of Man. In the first act, Man has acquired riches and glory, and is found feasting with his friends in his sumptuous home. The guests are enchanted with their host, whom they envy. But happiness is a fugitive shadow; it soon betrays the man, who becomes poor, loses his son, falls into the most abject misery, and dies in a filthy and infected cellar, surrounded by vile beggars, while the torch, held by "some one in grey," begins to grow weaker, and then dies out. And the man, conscious of his powerlessness to conquer fate, and conscious of his weakness in face of the mysterious "some one in grey," confounds in the same malediction God, Satan, Fatality, and Life, who have united to annihilate him.

The themes of the "King of Famine" and "Black Masks" offer a certain analogy to the theme of "The Life of Man."

From the top of a belfry the "King of Famine," in company with "Time" and "Death," incites a workingmen's revolt. He inspires them with an absolute certainty of victory, although he can see that the revolt will be quelled and the rebels crushed. Events do not delay, in fact, to verify the prophecy of the monarch. Locked up, the leaders of the revolt are condemned to death. The scene of judgment in the last act is one of the finest in the play. On one side are seated the sad and dull judges; on the other, the elegant public, which, with a feeling of fear and disgust, gazes at the unfortunates whom the King of Famine has robbed of almost all human semblance. And in this play, also, Death reaps a bountiful harvest.

"Black Masks" is the study of a pathological case which Andreyev has dramatized after the fashion of de Maupassant's "The Horla."

The Duke Lorenzo, young, noble, and the owner of a magnificent palace, is getting ready to receive his guests, to whom he is giving, on this evening, a masked ball. The masks arrive: they are all black, and all look alike. They all crowd around Lorenzo, whom this funereal sort of masquerade bothers extremely. He cannot find his wife among the guests. In fact, he does not recognize any of them until, to cap the climax, he meets his double, fights with him and dies, without being able to discern who is the real Lorenzo.

At times, Andreyev tries to find the justification of life, and looks for it in mysticism. He then expounds a doctrine, according to which, truth is individual and perhaps conceived by each man, thanks to direct intuition. Such is the mystical truth which the author tries to affirm in "Anathema."

The play opens with a scene between Anathema, the incarnation of Satan, and "He who guards the gates," behind which is the mystery of eternity. Anathema entreats the Guardian to give him access. But it is in vain that Anathema flatters and insults him; finally, Anathema declares that he will choose from among mankind a poor Jew, named David Leiser, will enrich him and, in order to prove the absolute nonsense of life, will make this man a living protestation against the work of Him who knows all. Disguised as the lawyer Nullius, Anathema comes down to earth and gives millions to David. The latter, the best of men, distributes his riches among the poor. But the beggars become more and more numerous, and soon David finds that he is as poor as he was before the visit of Anathema.

In the meantime, the crowd of paupers, always increasing, ask more money from David; they demand miracles from this man, whose goodness has made him a saint, a superman, in their eyes. They bring him corpses and ask him to resuscitate them. David flees; the crowd follows and stones him to death. But, through his love for his fellow-men, David has acquired immortality, as "He who guards the gates" tells Anathema, when, in the last act, the evil archangel, beaten, returns to lie on the threshold of the inconceivable mysterious.

This admirable play, born of a philosophical conception which relates it to Goethe's "Faust," has been received with particular interest. Andreyev, in writing it, has come very near to solving the question of the meaning of life, and its justification. And, to the person who ponders a while over this work, it will appear that it is not Anathema who entreats "Him who guards the gates" to reveal the mystery, but it is Andreyev himself, who, carried away by the force of his genius, has thrown himself, as if at an invincible wall, against this pitiless guardian, the guardian of the solution of the enigma of life.

While "Anathema" is an abstract character, whose form resembles more an algebraic formula than a living process of human relations, another of Andreyev's plays, "The Love of the Student," written a short time before "Anathema," gives us a little picture of customs, alert and painted with the touch of a master.

Gloukortzev, a young student, falls in love with a young girl whom her mother forces to become a prostitute. Gloukortzev, young and inexperienced, has not the slightest suspicion, till the young girl herself reveals to him the horrible truth. And, perhaps for the first time in his life, the gulf of necessity, toward which fate drives men, opens before him. He sees with horror that he cannot come to the rescue of the girl he loves, because he is poor himself. He cannot even buy her some food, when she tells him that she has eaten nothing since the night before. Placed before the absolute bare reality of life, Gloukortzev does not know what to do, and his comrades, good and upright fellows like himself, have not the means to help him.

Several very successful scenes, in which the author blends the tragic with the comic, deserve, in this brief analysis, special attention. In the first act, there is a students' picnic at which Olga and Gloukortzev, still full of happiness, are present. The spectator is drawn by personal sympathy to the student Onoufry, a good fellow, always drunk, who makes fun of others and himself. We see him again in the second act, when Gloukortzev finds out about Olga's life. The poignant scene between the poor girl and her lover is heightened and softened by the arrival of the students, to whom Gloukortzev tells his sorrow. The last two acts take place in Olga's home. The mother brings her daughter a rich "client." And, in the next room, Gloukortzev suffers terribly, because he knows that his beloved is still leading an infamous life. In the same room, in the fourth act, we are present at an orgy, during which the student quarrels with an officer who has come to spend the night with Olga. But Onoufry, interfering in time, prevents an affray the issue of which would probably have been fatal. When the curtain falls, Gloukortzev, intoxicated, is weeping; at his side is Olga, also weeping, while Onoufry and the officer are singing: "The days of our lives are as short as the life of a wave."

This drama, as well as most of Andreyev's plays, has been produced with great success in Russia and also in Europe.

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