In two moods. [Also, In bad society

Introduction

Encouraged by the praises bestowed on The Blind Musician, by the press, and the popularity it has achieved with the public, we have rendered into English two more of Kerolenko’s stories — In Two Moods and In Bad Society, both of which are included in the present volume.

The latter, a delightful little tale of childish joys and sorrows, strange scenes and queer characters, speaks for itself and requires no comment from us.

But the other. In Two Moods, demands a few words of explanation — for being in some sense a fragment it is not necessarily self-explanatory, as complete works of art naturally are. Moreover, as the circumstances in which the story was written and published, required on the part of the author considerable reticence and many veiled allusions, the reader must in many instances read between the lines.

INTROD UCTION.

In Two Moods, like Turguenev's Virgin Soil, deals with young revolutionary Russia, struggling through darkness towards freedom and light.

The characters being taken almost exclusively from the student class, English readers may imagine that political struggle in Russia is carried on by children. This is not so. Russian youth are almost abnormally versatile and precocious, and the active life of thought and feeling begins with them at a much earlier age than with the youth of England and other European countries, and it is in Russian high schools that this activity finds its most earnest expression. This is a historic fact, and we mention it here only lest the reader may deem Gavrik’s psychologic meditations as being too deep and complicated and his views of life too broad for a young man of twenty.

Gavrik is a typical young Russian of 1873-5, ^ period which marked the beginning of militant Nihilism. The story as a whole is concerned with the revolutionary movement. Urmanov is a decided revolutionist. ‘‘The Samoyedes ” are Russians thinly disguised, to hoodwink the censorship. The meeting at the villa, so vividly described in the second part of the story, is a revolutionary meeting, as revolution goes in Russia. The pam-

INTRODUCTION, phlet on the great debt owing by the educated and the rich to the poor and ignorant, read at the meeting, could not be other than the well-known Historical Letter of the notorious Peter Lavrotf, who for many years was the recognized chief of the Russian refugees in Paris. The final resolution which many of the students adopt, and is accepted in the end by the pure-hearted, highminded girl Tonia, the lovable heroine of the sketch, is nothing less than “to go’' among the people as preachers of socialism. The “group" to which Gavrik belonged, and which is several times mentioned in the course of the story, is engaged in an “actual conspiracy against existing institutions " to cite the usual official description. To Russians this is so obvious that all who run may read. Thus we have in Kerolenko’s narrative the nucleus of a Nihilist novel which, however, it is not likely that he will ever be allowed to complete. Yet with that power of concentration and capacity for expression of which born artists only have the secret, he has said much within the short space measured out to him. No other writer has described so vividly and picturesquely, and with such convincing fidelity that idealistic generation, who * ‘ lived on arguments, fell in love over argu-

8 INTRODUCTION,

ments, suffered and rejoiced in a cloud of arguments,” and who believed that they should live to see the “ bright future, the full new life” of which they dreamt.

In this story Kerolenko has graphically portrayed the Russian youth of the period in question. Some of the characters are remarkably well drawn. Tonia, Titus, the Sokolovs are true to the life. But it is in the tout ensemble — the picture regarded as a whole — that Kerolenkos growing power is here shown at its best. The first part of In Two Moods, is a song of youth, love, enthusiasm and exuberant life dyeing rose-color everything which it touches. Few writers have done aught so brilliant, warm, and fresh, and there are bits of description, such as the evening walk by the lake shore which only an artist of poetic genius and consummate ability could achieve.

The second half of the story is of a different character. It abounds in psychologic analysis, and it is conceivable that certain readers may find some parts of it rather heavy. On the other hand, it is neither so heavy nor so dry — not so scientific in fact — as some parts of The Blind Musician, Still there is too much of it. Nevertheless we have not abbreviated In Two Moods as we abbreviated The

INTRODUCTION,

Blind Musician. Kerolenko is no longer a novice whose artistic individuality is without interest for his readers. He has been recognized as one of the new lights of Russian fiction, and it is right that his readers should know him as he is, and learn that though he has splendid gifts he is not free from faults. S. Stepniak.

December 20, 1890.

I. I Must begin with my boyish enthusiasms

I was nineteen years old in those days, and a student at the Petrovsky Academy.

Of course, that is a good age to be at ; and then and early days of college life, and the academy out in the suburbs, by the lake, among the green parks ; the young college friends, and students’ meetings, and work, and discussions ; — all this made it seem as if we were going to accomplish something — something quite grand and out of the common, which would make everybody happy — and that we ourselves should be perfectly happy ever afterwards.

Nothing less — happy I I dreamt of great deeds, of struggle, of sacrifice ; but in strife, and action.

and struggle, even in sacrifice, there was ever the idea of happiness— bright, complete, all-pervading happiness.

And besides that, there was she.

At the time I speak of, however, she was away. She had gone to the Volga in the spring to serve as cashier on a steamboat.

Theoretically, steamer cashiers are always men — naturally. But that is a mere bit of red tape, and not only had she succeeded in obtaining the post ; she had done much more— kept it for two summers. We all considered this a very important matter. There are plenty of cashiers in the world, yet none of them seemed to me to be doing anything worth doing : they just hand out tickets, and receive a wretched little salary. But of female cashiers — at least female steamer cashiers— there was only one, and her work seemed to me not work merely but a kind of mission. I was enraptured by the energy of this girl — still little more than a child — who by her strenuous courage and resolution had gained for herself the right of independent labor, and succeeded through all difficulties in keeping the place which she had won. On first making her acquaintance, I felt that I had found something which I had long been seeking in my vague day-

*3

dreams, and there awakened within me quite a peculiar sensation which irradiated with its brightness all my other hopes and ecstasies. For the rest, I never breathed a word about love either to her or in my own mind.

She went away ; but I knew that, so soon as the navigation should stop for the winter, she would come back and stand again in a corner of the room at our students' meetings with her fair face, so expressive and full of life, thrown into strong relief by her dark dress. And again, her eyes would light up with childlike curiosity at our discussions, and flash with joyous approval when I happened to voice her own unspoken thought — and hei cheeks would glow with the bright color brought from the health-giving Volga.

When she was present, whatever questions we discussed interested and enlivened me ; but even without her, life was very bright. We had just finished the practical part of the academy course, and were having a vacation before the lectures began. We spent our time amusing ourselves, reading and talking.

IN TWO MOODS.

II

I WELL remember the peculiar mood I was in at that time.

When I was a child, my greatest though forbidden delight was to go secretly into a wretched little shop and buy a sausage for three-half pence. Long afterwards, as a grown-up man, I hunted all the great provision shops in St. Petersburg for just such another sausage — one with the same flavor, but I never found what I sought. Sometimes, in the mingled odors of a sausage shop, I half recognized that particular smell, yet all the same I could not find it. That is quite natural : what I was really looking for were my childhood and the keen appetite of my infant years, and naturally I could not find them. If my simile seems to you too prosaic, change the sausage into an apple, or a peach, or anything you like. The fact remains the same. And this is why I mention it : every period of life has its own special flavor, the particular character

IN TWO MOODS.

of which we do not notice at the time. But so soon as the present is become the past and has moved a little way off from us, these peculiar characteristics of life stand out clear and call us back to them ; whereupon we regret the past, and wonder how it was we took so little notice of the enchanted atmosphere while it was round us, and failed to enjoy it consciously and to the full.

A few years pass : once more the present becomes the past, and we see again that it too, in its turn, had its own beauty, its own peculiar flavor. But when, on looking backward, we feel nothing save weariness or disgust — that is sad indeed. It means that life has lost its savor.

However, all this is off the point As I was saying — at that period of my life, everything I went through, everything I felt, everything my intellect or imagination grasped, received a particular hue.

I read a great deal and learned much. Perhaps my learning was somewhat one-sided ; in any case when I read those same authors over again now I find in them much which somehow escaped my notice then. On the other hand, passages which once appeared all important have faded into the general perspective and lost all character.

In every book I read, it was my habit to observe i6 several distinguishing points which sank into my mind and became part of my own recollections. Thus, in Bokel I noticed especially, among others, that passage where he suggests a reason for the slavery of Ireland. The Irish, he says, are not free because they live on potato broth, while their conquerors eat flesh meat.

That is quite true. In any case, it is as true as the other proposition, that if the Irish were to become free and shake off the yoke of the English lords, they would probably choose nourishing beefsteaks in preference to potato broth. But in those days it did not occur to me to look at the other side of the medal and seek for deeper reasons. I accepted Bokel’s theory about meat and potatoes with all the warmth of a proselyte. His deductions were so simple, so clear; his lines seemed to be drawn so straight ; first of all, — yes just that, first of all — a “fowl in the pot,” and meat instead of potato broth, and meat for everybody. And after that, all which threw a light on the veracities of life : truth, justice, beauty, liberty, and the serving of higher interests generally. . . . Certainly that is rather a lot for one life. . . . But there was so much time before me — a whole eternity.

Another favorite writer of mine was Vogt. His portrait hung in my room, with the inscription : “Gegen Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens." The accuracy and solidity of scientific thought affected me in the same way that beauty affects its adorers. I simply worshipped this destroyer of metaphysical prejudices, and in my eyes his device placed him on the pedestal of a Titan or demigod. The gods fought against stupidity in vain, but the great man fights not in vain. Poor great man ! I did not know that already he had been given the lie in the very metaphysics he so hated, and that stupidity had shown its power by creeping even into his own works.

‘ ‘ Thought is a secretion of the brain, as bile is of the liver." This seemed to me both new and brilliant. I saw in it the passionless proclamation of truth, and in my jealous proselytism was ready to follow it out to its logical conclusion. Yes, like bile— like all other secretions — and nevertheless, there was hardly a thing that I worshipped as I worshipped thought.

In those days we lived on arguments, fell in love over arguments, suffered and rejoiced in a cloud of arguments : our tragedies, the raptures and sorrows of rejected love, all these had their origin in

** warring opinions. ” Evidently, history, for some

z abstruse reason, needed a contentious genera^ tion.

But I will not weary you with a list of the Russian and foreign authors whom I loved and believed, in at that time. You can form an idea of my intellectual condition from the two examples I have already given. I went to the lectures, though I did not care much about them, never missed a students’ meeting, studied — in the strict sense of the word — little, but worked and read much.

III

The holidays were coming to an end and the lectures would soon recommence. The chill of autumn was already in the air, the water of the lake grew dark and dull ; in the flower-beds the gardeners replace the early summer flowers with their successors of the fall. Here and there, a few leaves fading early, dropped from the trees, shining like gold against the background of shady avenues.

The fields had turned yellow, and the railway trains, passing within two versts of the academy, stood out clearer, and seemed to pass closer than in the summer. Mine was the last room in the top story of the “ state," or students’ lodgings, and part of the railroad was visible from my window. The trains would come out from behind the hills, then disappear, leaving only a white trail of steam floating above the horizon. Then the entire train would reappear further on, and I could see the tiny carriages, like toys, running along the line. I could

IN TWO MOODS.

even distinguish the wheels, and the windows glittering in the sunset. Next, the white ribbon of steam would suddenly break as the train, after gliding under the bridge, disappeared in a deep cutting. The hoarse voice of it died away gradually, and with its last echoes faded the last rays of daylight.

Titus (the friend who shared my room) and I used then to leave the window, and, while waiting for the regulation tea-urn to boil, would lie down on our beds in the twilight and talk of heaven knows what, while the evening chill streamed in at our window from the fields.

It was a pleasant life.

Among my fellow-students at that time were several who afterwards won distinction in different pursuits. You are familiar with their names — names of gifted and honorable workers. And yet if in those days any one had raised for me, as the rhetoricians say, “the curtain of the future,” and shown them to me as they are now, I should have felt insulted ; — it would have seemed so petty in comparison with what I expected. Indeed, I must confess that however high I placed, for instance, Vogt, Buchner, Sechen off, or Buckle, I felt at times that a certain trace of the old world lingered abuot

IN TWO MOODS.

them still. But we were to develop into something quite special — altogether 'new and unexceptional people, such as never lived before. It seemed to me that there was a something in my soul, now latent, yet none the less plainly felt. And when it expanded ! . . . Absurd, was it not ? Nevertheless I was neither arrogant nor vain. I dreamt neither of wealth nor power, neither of distinction nor fame. I never thought myself a genius. I merely dreamt that in me and my fellow-students there existed, as it were, buds wherein lay hidden and ready to unfold and come forth, the bright, future, the full new life. . . .

At that time there was in the Academy a certain Urmanov. He was two terms ahead of me, and we were not particularly intimate. In spite of which, or perhaps because of it, he roused in me a peculiar, almost romantic interest Urmanov was a native of the Arkhangelsk ioundra ( Arctic wastes). That is, he was born in the town of Arkhangelsk itself, in the family of a poor official engaged in the salt industry. But in my imagination his somewhat foreign, good-looking face was indissolubly associated with the idea of the toundra. A lowering sky — snow all round — wretched huts, smoke faintly curling above them — reindeer cropping the scanty grass. The ioundra sleeps — the people sleep — the reindeer sleep; and from the distance floats a hardly audible dreary song, full of hopeless grief. All the enchanted kingdom sleeps, until — well, just until Urmanov has finished studying at the academy. Then, armed with knowledge, gained in the lecture halls or otherwise, he will turn aside from all temptations of civilization, from the love of women (this unquestionably 1 ) — overcome all the allurements of personal life, and return to his gloomy native land. Then at last it will be spring-time in the ioundra, the songs will ring out clearer, the Samoyedes* will awaken from their sleep of centuries to the new life, to the struggle for their rights, for the downtrodden rights of man. The young generation of the Samoyedes will gather round Urmanov, and he will speak to them of their “glorious past'’ (taking for granted that Samoyedes, like other people, have a glorious past) — will teach them to unite with the best forces of other nations in a quest for the general good of humanity.

* The author, evidently meant his Urmdnov to be a Revolutionist, a “Nihilist,” a Russian patriot in a word. The Samoy edes are put in simply to mislead the censorship.

Translators,

IN TWO MOODS.

n

All this, among other things, was depicted in a long poem, which 1 wrote during my first term. The poem left something to be desired in the matter of rhyme and measure ; nevertheless, when I read it to my chum and old school-fellow, Titus, even that extremely sedate and practical personage was enraptured and prophesied for me undying poetic fame. The poem closed with the following picture : “ The aurora borealis gleams faintly

across the interminable plain, the snow glitters with reflected fire, the sledge-board creaks, the reindeers dash over the frozen waste ; a Samoyed courier, with full comprehension of his mission, is bringing Urmanov’s exhortation to ‘the great Samoyed nation.’”

There — don’t laugh ! Youth always dreams ; — perhaps later on those dreams may become wiser, more practical ; but whether they will become better, honester — that I doubt.

I

IV

Urmanov had a slightly turned-up nose and prominent cheek-bones. These features seemed to point to a strain of foreign blood. Otherwise, his face was rather handsome and interesting. He had fiery black eyes, glittering with animation, and long dark curls falling on his neck from under the broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat which he always wore, after the student fashion of the day. His figure was much too lithe for a Samoyed's ; his movements were rapid, and I do not remember any one whose personal appearance presented so perfect an example of that peculiar grace, and even in its way elegance, peculiar to students. His dress was far from being fashionable — indeed it was rather shabby — his coat was very threadbare, and showed plentiful traces of laboratory work in the form of acid-made stains. Nevertheless, whatever sort of garments Urmanov might wear, they always suited his slender figure to perfection, and

IN TWO MOODS.

every- one could recognize him as a student at the first glance.

His face, as also his figure, reflected faithfullyand with extraordinary- mobility the shifting moods of his expansive and impressionable nature. At our students’ meetings he would argue hotly, gesticulating frantically, sometimes raising his voice to a savage roar. It was, indeed, almost impossible to argue with Urmanov, and his antagonists generally found it expedient to leave him in possession of the battle-field, good-humoredly retreating before his attacks. For the rest, Urmanov always cooled down as quickly as he flared up, and in half-an-hour s time would be ready to take up arms in defence of the very comrade whom he had just accused of being false to his principles and a traitor to his cause. Latterly, however, he had grown more self-restrained, and was less ready to express his extreme opinions at our meetings : he became sadder and more thoughtful. Somebody or other remarked that Urmanov was lowering his tone because he had reached his last term, and scented afar off the final examination and the coming degree. As a rule, we did not find it particularly difficult to justify these accusations ; in fact, to speak the truth, they very often were justified.

IN TWO MOODS.

The jump from the unconditional rejection of all compromises to the acceptance of the most complex, was generally made but too often at the first step from the academy into the world. I did not know whether, or how, Urmanov would make that step ; but I passionately denied so insulting a suggestion, feeling much more inclined to suppose that the consciousness of his approaching great mission to the Samoyedes had cast over Urmanov that shade of gravity and melancholy in which I contrived to see something grand and noble. What were our mutual help funds, our “students* protests,” to him, when the “sorrow and anguish of centuries” were wafted to him from his “native toundra ? ’*

It turned out, however, that both Urmanovs antagonists and myself were equally at fault. The cause of his melancholy and his seriousness, as also of a certain indifference to our affairs and our differences, was both simpler and more emotional.

It was embodied in the small, slender and characteristic figure of a young woman, whom, though she was Russian born and bred, we had named “the American.** None of the students knew her personally ; we were even ignorant of her name.

V

Besides attempting the poem which I have already mentioned, I, like many other young men at my age, dreamt of writing a gigantic novel. All the persons in it were to be heroes and heroines of a type altogether exceptional, “new people,” extraordinary characters. Several of these heroes floated vaguely in my imagination, and among them was always an American. The Yankees are a very clever race, and have a wonderful Constitution ; nevertheless, a thorough-going Yankee who estimates everything by a monetary standard, and even says of himself, ‘ ‘ I am worth so many dollars, ” most certainly would not do for one of the heroes of my novel. My American must be a Russian, aspiring to become an American.

At that time America attracted many people, and I knew of several cases of emigration. Of course, to become simply an American with dollars did not amount to much. But the mere fact of the venture — the fresh energy with which these young men flung themselves into an unknown land, intoxicated by its freedom and the novelty of its social relations — this in itself was enough to attract and impress me.

I had not yet fully examined the results of even one of these ventures, and therefore, had no idea how my hero would act when he was settled in his adopted country. So far, I pictured him as a tall man, with a little beard cut in American fashion, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, and with a cold, restrained smile, beneath which I could vaguely discern something very grave and significant.

Now, you can easily understand the interest that a live Russian American woman, both young and pretty, kindled in me and my fellow-students.

She appeared on our horizon while she was spending the summer at a villa in the neighborhood. The first time I saw her was in the park ; she was walking arm-in-arm with her father, an old retired general. He was gray, bent, and rather deaf, and wore a huge green shade to protect his eyes from the sun. It seemed to cost him a great effort to lift up his big, drooping head. Yet, none the less, when I happened to pass before the old man as he sat resting on a seat, he always raised his head and stared at me with his faded eyes, even looking after me in a way which made me

IN TWO MOODS.

feel uncomfortable. His lower jaw trembled as though he wanted to say something, and his eyes protruded as though he was making up his mind to stop me and reprove me sternly for being young, for being a student, for having “views,’' and probably not respecting generals as much as I ought to do.

This half-shattered figure appeared in the park all the summer through, accompanied by an old footman of most forbidding aspect, and gained a certain notoriety among the students. Somebody nicknamed him “General Ferapontyev,” and the appellation stuck. Although, apparently, the name itself implied nothing insulting, it was always used with a certain suggestion of irony. It expressed the silent antagonism between the decrepit general and the heedless academic youth.

And now for some time there had appeared, walking arm-in-arm with General Ferapontyev, a pretty young woman. The very notoriety of the general, helped to whet our curiosity touching his fair companion. But apart from this circumstance, there was something in the young woman’s face and figure which attracted our attention, and marked her out from the motley crowd of summer visitors.

IN TWO Moons.

VI

I HAVE no gift for describing the detail of ladies’ dress, but it has always seemed to me that every “ fashion ” has its peculiar expression. It is worth while to observe how the expression of faces themselves alters with a change in fashion. To bold, open faces with high foreheads and direct glances, bespeaking a desire for independence and contempt of generally accepted prejudices, succeeded low foreheads covered with fringes, and eyes with painted lids and a helplessly naive, even foolish, gaze, with a look in them which suggested that they were begging for mercy. As for low cut bodices, and absurdly narrow dresses, I dare not affirm it positively, but I have heard from most trustworthy sources that many ladies tied cords round their legs under their gowns a little below the knee, in order that no full and free movement might disturb the general appearance of helpless innocence — yielding passively for better or worse — which their wearers affected.

IN TWO MOODS.

Men of fashion at this time assumed conquering and insolent airs. The same low foreheads and protruding eyes ; shirt-collars wide open, showing the throat, and with turned-back points sticking up to the ears. With this went loose coats, hands in waistcoat pockets and a careless and swaggering gait. The general effect was that of an impudent coxcomb who has flung off all prejudices, cares for nobody, and gives no quarter.

Such was the outward expression of fashion in those days, and it was lucidly explained to me by a very native boarding-school girl. To some critical remark of mine on the question of dress, she replied, with the unconscious logic of a young girl of the period, “Why, how can you say that? Forward girls used to be the fashion, but now retiring ones are coming into vogue.” On this I burst out laughing ; but I see now that it was a piece of fine observation.

The young lady who walked with General Ferapontyev had a way of her own about clothes, although she dressed well, and even richly. If she followed any fashion at all it was evidently not ours. Everything she wore was simple, elegant^ and easy. Her little feet, in their high kid boots with broad low heels, showed freely beneath her

IN TWO MOODS.

short skirt. I remember how firmly and evenly her heels struck the stone pavements and the steps of the garden stairs. Altogether, her walk was remarkable for a peculiar firmness and boldness which, in combination with her small figure, produced a very original impression.

The first time I succeeded in seeing her closely,

I could not make up my mind whether she pleased me or not. I was walking with Urmanov along the principal avenue, when the General and the lady came towards us. As we met, Urmanov raised his hat The old gentleman turned round, and his jaw trembled more than usual. The lady looked at us in perplexity, and the gaze of her large eyes, steady, cold and unabashed, so distracted my attention that I failed to observe the general character of her face.