Part 28

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew: Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes,--for many a joke had he; Full well, the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew: 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And even the story ran that he could _gauge_. In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For even though vanquished he could argue still; While words of learned length and thundering sound, Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew. But past is all his fame. The very spot Where many a time he triumphed is forgot.

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired, Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place: The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnished clock that clicked behind the door; The chest contrived a double debt to pay, A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; The pictures placed for ornament and use, The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose; The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay, While broken teacups, wisely kept for show, Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain, transitory splendors! could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear; The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain These simple blessings of the lowly train; To me more dear, congenial to my heart, One native charm, than all the gloss of art. Spontaneous joys where nature has its play, The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway; Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,-- In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; And even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy.

CONTRASTED NATIONAL TYPES

From 'The Traveller'

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display; Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread, And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. No product here the barren hills afford, But man and steel, the soldier and his sword; No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast, But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm. Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small He sees his little lot the lot of all; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head To shame the meanness of his humble shed; No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal To make him loathe his vegetable meal; But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, Each wish contracting fits him to the soil. Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes; With patient angle trolls the finny deep, Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep; Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, And drags the struggling savage into day. At night returning, every labor sped, He sits him down, the monarch of a shed; Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze; While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, Displays her cleanly platter on the board; And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And even those ills that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assigned; Their wants but few, their wishes all confined. Yet let them only share the praises due,-- If few their wants, their pleasures are but few; For every want that stimulates the breast Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies That first excites desire, and then supplies; Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy; Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. Their level life is but a smoldering fire, Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire; Unfit for raptures, or if raptures cheer On some high festival of once a year, In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow: Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low; For as refinement stops, from sire to son Unaltered, unimproved, the manners run; And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart Falls blunted from each indurated heart. Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest; But all the gentler morals, such as play Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way, These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, I turn; and France displays her bright domain. Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire! Where shading elms along the margin grew, And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill, Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. Alike all ages: dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze; And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore, Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, Thus idly busy rolls their world away: Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, For honor forms the social temper here. Honor, that praise which real merit gains, Or even imaginary worth obtains, Here passes current; paid from hand to hand, It shifts in splendid traffic round the land; From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, And all are taught an avarice of praise: They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise: For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought, Enfeebles all internal strength of thought; And the weak soul, within itself unblest, Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart; Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace; Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, To boast one splendid banquet once a year: The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws, Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

IVAN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHAROF

(1812-)

BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

Among the Russian novelists of the first rank stands Ivan the son of Alexander Goncharof. His life has been almost synchronous with the century. He was born in 1812 in the city of Simbirsk, on the Volga below Nizhni Novgorod. His father, a wealthy merchant of that flourishing town, died when the boy was only three years old, leaving him in the care of his mother, a conscientious and lovely woman, who, without a remarkable education, nevertheless determined that her son should have the best that could be provided. In this she was cordially assisted by Ivan's godfather, a retired naval officer who lived in one of her houses and was a cultivated, lively, and lovable man, the centre of the best society of the provincial city. His tales of travel and adventure early implanted in the boy a great passion for reading and study about foreign lands, and the desire to see the world.

He was at first taught at home; then he was sent to a private school which had been established by a local priest for the benefit of neighboring land-owners and gentry. This priest had been educated at the Theological School at Kazan, and was distinguished for his courtly manners and general cultivation. His wife--for it must be remembered that the Russian priesthood is not celibate--was a fascinating French woman, and she taught her native tongue in her husband's school. This remarkable little institution had a small but select library, and here young Goncharof indulged his taste in reading by devouring the Voyages of Captain Cook, Mungo Park, and others, the histories of Karamzin and Rollin, the poetical works of Tasso and Fenelon, as well as the romantic fiction of that day; he was especially fascinated by 'The Heir of Redclyffe.' His reading, however, was ill regulated and not well adapted for his mental discipline. At twelve he was taken by his mother to Moscow, where he had the opportunity to study English and German as well as to continue his reading in French, in which he had already been well grounded.

In 1831 he entered Moscow University, electing the Philological Faculty. There were at that time in the University a coterie of young men who afterwards became famous as writers, and the lectures delivered by a number of enthusiastic young professors were admirably calculated to develop the best in those who heard them. He finished the complete course, and after a brief visit at his native place went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Ministry of Finance. Gogol, and Goncharof himself, have painted the depressing influence of the officialdom then existing. The _chinovnik_ as painted by those early realists was a distinct type. But on the other hand, there was a delightful society at St. Petersburg, and the literary impulses of talented young men were fostered by its leaders. Some of these men founded a new journal of which Salonitsuin was the leading spirit, and in this appeared Goncharof's first articles. They were of a humoristic tendency. His first serious work was entitled 'Obuiknavennaya Istoriya' (An Ordinary Story),--a rather melancholy tale, showing how youthful enthusiasm and the dreams of progress and perfection can be killed by formalism: Aleksandr Aduyef the romantic dreamer is contrasted with his practical uncle Peter Ivanovitch. The second part was not completed when the first part was placed in the hands of the critic Byelinsky, the sovereign arbiter on things literary. Byelinsky gave it his "imprimatur," and it was published in the Sovremennik (Contemporary) in 1847. The conception of his second and by all odds his best romance, 'Oblomof,' was already in his mind; and the first draft was published in the Illustrated Album, under the title 'Son Oblomova' (Oblomof's Dream), the following year.

In 1852 Goncharof received from the Marine Ministry a proposition to sail around the world as private secretary to Admiral Putyatin. On his return he contributed to various magazines sketches of his experiences, and finally published a handsome volume of his travels entitled 'Phregat Pallada' (The Frigate Pallas). In 1857 he went to Carlsbad and completed 'Oblomof' on which he had been working so many years. It appeared in Otetchestvenniya Zapiski (Annals of the Fatherland) in 1858 and 1859, and made a profound sensation. The hero was recognized as a perfectly elaborated portrait of a not uncommon type of Russian character: a good-natured, warm-hearted, healthy young man, so enervated by the atmosphere of indolence into which he has allowed himself to sink, that nothing serves to rouse him. Love is the only impulse which could galvanize him into life. Across his path comes the beautiful Olga, whom the Russians claim as a poetic and at the same time a genuine representative of the best Russian womanhood. Vigorous, alert, with mind and heart equally well developed, she stirs the latent manhood of Oblomof; but when he comes to face the responsibilities, the cares, and the duties of matrimony, he has not the courage to enter upon them. Olga marries Oblomof's friend Stoltz, whom Goncharof intended to be a no less typical specimen of Russian manhood, and whom most critics consider overdrawn and not true to life. The novel is a series of wonderful _genre_ pictures: his portraits are marvels of finish and delicacy; and there are a number of dramatic scenes, although the story as a whole lacks movement. The first chapter, which is here reproduced, is chosen not as perhaps the finest in the book, but as thoroughly characteristic. It is also a fine specimen of Russian humor.

Goncharof finished in 1868 his third novel, entitled 'Abruif' (The Precipice). It was published first in the Viestnik Yevropui (European Messenger), and in book form in 1870. In this he tries to portray the type of the Russian Nihilist; but Volokhof is regarded rather as a caricature than as a faithful portrait. In contrast with him stands the beautiful Viera; but just as Volokhof falls below Oblomof, so Viera yields to Olga in perfect realism. One of the best characters in the story is the dilettante Raisky, the type of the man who has an artistic nature but no energy. One of the most important characters of the book is Viera's grandmother: the German translation of 'The Precipice' is entitled 'The Grandmother's Fault.'

Goncharof has written a few literary essays, and during the past few years has contributed to one of the Russian reviews a series of literary recollections. But his fame with posterity will depend principally on his 'Oblomof,' the name of which has given to the language a new word,--_oblomovshchina_[F] Oblomovism,--the typically Russian indolence which was induced by the peculiar social conditions existing in Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861: indifference to all social questions; the expectation that others will do your work; or as expressed in the Russian proverb, "the trusting in others as in God, but in yourself as in the Devil."

[Signature: Nathan Haskell Dole]

[F] Oblomof is the genitive plural of the word oblom or oblam, a term expressive of anything broken or almost useless, or even bad; a rude, awkward, unfinished man.

OBLOMOF

In Garokhavaya Street, in one of those immense houses the population of which would suffice for a whole provincial city, there lay one morning in bed in his apartment Ilya Ilyitch Oblomof. He was a pleasant-appearing man of two or three and twenty, of medium stature, with dark gray eyes; but his face lacked any fixed idea or concentration of purpose. A thought would wander like a free bird over his features, flutter in his eyes, light on his parted lips, hide itself in the wrinkles of his brow, then entirely vanish away; and over his whole countenance would spread the shadeless light of unconcern.

From his face this indifference extended to the attitudes of his whole body, even to the folds of his dressing-gown. Occasionally his eyes were darkened by an expression of weariness or disgust, but neither weariness nor disgust could for an instant dispel from his face the indolence which was the dominant and habitual expression not only of his body, but also of his very soul. And his soul was frankly and clearly betrayed in his eyes, in his smile, in every movement of his head, of his hands.

A cool superficial observer, glancing at Oblomof as he passed him by, would have said, "He must be a good-natured, simple-hearted fellow." Any one looking deeper, more sympathetically, would after a few moments' scrutiny turn away with a smile, with a feeling of agreeable uncertainty.

Oblomof's complexion was not florid, not tawny, and not positively pallid, but was indeterminate,--or seemed to be so, perhaps because it was flabby; not by reason of age, but by lack of exercise or of fresh air or of both. His body, to judge by the dull, transparent color of his neck, by his little plump hands, his drooping shoulders, seemed too effeminate for a man. His movements, even if by chance he were aroused, were kept under restraint likewise by a languor and by a laziness that was not devoid of its own peculiar grace.

If a shadow of an anxious thought arose from his spirit and passed across his face, his eyes would grow troubled, the wrinkles in his brow would deepen, a struggle of doubt or pain would seem to begin: but rarely indeed would this troubled thought crystallize into the form of a definite idea; still more rarely would it be transformed into a project.

All anxiety would be dissipated in a sigh and settle down into apathy or languid dreaming.

How admirably Oblomof's house costume suited his unruffled features and his effeminate body! He wore a dressing-gown of Persian material--a regular Oriental _khalat_, without the slightest suggestion of anything European about it, having no tassels, no velvet, no special shape. It was ample in size, so that he might have wrapped it twice around him. The sleeves, in the invariable Asiatic style, grew wider and wider from the wrist to the shoulder. Although this garment had lost its first freshness, and in places had exchanged its former natural gloss for another that was acquired, it still preserved the brilliancy of its Oriental coloring and its firmness of texture.

The khalat had in Oblomof's eyes a multitude of precious properties: it was soft and supple; the body was not sensible of its weight; like an obedient slave, it accommodated itself to every slightest motion.

Oblomof while at home always went without cravat and without waistcoat, for the simple reason that he liked simplicity and comfort. The slippers which he wore were long, soft, and wide; when without looking he put down one foot from the bed to the floor it naturally fell into one of them.

Oblomof's remaining in bed was not obligatory upon him, as in the case of a sick man or of one who was anxious to sleep; nor was it accidental, as in the case of one who was weary; nor was it for mere pleasure, as a sluggard would have chosen: it was the normal condition of things with him. When he was at home--and he was almost always at home--he invariably lay in bed and invariably in the room where we have just found him: a room which served him for sleeping-room, library, and parlor. He had three other rooms, but he rarely glanced into them; in the morning, perhaps, but even then not every day, but only when his man came to sweep the rooms--and this, you may be sure, was not done every day. In these rooms the furniture was protected with covers; the curtains were always drawn.

The room in which Oblomof was lying appeared at first glance to be handsomely furnished, There were a mahogany bureau, two sofas upholstered in silk, handsome screens embroidered with birds and fruits belonging to an imaginary nature. There were damask curtains, rugs, a number of paintings, bronzes, porcelains, and a quantity of beautiful bric-a-brac. But the experienced eye of a man of pure taste would have discovered at a single hasty glance that everything there betrayed merely the desire to keep up appearances in unimportant details, while really avoiding the burden. That had indeed been Oblomof's object when he furnished his room. Refined taste would not have been satisfied with those heavy ungraceful mahogany chairs, with those conventional etageres. The back of one sofa was dislocated; the veneering was broken off in places. The same characteristics were discoverable in the pictures and the vases, and all the ornaments.

The proprietor himself, however, looked with such coolness and indifference on the decoration of his apartment that one might think he asked with his eyes, "Who brought you here and set you up?" As the result of such an indifferent manner of regarding his possessions, and perhaps of the still more indifferent attitude of Oblomof's servant Zakhar, the appearance of the room, if it were examined rather more critically, was amazing because of the neglect and carelessness which held sway there. On the walls, around the pictures, spiders' webs, loaded with dust, hung like festoons; the mirrors, instead of reflecting objects, would have served better as tablets for scribbling memoranda in the dust that covered them. The rugs were rags. On the sofa lay a forgotten towel; on the table you would generally find in the morning a plate or two with the remains of the evening meal, the salt-cellar, gnawed bones, and crusts of bread. Were it not for these plates, and the pipe half smoked out and flung down on the bed, or even the master himself stretched out on it, it might easily have been supposed that the room was uninhabited, it was so dusty, so lacking in all traces of human care. On the etageres, to be sure, lay two or three opened books or a crumpled newspaper; on the bureau stood an inkstand with pens; but the pages where the books were open were covered thick with dust and had turned yellow, evidently long ago thrown aside; the date of the newspaper was long past; and if any one had dipped a pen into the inkstand it would have started forth only a frightened, buzzing fly!

Ilya Ilyitch was awake, contrary to his ordinary custom, very early,--at eight o'clock. Some anxiety was preying on his mind. Over his face passed alternately now apprehension, now annoyance, now vexation. It was evident that an internal conflict had him in its throes, and his intellect had not as yet come to his aid.

The fact was that the evening before, Oblomof had received from the starosta (steward) of his estate a letter filled with disagreeable tidings. It is not hard to guess what unpleasant details one's steward may write about: bad harvests, large arrearages, diminution in receipts, and the like. But although his starosta had written his master almost precisely the same kind of letter the preceding year and the year before that, nevertheless this latest letter came upon him exactly the same, as a disagreeable surprise.

Was it not hard?--he was facing the necessity of considering the means of taking some measures!