Contemporary Russian Novelists

by Serge Persky

"I was born and brought up outside of it, and I am glad of that fact. Because of it, I have never been able to absorb culture in large doses, without feeling, at the end of a certain time, the terrible need of stepping out of this frame.... It does one good to go into the dens of the cities, where everything is dirty, but simple and sincere; or even to rove in the fields or on the highroads; one sees curious things there. It refreshes the mind; and all you need in order to do it is a pair of sturdy legs...."

What then is the teaching that we get out of Gorky's works? For, faithful to Russian tradition, he does not practise art for art's sake. His "barefoot brigade" and his "restless" men are generally considered as representative of his own ideals. The principle of "Do what seems to you to be good"—a principle which is expressed by a wandering and free life—ought to be justified, one thinks. Critics have risen up against this ideal, trying to prove how incompatible the kind of existence that he conceives is with a solid political organization, and how far from reality the men are whom he represents.

Doubtless, in real life, people are not as original and not as heroic as Gorky represents them to be. And he himself agrees that their inventive faculties are very highly developed. He shows this in putting the following words into the mouth of Promtov:

"I have very probably exaggerated, but that's not of much importance. For, if I have exaggerated what happened, my method of exposition has shown the true state of my soul. Perhaps, I have served you with an imaginary roast, but the sauce is made of the purest truth."

The end that he is after, Gorky has shown us in his story, "The Lecturer," which contains his theories on literature. In the person of the lecturer, he addresses himself to the men who represent the majority of the Russian cultivated classes. He begins by analyzing himself carefully and discovers in himself many good feelings and honest desires, but he feels that he lacks clear and harmonious thought, a thing which keeps all the manifestations of life in equilibrium. Numerous doubts torment him, and his mind has been so moved with them, his heart so wounded, that, for a long time, he has lived "empty inside."

"What have I to say to others?" he asks himself. "That which was told them long ago, that which has always been told them, none of which makes any one any better. But have I the right to teach these ideas and convictions, if I, who was brought up according to them, act so often in opposition to them?"

With his usual sincerity, it is not to be wondered at that he answered this question in the negative, and, to cite the words of one of his characters, that he "refused to live in the chains which had already been forged for free thought, and to class himself under the label of an ism."

He has not thought it profitable to hide his doubts and has not feared to declare openly that none of the existing philosophies suit him, and that he is trying to follow his own path. All of his work is but the absolute image of his own uncertainties, of his passionate researches, and of his constant "restlessness."

At times people have believed that he was a disciple of Nietzsche. And, in truth, he has come under his influence, like so many other Russian authors. But he has gone on mostly by himself, aided by his acute sensibility, which has not, as yet, allowed him to adopt any one system to the exclusion of all others, or to formulate a system for his personal use.

"I know one thing," he says, "it is not happiness that we should hope for. What should we do with it? The meaning of life does not lie in the search for happiness, and the satisfaction of the material appetites will never suffice to make a man fully contented with himself. It is in beauty that we must look for the meaning of life, and in the energy of the will! Every moment of our lives ought to be devoted to some better end...."