Chapter 16

"Ich--habe--We had better speak Russian," said the old man.

"Ah, ah! so that's how it is. To be sure--" And the consultation began.

Half an hour later, Anna Sergyevna, conducted by Vassily Ivanovitch, came into the study. The doctor had had time to whisper to her that it was hopeless even to think of the patient's recovery.

She looked at Bazarov--and stood still in the doorway; so greatly was she imprest by the inflamed and at the same time deathly face, with its dim eyes fastened upon her. She felt simply dismayed, with a sort of cold and suffocating dismay: the thought that she would not have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed instantaneously through her brain.

"Thanks," he said painfully: "I did not expect this. It's a deed of mercy. So we have seen each other again, as you promised."

"Anna Sergyevna has been so kind," began Vassily Ivanovitch.

"Father, leave us alone. Anna Sergyevna, you will allow it, I fancy, now?"

With a motion of his head he indicated his prostrate helpless frame.

Vassily Ivanovitch went out.

"Well, thanks," repeated Bazarov. "This is royally done. Monarchs, they say, visit the dying too."

"Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I hope--"

"Ah, Anna Sergyevna, let us speak the truth. It's all over with me. I'm under the wheel. So it turns out that it was useless to think of the future. Death's an old joke, but it comes fresh to every one. So far I'm not afraid--but there, senselessness is coming, and then it's all up!" he waved his hand feebly. "Well, what had I to say to you? I loved you! There was no sense in that even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking up. Better say how lovely you are! And now here you stand, so beautiful--" Anna Sergyevna gave an involuntary shudder. "Never mind, don't be uneasy. Sit down there. Don't come close to me: you know my illness is catching."

Anna Sergyevna swiftly crossed the room, and sat down in the armchair near the sofa on which Bazarov was lying.

"Noble-hearted!" he whispered. "Oh, how near, and how young, and fresh, and pure--in this loathsome room! Well, good-by! live long--that's the best of all--and make the most of it while there is time. You see what a hideous spectacle: the worm half-crusht, but writhing still. And you see, I thought too, I'd break down so many things: I wouldn't die--why should I!--there were problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently--tho that makes no difference. Never mind: I'm not going to turn tail."

Bazarov was silent, and began feeling with his hand for the glass. Anna Sergyevna gave him some drink: not taking off her glove, and drawing her breath timorously.

"You will forget me," he began again: "the dead's no companion for the living. My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing. That's nonsense, but don't contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort the child--you know. And be kind to mother. People like them aren't to be found in your great world if you look by daylight with a candle. I was needed by Russia. No, it's clear, I wasn't needed. And who is needed? The shoemaker's needed, the tailor's needed, the butcher--gives us meat--the butcher--wait a little, I'm getting mixt. There's a forest here--"

Bazarov put his hand to his brow.

Anna Sergyevna bent down to him. "Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I am here--"

He at once took his hand away, and raised himself.

"Good-by," he said with sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with their last light. "Good-by. Listen--you know I didn't kiss you then. Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out."

Anna Sergyevna put her lips to his forehead.

"Enough!" he murmured, and dropt back on to the pillow. "Now--darkness--"

Anna Sergyevna went softly out. "Well?" Vassily Ivanovitch asked her in a whisper.

"He has fallen asleep," she answered, scarce audibly. Bazarov was not fated to awaken. Toward evening he sank into complete unconsciousness, and the following day he died. Father Alexey performed the last rites of religion over him. When they anointed him with the last unction, when the holy oil touched his breast, one eye opened; and it seemed as tho at the sight of the priest in his vestments, the smoking censers, the light before the image, something like a shudder of horror passed over the death-stricken face. When at last he had breathed his last, and there arose a universal lamentation in the house, Vassily Ivanovitch was seized by a sudden frenzy. "I said I should rebel," he shrieked hoarsely, with his face inflamed and distorted, shaking his fist in the air, as tho threatening some one; "and I rebel, I rebel!" But Arina Vlasyevna, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both fell on their faces together. "Side by side," Anfisushka related afterward in the servants' room, "they drooped their poor heads like lambs at noonday."

But the heat of noonday passes, and evening comes and night; and then, too, the return to the kindly refuge, where sleep is sweet for the weary and heavy-laden.

HENRIK IBSEN

Born in Norway in 1828, died in 1906; studied medicine, but devoted himself to literature; his first dramatic work published in 1850; went to the University in Christiania in 1850; for a time edited a weekly paper at Christiania; became manager of a theater at Bergen in 1852; visited Germany in 1852; returned to Christiania as director of the Norwegian Theater in 1857; thereafter wrote plays continuously; lived in later years first at Dresden and then at Munich.

THE THOUGHT CHILD[51]

_The action passes in the first half of the Thirteenth Century._ _Present_: Skule; Jatgeir _the Skald_, _an Icelander_; Paul Flida, _a nobleman_.

[Footnote 51: From the translation of "The Pretenders" by William Archer.]

JATGEIR [_enters from the back_]--Forgive my coming, lord King.

_King Skule_--You come to my wish, Skald!

_Jatgeir_--I overheard some townsfolk at my lodging talking darkly of--

_King Skule_--Let that wait. Tell me, Skald, you who have fared far abroad in strange lands--have you ever seen a woman love another's child? Not only be kind to it--'tis not that I mean; but _love_ it, love it with the warmest passion of her soul.

_Jatgeir_--That can only those women do who have no child of their own to love.

_King Skule_--Only those women--?

_Jatgeir_--And chiefly women who are barren.

_King Skule_--Chiefly the barren--? They love the children of others with all their warmest passion?

_Jatgeir_--That will oftentimes befall.

_King Skule_--And does it not sometimes befall that such a barren woman will slay another's child, because she herself has none?

_Jatgeir_--Ay, ay; but in that she does unwisely.

_King Skule_--Unwisely?

_Jatgeir_--Ay, for she gives the gift of sorrow to her whose child she slays.

_King Skule_--Think you the gift of sorrow is a great good?

_Jatgeir_--Yes, lord.

_King Skule_ [_looking fixedly at him_]--Methinks there are two men in you, Icelander. When you sit amid the household at the merry feast, you draw cloak and hood over all your thoughts; when one is alone with you, sometimes you seem to be of those among whom one were fain to choose his friend. How comes it?

_Jatgeir_--When you go to swim in the river, my lord, you would scarce strip you where the people pass by to church: you seek a sheltered privacy.

_King Skule_--True, true.

_Jatgeir_--My soul has a like shyness; therefore I do not strip me when there are many in the hall.

_King Skule_--Hm. [_A short pause._] Tell me, Jatgeir, how came you to be a skald? Who taught you skaldcraft?

_Jatgeir_--Skaldcraft can not be taught, my lord.

_King Skule_--Can not be taught? How came it then?

_Jatgeir_--I got the gift of sorrow, and I was a skald.

_King Skule_--Then 'tis the gift of sorrow the skald has need of?

_Jatgeir_--I needed sorrow; others there may be who need faith, or joy--or doubt--

_King Skule_--Doubt, as well?

_Jatgeir_--Ay; but then must the doubter be strong and sound.

_King Skule_--And whom call you the unsound doubter?

_Jatgeir_--He who doubts his own doubt.

_King Skule_ [_slowly_]--That, methinks, were death.

_Jatgeir_--'Tis worse; 'tis neither day nor night.

_King Skule_ [_quickly, as if shaking off his thoughts_]--Where are my weapons? I will fight and act, not think. What was it you would have told me when you came?

_Jatgeir_--'Twas what I noted in my lodgings. The townsmen whisper together secretly, and laugh mockingly, and ask if we be well assured that King Hakon is in the west land: there is somewhat they are in glee over.

_King Skule_--They are men of Viken, and therefore against me.

_Jatgeir_--They scoff because King Olaf's shrine could not be brought out to the mote-stead when we did you homage; they say it boded ill.

_King Skule_--When next I come to Nidaros the shrine shall out! It shall stand under the open sky, tho I should have to tear down St. Olaf's church and widen the mote-stead over the spot where it stood.

_Jatgeir_--That were a strong deed; but I shall make a song of it as strong as the deed itself.

_King Skule_--Have you many unmade songs within you, Jatgeir?

_Jatgeir_--Nay, but many unborn; they are conceived one after the other, come to life, and are brought forth.

_King Skule_--And if I, who am king and have the might--if I were to have you slain, would all the unborn skald-thoughts within you die along with you?

_Jatgeir_--My lord, it is a great sin to slay a fair thought.

_King Skule_--I ask not if it be a _sin_: I ask if it be _possible_!

_Jatgeir_--I know not.

_King Skule_--Have you never had another skald for your friend, and has he never unfolded to you a great and noble song he thought to make?

_Jatgeir_--Yes, lord.

_King Skule_--Did you not then wish that you could slay him, to take his thought and make the song yourself?

_Jatgeir_--My lord, I am not barren: I have children of my own; I need not to love those of other men. [_Goes._]

_King Skule_ [_after a pause_]--The Icelander is in very deed a skald. He speaks God's deepest truth and knows it not. I am as a barren woman. Therefore I love Hakon's kingly thought-child, love it with the warmest passion of my soul. Oh that I could but adopt it! It would die in my hands. Which were best, that it should die in my hands or wax great in his? Should I ever have peace of soul if that came to pass? Can I forego all? Can I stand by and see Hakon make himself famous for all time? How dead and empty is all within me--and around me. No friend--ah, the Icelander! [_Goes to the door and calls._] Has the skald gone from the palace?

_A Guard_ [_outside_]--No, my lord: he stands in the outer hall talking with the watch.

_King Skule_--Bid him come hither. [_Goes forward to the table; presently Jatgeir enters._] I can not sleep, Jatgeir: 'tis all my great kingly thoughts that keep me awake, you see.

_Jatgeir_--'Tis with the king's thoughts as with the skald's, I doubt not. They fly highest and grow quickest when there is night and stillness around.

_King Skule_--Is it so with the skald's thoughts?

_Jatgeir_--Ay, lord: no song is born by daylight; it may be written down in the sunshine, but it makes itself in the silent night.

_King Skule_--Who gave you the gift of sorrow, Jatgeir?

_Jatgeir_--She whom I loved.

_King Skule_--She died, then?

_Jatgeir_--No, she deceived me.

_King Skule_--And then you became a skald?

_Jatgeir_--Ay, then I became a skald.

_King Skule_ [_seizes him by the arm_]--What gift do I need to become a king?

_Jatgeir_--Not the gift of doubt; else would you not question so.

_King Skule_--What gift do I need?

_Jatgeir_--My lord, you _are_ a king.

_King Skule_--Have you at all times full faith that you are a skald?

_Jatgeir_ [_looks silently at him for a while_]--Have you never loved?

_King Skule_--Yes, once--burningly, blissfully, and in sin.

_Jatgeir_--You have a wife.

_King Skule_--Her I took to bear me sons.

_Jatgeir_--But you have a daughter, my lord--a gracious and noble daughter.

_King Skule_--Were my daughter a son, I would not ask you what gift I need. [_Vehemently._] I must have some one by me who sinks his own will utterly in mine--who believes in me, unflinchingly, who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who lives only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die if I fall. Give me counsel, Jatgeir Skald!

_Jatgeir_--Buy yourself a dog, my lord.

_King Skule_--Would no man suffice?

_Jatgeir_--You would have to search long for such a man.

_King Skule_ [_suddenly_]--Will _you_ be that man to me, Jatgeir? Will _you_ be a son to me? You shall have Norway's crown to your heritage--the whole land shall be yours, if you will be a son to me, and live for my life work, and believe in me.

_Jatgeir_--And what should be my warranty that I did not feign--?

_King Skule_--Give up your calling in life, sing no more songs, and then will I believe you!

_Jatgeir_--No, lord: that were to buy the crown too dear.

_King Skule_--Bethink you well: 'tis greater to be a king than a skald.

_Jatgeir_--Not always.

_King Skule_--'Tis but your unsung songs you must sacrifice!

_Jatgeir_--Songs unsung are ever the fairest.

_King Skule_--But I must--I _must_ have one who can trust in me! Only one. I feel it: had I that I were saved!

_Jatgeir_--Trust in yourself and you will be saved!

_Paul Flida_ [_enters hastily_]--King Skule, look to yourself! Hakon Hakonsson lies off Elgjarness with all his fleet!

_King Skule_--Off Elgjarness! Then he is close at hand.

_Jatgeir_--Get we to arms then! If there be bloodshed to-night, I will gladly be the first to die for you!

_King Skule_--You, who would not live for me!

_Jatgeir_--A man can die for another's life work; but if he go on living, he must live for his own. [_Goes._]

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

Born in 1828; educated at the University of Kazan; served in the army and commander of a battery in the Crimea in 1855, being present at the storming of Sebastopol; sent as a special courier to St. Petersburg; lived on his estate after the liberation of the serfs, working with the peasants and devoting himself to literary work; published "War and Peace" in 1865-68, "Anna Karenina" in 1875-78, "Sebastopol" in 1853-55, "Childhood, Boyhood and Youth," and "The Kreutzer Sonata" in 1890, and "War" in 1892.

SHAKESPEARE NOT A GREAT GENIUS[52]

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and doubted as to whether I was senseless in feeling works regarded as the summit of perfection by the whole of the civilized world to be trivial and positively bad, or whether the significance which this civilized world attributes to the works of Shakespeare was itself senseless. My consternation was increased by the fact that I always keenly felt the beauties of poetry in every form; then why should artistic works recognized by the whole world as those of a genius--the works of Shakespeare--not only fail to please me, but be disagreeable to me! For a long time I could not believe in myself, and during fifty years, in order to test myself, I several times recommenced reading Shakespeare in every possible form, in Russian, in English, in German and in Schlegel's translation, as I was advised. Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings--this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits--thereby distorting their esthetic and ethical understanding--is a great evil, as is every untruth.

[Footnote 52: From "A Critical Essay on Shakespeare," published in 1907.]

Altho I know that the majority of people so firmly believe in the greatness of Shakespeare that in reading this judgment of mine they will not admit even the possibility of its justice, and will not give it the slightest attention, nevertheless I will endeavor, as well as I can, to show why I believe that Shakespeare can not be recognized either as a great genius, or even as an average author....

However hopeless it may seem, I will endeavor to demonstrate in the selected drama--"King Lear"--all those faults equally characteristic also of all the other tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare, on account of which he not only is not representing a model of dramatic art, but does not satisfy the most elementary demands of art recognized by all.

Dramatic art, according to the laws established by those very critics who extol Shakespeare, demands that the persons represented in the play should be, in consequence of actions proper to their characters, and owing to a natural course of events, placed in positions requiring them to struggle with the surrounding world to which they find themselves in opposition, and in this struggle should display their inherent qualities.

In "King Lear" the persons represented are indeed placed externally in opposition to the outward world, and they struggle with it. But their strife does not flow from the natural course of events nor from their own characters, but is quite arbitrarily established by the author, and therefore can not produce on the reader the illusion which represents the essential condition of art.

Lear has no necessity or motive for his abdication; also, having lived all his life with his daughters, has no reason to believe the words of the two elders and not the truthful statement of the youngest; yet upon this is built the whole tragedy of his position.

Similarly unnatural is the subordinate action: the relation of Gloucester to his sons. The positions of Gloucester and Edgar flow from the circumstance that Gloucester, just like Lear, immediately believes the coarsest untruth and does not even endeavor to inquire of his injured son whether what he is accused of be true, but at once curses and banishes him. The fact that Lear's relations with his daughters are the same as those of Gloucester to his sons makes one feel yet more strongly that in both cases the relations are quite arbitrary, and do not flow from the characters nor the natural course of events. Equally unnatural, and obviously invented, is the fact that all through the tragedy Lear does not recognize his old courtier, Kent, and therefore the relations between Lear and Kent fail to excite the sympathy of the reader or spectator. The same, in a yet greater degree, holds true of the position of Edgar, who, unrecognized by any one, leads his blind father and persuades him that he has leapt off a cliff, when in reality Gloucester jumps on level ground.

These positions, into which the characters are placed quite arbitrarily, are so unnatural that the reader or spectator is unable not only to sympathize with their sufferings but even to be interested in what he reads or sees. This in the first place.

Secondly, in this, as in the other dramas of Shakespeare, all the characters live, think, speak, and act quite unconformably with the given time and place. The action of "King Lear" takes place 800 years B.C., and yet the characters are placed in conditions possible only in the Middle Ages: participating in the drama are kings, dukes, armies, and illegitimate children, and gentlemen, courtiers, doctors, farmers, officers, soldiers, and knights with vizors, etc. It is possible that such anachronisms (with which Shakespeare's dramas abound) did not injure the possibility of illusion in the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, but in our time it is no longer possible to follow with interest the development of events which one knows could not take place in the conditions which the author describes in detail. The artificiality of the positions, not flowing from the natural course of events, or from the nature of the characters, and their want of conformity with time and space, is further increased by those coarse embellishments which are continually added by Shakespeare and intended to appear particularly touching. The extraordinary storm during which King Lear roams about the heath, or the grass which for some reason he puts on his head--like Ophelia in "Hamlet"--or Edgar's attire, or the fool's speeches, or the appearance of the helmeted horseman, Edgar--all these effects not only fail to enhance the impression, but produce an opposite effect. "_Man sieht die Absicht und man wird verstimmt_," as Goethe says. It often happens that even during these obviously intentional efforts after effect, as, for instance, the dragging out by the legs of half a dozen corpses, with which all Shakespeare's tragedies terminate, instead of feeling fear and pity, one is tempted rather to laugh.

END OF VOLUME VIII