on st stephen’s day we drove in sledges to a country house. i feasted my eyes on a wonderful sight—high trees standing between the white ground and the great sun, and casting strange shadows on the whitest snow, and between the shadows a thousand living sparkles literally shot flames from the glistening snow. i had never seen anything like it before; it was very beautiful. we left the forest and passed over a vast plain of tumbled snow. there was snow everywhere as far as the eye could see. the sky above was deep glowing blue; the horizon lines a nascent grey darkness. one looked out upon an enchanted ocean of snow; the wind had wreathed it fantastically in crested waves, or left it gently dimpled like the sands of the seashore. wave behind wave glistened and sparkled to the horizon, and a gentle breeze raised a snow spray from a thousand crests. the snow scud fled from wave to wave. yes, it was very beautiful and new, and the world seemed very broad and full of peace. i felt it a privilege to exist in the presence of such beauty. it was my nameday, 39and it seemed as if there were a special significance in all the beauty which lay about me. pure flame colours were about me as the glistening white robe of a candidate, to whom new mysteries are to be revealed.
the road was hard-beaten snow, a series of frozen cart ruts. the horses scampered ahead and the sledges shot after them. the sledge slipped over the snow like a boat over the reeds of a river. the red-faced driver sat immobile in his seat. we lay back in the sledges and took advantage of every inch of fur and rug. the runners were very low, and we could have touched the snow as we passed. sometimes we rushed into a drift, and the snow would rise in a splash over us. and wasn’t it cold! my feet became like ice.
our new host was a count yamschin, owner of a large estate in the government of ekaterinoslav. we arrived at his house in the afternoon, and i heard the deacon give orders to the sledge-drivers to return for us at midnight.
the house was a large one, the rooms spacious. like russian houses in general, it was simply and meagrely furnished. but for the people in them the rooms would have seemed empty. there were no carpets on the floor; only here and there a soft persian rug. the firelight from the logs blazing on the broad hearth was the only illumination until late in the twilight. one watched the shadows about the high ceiling 40and in the recesses; animated faces moved into the bright gleam of light or passed into the shade. in a corner darker than the others stood the precious ikons, the sacred pictures.
there were ten or fifteen people in the room, and we chatted in groups for half an hour. the principal topic of conversation was about a mystery play which was going to be performed in the evening. it was called the life of man, and everyone had evidently heard much about it before the performance. “you will see,” said the deacon, “it is an ikon play. the ikon speaks.” presently the eldest son came striding in in jack-boots and besought us to go into the concert-hall. this was apparently part of a separate building, and we had all to wrap ourselves up and step into our goloshes, so as to trip through the shrubbery with no discomfort. it was a large hall and would have easily held all the people of the village. there was a stage curtained off, and in the body of the hall a grand piano. we held an impromptu concert, made up for the most part of songs and recitations in the little russian language. little russian is to russian what broad scotch is to english. i met a student who knew many long speeches from shakespeare by heart, but shakespeare in russian translation. shakespeare is a compulsory subject in most russian colleges, and students have, on the whole, as good a knowledge of it as english people have. the young man professed to be extremely 41enthusiastic over the life of man, which was an expansion of shakespeare’s thought:
“all the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players.”
“do you believe in god?” asked the student, abruptly.
“yes,” i said. “i use the word god and mean something by it.”
“you are old-fashioned.” he laughed. “we don’t believe in god, we students; we are all atheists. you’re coming to moscow, you’ll see. we don’t believe in anything except man. we have given too much time to god already; it’s high time we turned our attention to man. is it possible you have not yet heard that god is dead? why, where have you been?”
“i see you have been reading nietzsche,” i remarked with a smile.
he looked at me with annoyance. “the english also read nietzsche?”
i assented.
“well,” he went on, “we’ve got god on the stage, you’ll see. we don’t call him god, but it’s god all the same. we call him the old man in grey. we had to do that so as to smuggle him past the censor. the censor, you know, has just stopped oscar wilde’s salome, not because it’s indecent, but because it deals with a biblical subject. i think we’ve got a better 42censor than yours, however; he has licensed ghosts and mrs warren’s profession, and it’s perfectly easy to manage him.”
“what did the deacon mean when he said the ikon speaks?”
“oh, that is his way of looking at it. the huge figure in grey, which you will see, is really meant for god. god gives the play for the benefit of mankind. god speaks the opening words. he shows the life of one man and says it is a typical life, and that is man’s life upon this earth, that and neither more nor less. during all the five acts god stands in a dark corner like an ikon; he is visible to the audience as a god, but the actors on the stage behave, for the most part, as if it were only a sacred picture. god holds a candle, and as the play gets older the candle gradually burns lower and lower until, when man dies, it finally expires. to man on the stage this candle is only visible as the little lamp burning before the ikon. he makes plans, he succeeds, he fails, he prays or curses, he is trivial or serious, and all the while the candle representing his life burns lower and nothing can stop the wasting of the wax.”
at this point miss yamschin came and called us all back to dinner. so we all trooped back to the room where the log fire gleamed. three or four paraffin lamps were now lit, and a pleasant light was diffused through their green shades. an uncle of nicholas’s had arrived, 43a station-master from a village ten versts away on a by-line. he waited impatiently while the deacon explained who i was, and then transfixed me with this question:
“who lost the japanese war—the russian government or the people?”
“the government, of course,” i replied. whereupon he unexpectedly flung his arms round my neck and kissed me on both cheeks.
“if i had had charge of the war, whew!” he whistled. “d’you see the palm of my hand there; now, there’s the japanese army.” puff, he puffed out his cheeks with air and blew the japanese army off his palm and off the face of the earth. he winked at me with assurance. “that’s what i’d do.” he tapped his head and his chest and said knowingly: “do you see these, ah-ha, pure russian, they are.”
“speak to me in english,” he went on. “i learned english at school, but i’ve forgotten—‘not a drum was heard, not a funeral note’—eh? d’ye know that?”
when we got to table the uncle made a long speech, wishing prosperity and happiness to the young englishman who had come out to russia to make his fortune. england was the greatest country in the world, next to russia. if the english soldiers would give up rum and take to vodka they would be the greatest soldiers in the world. when we had all 44drunk that toast he proposed another, hoping i might find a beautiful russian girl to love. the count was what we should call a good sort in england. he let everyone do exactly as he pleased, except in the matter of wine, to which no refusals were accepted. it was an uproarious dinner-table; not only the young men, but the girls joined in the conviviality. i was lionised. they drank eleven healths to me all round; it was a matter of wonder what the next plea would be, but the uncle’s brain was very fertile. i counted that in all i drank twenty-six glasses of wine that day, and yet when i had been in england i was not quite sure whether i was a teetotaller or not. i was finally persuaded to make a speech in russian, in which my russian gave way, and i was forced to conclude in english. i managed to propose the host’s health, and that was the best thing i could have done. approbation was uproarious.
when, at last, the dinner was over, we filed into the concert-hall to see the life of man performed. my student companion was evidently one of the actors, since i looked to resume our conversation, but he was nowhere to be found. the drama was one of leonid andrief’s, a new russian author, whose works have been making him a great name in russia during the last five years. the life of man was produced in the theatre of art, moscow, said to be the greatest theatre in the world. it has made a great impression in russia; 45i have come across it everywhere in my wanderings, even in the most unlikely places. its words and its characters have become so familiar to the public that one scarcely opens a paper without finding references to it. it has been the inspiration of thousands of cartoonists.
it was true, as the student had said, god, as it were, gave the play. the words of the prologue were among the most impressive i have ever heard, and spoken as they were in dreadful sepulchral tones by a figure who, at least, stood for god, they are fixed indelibly in my memory. my programme said, “prologue: someone in the greyness speaks of the life of a man.” as the prologue is a summary of the play, i shall give it. picture a perfectly dark stage, and in the darkness a figure darker than the darkness itself, enigmatical, immense.
“behold and listen,” it said, “ye people, come hither for amusement and laughter. there passes before you the life of a man—darkness in the beginning, darkness at the end of it. hitherto not existent, buried in the boundless time, unthought of, unfelt, known by none; he secretly oversteps the bounds of nonentity, and with a cry announces the beginning of his little life. in the night of nothingness, a lamp casts a gleam, lit by an unseen hand—it is the life of man. look upon the flame of it—the life of a man.
“when he is born he takes the form and name of man and in all things becomes like other people already living upon the earth. and the cruel destiny of these becomes 46his destiny, and his cruel destiny the destiny of all people. irresistibly yoked to time he unfailingly approaches all the steps of man’s life, from the lower to the higher, from the higher to the lower. by sight limited, he will never foresee the next steps for which he raises his tender feet; by knowledge limited, he will never know what the coming day will bring him, the coming hour—minute. and in his blind ignorance, languishing through foreboding, agitated by hopes, he submissively completes the circle of an iron decree.
“behold him—a happy young man. look how brightly the candle burns! the icy wind of the limitless sky cannot disturb, or in the slightest deflect the movement of the flame. radiantly and brightly burns the candle. but the wax diminishes with the burning. the wax diminishes.
“behold him—a happy husband and father. but, look how dully and strangely the candle-light glimmers, as if its yellowed flame were withering, trembling from the cold and hiding itself. and the wax is wasting, following the burning. the wax is wasting.
“behold him—an old man, sickly and weak. already the steps of life are ending, and a black chasm is in the place of them—but, spite of that, his trembling feet are drawn forwards. bending towards the earth, the flame, now blue, droops powerlessly, trembles and falls, trembles and falls—and slowly expires.
“so man will die. coming out of the night he will 47return to the night and vanish without traces into the boundless time, unthought of, unfelt, known by none. and i, then, named by all he, remain the true fellow-traveller of man in all the days of his life, in all his ways. unseen by man and near him, i shall be unfailingly beside him when he wakes and when he sleeps, when he prays or when he curses. in the hours of pleasure when he breathes freely and bravely, in the hours of despondency and grief, when the languor of death darkens his soul and the blood grows cold about his heart, in the hours of victory and of defeat, in the hours of the great struggle with the inevitable, i shall be with him. i shall be with him.
“and you come hither for amusement, you, the devoted of death, behold and listen. with this far-off and phantasmal figure there unfolds itself to your gaze, with its sorrows and its joys, the quickly passing life of man.”
the voice from the grey figure ceased, and in the dark a curtain came down over the scene.
the play was as foreshadowed. in the first act a man is born, in the second he is a struggling young man, in the third he is a successful man, in the fourth he is in decline, and in the fifth he dies. the figure in grey appears at the birth of man, and is visible to the audience throughout the five acts. he holds a burning candle, which is radiantly bright in act iii., but which gutters out at the end of act v. fates, old women, nornas, are in attendance at the birth, and they are again in attendance at death.
48the story is delicately told and affecting. man is young and happy and the obstacles in his life are only means of happiness; he succeeds and all the world does homage to him; he passes the prime of life and new obstacles appear, and these serve only to bring him unhappiness; he is brought low and he dies.
the actor who played man’s part was a robust, handsome man with flashing eyes and long hair. whilst he played the young man he was careless, brave, free, and when he became old he was dignified, proud and obstinate. his destiny, it seemed to me, was comprised between a challenge and a curse. in his despair in act ii., when life seemed a feast to which he was not bidden, he was stung to anger and defiance against fate. he turned to where the ikon stood and flung a challenge at the unknown.
“—hi you! you there! what d’you call yourself? fate, devil or life, there’s my glove; i’ll fight you! wretched, poor-spirited folk curse themselves before your enigmatical power: thy stone face moves them to terror, in thy silence they hear the beginning of calamities and their own terrible ruin. but i am brave and strong and i challenge you to battle. with bright swords, with sounding shields, we will fall at one another’s heads with blows at which the earth will tremble. hi! come out and fight.
“to thy ominous slow movement i shall oppose my living, vigilant strength; to thy gloom my gay sounding 49laugh! hi! take that blow, ward it off if you can! your brow is stone, your reason lost. i throw into it the red-hot shot of my bright sense; you have a heart of stone that has lost all pity, give way! i shall pour into it the burning poison of my rebellious cries! by the black cloud of thy fierce anger the sun is obscured; we shall light up the gloom with dreams! hi! take that!
“conquering, i will sing songs which all the world will cheer; silently falling under thy blow, my only thought shall be of rising again to battle! there is a weak place in my armour, i know it. but, covered with wounds, the ruby blood flowing, i shall yet gather strength to cry—and even then, thou evil enemy of man, i shall overcome thee. and, dying on the field of battle, as the brave die, with one loud amen i shall annul thy blind pleasure! i have conquered, i have conquered my wicked enemy; not even in my last breath do i acknowledge his power. hi, there! hi! come out and fight! with bright swords, with sounding shields, we shall fall at one another with blows at which the earth will tremble! hi! come out and fight!”
the deacon, the count, his daughters, the tenants and guests all looked on with breathless interest. we of the audience knew that which man on the stage knew not. we knew that even whilst he was raging against fate his fortune was being achieved and his success assured by two men in a motor-car who were driving about the town, unable to find man’s wretched dwelling.
50success came and it vanished. “vanity of vanities,” saith the preacher; so i thought, but man cursed. he pointed with outstretched arm as if in delirium at the stone face of the ikon and shrieked:
“i curse thee and all thou gavest me. i curse the day on which i was born and the day when i shall die. i curse all my life, its pleasures and pains, i curse myself! i curse my eyes, my hearing, my tongue, i curse my heart, my head—and everything i throw again into thy stern face, senseless fate. cursed, cursed for ever! and with the curse i overcome thee. what remains that thou canst do with me? hurl me to the ground, hurl, i shall laugh and shout ‘i curse thee!’ with the pincers of death stop my mouth; with my last sense i shall cry into thy ass’s ears, ‘i curse thee, i curse thee.’ take my dead body, nibble it, like a dog, carry it away into the darkness—i am not in it, i am vanished away, but vanished, repeating, ‘i curse thee, i curse thee.’ through the head of the woman thou hast insulted, through the body of the child thou hast killed—i send to thee the curse of man.”
the dreadful grey figure stood unmoved, silent as the sphinx. only the flame of the candle in its hand wavered as if the wind blew it. all of us in the audience shuddered, and the uncle who had become very solemn suddenly began to sob.
act v. was a dance of drunkards and fates in a cellar tavern, dark, dirty, fearful. the dreadful, implacable figure in grey stood far in the darkest corner, 51and near him, on a bench, sat man breathing out his last. the uncle astonished me, and for the moment almost terrified me by crying out in english:
“out, out, brief candle.”
truly, it is strange what quantities of english literature one finds in even remote places in russia.
but to return, man died, and none too soon, and the candle went out. there was no cheering of the actors, though they were warmly congratulated by the count later on. we all left the little theatre and went back to supper.
at midnight the sledges came. the uncle insisted on our going home with him. so we went to his railway station. thus ended our night with the mummers at count yamschin’s country house.