Twenty-five years separate Korolénko from Tolstoi, and a new and more modern point of view becomes apparent in the work of the younger man. “Easter Night” is distinguished from its predecessors in this volume by a romantic note of imaginative dramatic interest that shows the developed artistic temperament of the author.
Korolénko was born in 1853, made his literary début in 1879, and with “The Blind Musician,” in 1886, rose to the front rank among the younger generation of writers. It is the story of the life of a boy who has been blind from birth who becomes a musician under the tender care of his father and mother.
EASTER NIGHT
BY VLADIMIR KOROLÉNKO
Translated by Mrs. Aline Delano. Copyright, 1887,
by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
It was Holy Saturday in 188-.
Evening had long since enfolded the silent earth. The ground, warmed during the day by the rays of the sun, was now cooling beneath the invigorating influence of the night-frost. It seemed like one sighing, while its breath, forming a silvery mist, rose glistening in the rays of the starlit sky, like clouds of incense, to greet the approaching holiday.
All was still. In the cool night-breeze the small provincial town of N—— stood silent, waiting to hear the first stroke of the bell from the high cathedral tower. But the town was not sleeping; a spirit of expectancy brooded beneath the veil of darkness, breathing through the shadows of the silent and deserted streets. Now and then a belated workman, who had but just escaped from his servile task ere the holiday began, passed, hurrying on his way; once in a while a droshky rattled by, leaving silence behind it. Life had fled indoors and hidden itself, in palace and hovel, from whose windows the lights shone far out upon the street, while over the city and the fields hovered the spirit of Resurrection.