Smile and Scream: Chekhov and Andreyev
Stories of Russian Life, by Anton Tchekoff; translated by Marian Fell. [Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.]
Savva and The Life of Man, by Leonid Andreyev; translated from the French (!) by Thomas Seltzer. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.]
A French critic characterized Russian literature as Heroic. Tragic would perhaps be a happier definition; what has been Russian life, and hence its literature, but a continuous tragedy? Gogol looked into that life and burst into a homeric laughter which ultimately drove him insane; the “repenting nobleman” Turgenyev was devoured by melancholy over his sad heroes and heroines; the “cruel genius” of Dostoyevsky convulsively writhed in contemplation of the “humiliated and offended”; Chekhov, who had begun his career in the gayest humor, turned eventually gloomy and pronounced his diagnosis: Such life is impossible; even Gorky, the chanter of hymns to the proud Man, was crushed and silenced by grim reality, and his scepter of the idol of young Russia passed into the hands of the most pessimistic writer, Andreyev.
O forgive me, my unfortunate people:
Not one gay song have I sung for you yet!
Frug.
Tutchev found a mysterious beauty in the brightness of autumn evenings:
Wane, enfeeblement, and on all—