SCENE IV.

KATERÍNA (_alone_).

Where am I going now? Home? No, home or the grave--it is the same. Yes, home or the grave!... the grave! Better the grave.... A little grave under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the sweet rain falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and sweet grass ... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up their little ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all sorts of flowers, (_dreamingly_) all sorts of flowers ... how still! how sweet! My heart is as it were lighter! But of life I don’t want to think! Live again! No, no, no use ... life is not good!... And people are hateful to me, and the house is hateful, and the walls are hateful! I will not go there! No, no, I will not go! if I go to them, they’ll come and talk, and what do I want with that? Ah, it has grown dark! And there is singing again somewhere! What are they singing? I can’t make out.... To die now.... What are they singing? It is just the same whether death comes, or of myself ... but live I cannot! A sin to die so!... they won’t pray for me! If anyone loves me, he will pray ... they will fold my arms crossed in the grave! Oh, yes.... I remember. But when they catch me, and take me home by force.... Ah, quickly, quickly! (_Goes to the river bank. Aloud._) My dear one! My sweet! Farewell!

(_Exit._)

(_Enter Mme. Kabanóva, Kabanóv, Kulíghin and workmen with torches._)

_The Thunderstorm_ is one of the best dramas in the modern répertoire of the Russian stage. From the stage point of view it is simply admirable. Every scene is impressive, the drama develops rapidly, and every one of the twelve characters introduced in it is a joy to the dramatic artist. The parts of Dikóy, Varvára (the frivolous sister), Kabanóff, Kudryásh (the sweetheart of Varvára), an old artisan-engineer, nay even the old lady with two male-servants, who appears only for a couple of minutes--each one will be found a source of deep artistic pleasure by the actor or actress who takes it; while the parts of Katerína and Mme. Kabanóva are such that no great actress would neglect them.

Concerning the main idea of the drama, I shall have to repeat here what I have already said once or twice in the course of these sketches. At first sight it may seem that Mme. Kabanóva and her son are exclusively Russian types--types which exist no more in Western Europe. So it was said, at least, by several English critics. But such an assertion seems to be hardly correct. The submissive Kabanóffs may be rare in England, or at least their sly submissiveness does not go to the same lengths as it does in _The Thunderstorm_. But even for Russian society Kabanóff is not very typical. As to his mother, Mme. Kabanóva, every one of us must have met her more than once in English surroundings. Who does not know, indeed, the old lady who for the mere pleasure of exercising her power will keep her daughters at her side, prevent their marrying, and tyrannise over them till they have grown grey-haired? or in thousands or other ways exercise her tyranny over her household? Dickens knew Mme. Kabanóva well, and she is still alive in these Islands, as everywhere else.

OSTRÓVSKIY’S LATER DRAMAS

As Ostróvskiy advanced in years and widened the scope of his observations of Russian life, he drew his characters from other circles besides that of the merchants, and in his later dramas he gave such highly attractive, progressive types as _The Poor Bride_, Parásha (in a beautiful comedy, _An Impetuous Heart_), Agniya in _Carnival has its End_, the actor Neschastlívtseff (Mr. Unfortunate) in a charming idyll, _The Forest_, and so on. And as regards his “negative” (undesirable) types, taken from the life of the St. Petersburg bureaucracy or from the millionaire and “company-promoters” circles, Ostróvskiy deeply understood them and attained the artistic realisation of wonderfully true, coldly-harsh, though apparently “respectable” types, such as no other dramatic writer has ever succeeded in producing.

Altogether Ostróvskiy wrote about fifty dramas and comedies, and every one of them is excellent for the stage. There are no insignificant parts in them. A great actor or actress may take one of the smallest parts, consisting of perhaps but a few words pronounced during a few minutes’ appearance on the stage--and yet feel that there is material enough in it to create a character. As for the main personages, Ostróvskiy fully understood that a considerable part in the creation of a character must be left to the actor. There are consequently parts which without such a collaboration would be pale and unfinished, while in the hands of a true actor they yield material for a deeply psychological and profoundly dramatic personification. This is why a lover of dramatic art finds such a deep æsthetic pleasure both in playing in Ostróvskiy’s dramas and in reading them aloud.

Realism, in the sense which already has been indicated several times in these pages--that is, a realistic description of characters and events, subservient to ideal aims--is the distinctive feature of all Ostróvskiy’s dramas. As in the novels of Turguéneff, the simplicity of his plots is striking. But you see life--true life with all its pettinesses--developing before you, and out of these petty details grows insensibly the plot.

“One scene follows another, and all of them are so commonplace, such an everyday matter!--and yet, out of them, a terrible drama has quite imperceptibly grown into being. You could affirm that it is not a comedy being played before you, but life itself unrolled before your eyes--as if the author had simply opened a wall and shown you what is going on inside this or that house.” In these just words one of our critics, Skabitchévskiy, has described Ostróvskiy’s work.

In his dramas Ostróvskiy introduced an immense variety of characters taken from all classes of Russian life; but he once for all abandoned the old romantic division of human types into “good” and “bad” ones. In real life these two divisions are blended together and merge into another; and while even now an English dramatic author cannot conceive a drama without “the villain,” Ostróvskiy never felt the need of introducing that conventional personage. Nor did he feel the need of resorting to the conventional rules of “dramatic conflict.” To quote once more from the same critic:

“There is no possibility of bringing his comedies under some general principle, such as a struggle of duty against inclination, or a collision of passions which calls forth a fatal result, or an antagonism between good and evil, or between progress and ignorance. His comedies represent the most varied human relations. Just as we find it in life, men stand in these comedies in different obligatory relations towards each other, which relations have, of course, their origin in the past; and when these men have been brought together, conflicts necessarily arise between them, out of these very relations. As to the outcome of the conflict, it is, as a rule quite unforeseen, and often depends, as usually happens in real life, upon mere accidents.”

Like Ibsen, Ostróvskiy sometimes will not even undertake to say how the drama will end.

And finally, Ostróvskiy, notwithstanding the pessimism of all his contemporaries--the writers of the forties--was not a pessimist. Even amidst the most terrible conflicts depicted in his dramas he retained the sense of the joy of life and of the unavoidable fatality of many of the miseries of life. He never recoiled before painting the darker aspects of the human turmoil, and he has given a most repulsive collection of family-despots from the old merchant class, followed by a collection of still more repulsive types from the class of industrial “promoters.” But in one way or another he managed either to show that there are better influences at work, or, at least, to suggest the possible triumph of some better element. He thus avoided falling into the pessimism which characterised his contemporaries, and he had nothing of the hysterical turn of mind which we find in some of his modern followers. Even at moments when, in some one of his dramas, life all round wears the gloomiest aspect (as, for instance, in _Sin and Misfortune may visit everyone_, which is a page from peasant life as realistically dark, but better suited for the stage, than Tolstóy’s _Power of Darkness_), even then a gleam of hope appears, at least, in the contemplation of nature, if nothing else remains to redeem the gloominess of human folly.

And yet, there is one thing--and a very important one--which stands in the way of Ostróvskiy’s occupying in international dramatic literature the high position to which his powerful dramatic talent entitled him, and being recognised as one of the great dramatists of our century. The dramatic conflicts which we find in his dramas are all of the simpler sort. There are none of the more tragical problems and entanglements which the complicated nature of the educated man of our own times and the different aspects of the great social questions are giving birth to in the conflicts arising now in every stratum and class of society. But it must also be said that the dramatist who can treat these modern problems of life in the same masterly way in which the Moscow writer has treated the simpler problems which he saw in his own surroundings, is yet to come.

HISTORICAL DRAMAS--A. K. TOLSTÓY.

At a later period of his life Ostróvskiy turned to historical drama, which he wrote in excellent blank verse. But, like Shakespeare’s plays from English history, and Púshkin’s _Borís Godunóff_, they have more the character of dramatised chronicles than of dramas properly speaking. They belong too much to the domain of the epic, and the dramatic interest is too often sacrificed to the desire of introducing historical colouring.

The same is true, though in a lesser degree, of the historical dramas of Count ALEXÉI KONSTANTÍNOVITCH TOLSTÓY (1817-1875). A. K. Tolstóy was above all a poet; but he also wrote a historical novel from the times of John the Terrible, _Prince Serébryanyi_, which had a very great success, partly because in it for the first time censorship had permitted fiction to deal with the half-mad Tsar who played the part of the Louis XI. of the Russian Monarchy, but especially on account of its real qualities as a historical novel. He also tried his talent in a dramatic poem, _Don Juan_, much inferior, however, to Púshkin’s drama dealing with the same subject; but his main work was a trilogy of three tragedies from the times of John the Terrible and the imposter Demetrius: _The Death of John the Terrible_, _The Tsar Theódor Ivánovitch_, and _Borís Godunóff_.

These three tragedies have a considerable value; in each the situation of the hero is really highly dramatic, and treated in a most impressive way, while the settings in the palaces of the old Moscow Tsars are extremely decorative and impressive in their sumptuous originality. But in all three tragedies the development of the dramatic element suffers from the intrusion of the epical descriptive element, and the characters are either not quite correct historically (Borís Godunóff is deprived of his rougher traits in favour of a certain quiet idealism which was a personal feature of the author), or they do not represent that entireness of character which we are accustomed to find in Shakespeare’s dramas. Of course, the tragedies of Tolstóy’s are extremely far from the romanticism of the dramas of Victor Hugo; they are, all things considered, realistic dramas; but in the framing of the human characters some romanticism is felt still, and this is especially evident in the construction of the character of John the Terrible.

An exception must, however, be made in favour of _The Tsar Theódor Ivánovitch_. A. K. Tolstóy was a devoted personal friend of Alexander II. and, refusing all administrative posts of honour which were offered him, he preferred the modest position of a Head of the Imperial Hunt, which permitted him to retain his independence, while remaining in close contact with the Emperor. Owing to this intimacy he must have had the best opportunities for observing, especially in the later years of Alexander II.’s reign, the struggles to which a good-hearted man of weak character is exposed when he is a Tsar of Russia. Of course the Tsar Theódor is not in the least an attempt at portraying Alexander II.--this would have been beneath an artist--but the weakness of Alexander’s character must have suggested those features of reality in the character of Theódor which makes it so much better painted than either John the Terrible or Borís Godunóff. The Tsar Theódor is a really living creation.

OTHER DRAMATIC WRITERS

Of other writers for the stage, we can only briefly mention the most interesting ones.

TURGUÉNEFF wrote, in 1848-1851, five comedies, which offer all the elements for refined acting, are very lively and, being written in a beautiful style (Turguéneff’s prose!), are still the source of æsthetic pleasure for the more refined playgoers.

SUKHOVÓ-KOBÝLIN has already been mentioned. He wrote one comedy, _The Marriage of Kretchínskiy_, which made its mark and is still played with success, and a trilogy, _The Affair_, which is a powerful satire against bureaucracy, but is less effective on the stage than the former.

A. PÍSEMSKIY, the novelist (1820-1881), wrote, besides a few good novels and several insignificant comedies, one remarkably good drama--_A Bitter Fate_, from the peasants’ life, which he knew well and rendered admirably. It must be said that Leo Tolstóy’s well known _Power of Darkness_--taken also from peasant life--notwithstanding all its power, has not eclipsed the drama of Písemskiy.

The novelist A. A. POTYÉKHIN (1829-1902) also wrote for the stage, and must not be omitted even in such a rapid sketch of the Russian drama as this. His comedies, _Tinsel_, _A Slice Cut-off_, _A Vacant Situation_, _In Muddy Waters_, met with the greatest difficulties as regards censorship, and the third was never put on the stage; but those which were played were always a success, while the themes that he treated always attracted the attention of our critics. The first of them, _Tinsel_, can be taken as a fair representative of the talent of Potyékhin.

This comedy answered a “question of the day.” For several years Russian literature, following especially in the steps of SCHEDRIN (see Ch. VIII.), delighted in the description of those functionaries of the Government boards and tribunals who lived (before the reforms of the sixties) almost entirely upon bribes. However, after the reforms had been carried through, a new race of functionaries had grown up, “those who took no bribes,” but at the same time, owing to their strait-laced official rigorism, and their despotic and unbridled egotism, were even worse specimens of mankind than any of the “bribe-takers” of old. The hero of _Tinsel_ is precisely such a man. His character, with all its secondary features--his ingratitude and especially his love (or what passes for love in him)--is perhaps too much blackened for the purposes of the drama: men so consistently egotistical and formalistic are seldom, if ever, met with in real life. But one is almost convinced by the author of the reality of the type--with so masterly a hand does he unroll in a variety of incidents the “correct” and deeply egotistic nature of his hero. In this respect the comedy is very clever, and offers full opportunity for excellent acting.

A dramatic writer who enjoyed a long-standing success was A. I. PALM (1823-1885). In 1849 he was arrested for having frequented persons belonging to the circle of Petrashévskiy (see DOSTOYÉVSKIY), and from that time his life was a series of misfortunes, so that he returned to literary activity only at the age of fifty. He belonged to the generation of Turguéneff, and, knowing well that type of noblemen, whom the great novelist has depicted so well in his _Hamlets_, he wrote several comedies from the life of their circles. _The Old Nobleman_ and _Our Friend Neklúzheff_ were till lately favourite plays on the stage. The actor, I. E. TCHERNYSHÓFE, who wrote several comedies and one serious drama, _A Spoiled Life_, which produced a certain impression in 1861; N. SOLOVIÓFF, and a very prolific writer, V. A. KRYLÓFF (ALEXÁNDROFF), must also be mentioned in this brief sketch.

And finally, two young writers have brought out lately comedies and dramatic scenes which have produced a deep sensation. I mean ANTON TCHÉHOFF, whose drama _Ivánoff_ was a few years ago the subject of the most passionate discussions, and MAXÍM GÓRKIY, whose drama, _The Artisans_, undoubtedly reveals a dramatic talent, while his just published “dramatic scenes,” _At the Bottom_--they are only scenes, without an attempt at building a drama--are extremely powerful, and even eclipse his best sketches. More will be said of them in the next chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Shakespeare has always been a great favourite in Russia, but his dramas require a certain wealth of scenery not always at the disposal of the Small Theatre.

[23] Taken from the excellent translation of Mrs. C. Garnett (_The Storm_, London, Duckworth & Co., 1899).