Lu Xun Complete Works/en/Riji
riji
Preface to the "Special Album of the National Joint Woodcut Exhibition"
Woodcut prints were something China possessed from early times. From the Buddhist figures and playing cards of the late Tang Dynasty to the illustrated novels and elementary picture books of later periods, we can still see the originals today. And from these we understand clearly: the woodcut was always an art of the common people — in other words, it was "vulgar." When Ming Dynasty literati employed it for decorating letter paper, it approached the realm of the "refined," but in the final analysis, it was nothing more than the literati sweeping their great brushes across the whole of woodcut art — which was simply an act of trampling upon it.
The woodcut art that has so suddenly flourished in the last five years, though it cannot be said to bear no relation to ancient culture, is decidedly not the exhumed bones of some tomb dressed up in new garments. It is rather the unified inner demand of the artists and the broad masses of society. That is why a handful of young people, armed with nothing more than a set of steel styluses and a few wooden blocks, could develop it so vigorously. What it expresses is the passion of art apprentices, and for that reason it often embodies the very soul of modern society. The results speak for themselves: to call it "refined" would certainly be inappropriate, yet to dismiss it as "vulgar" is absolutely impossible. Woodcuts had existed before, but never had they reached such heights.
This is what makes the new woodcut movement what it is, and this is why it receives the support of the masses. Where blood flows through common veins, indifference is impossible. The woodcut has not merely confused the distinction between "refined" and "vulgar" — before it lies a still more luminous, still more magnificent enterprise.
The landscapes and still lifes once regarded as lofty have diminished in the new woodcut art, yet when one examines the works produced, these two genres actually show comparatively better results. This is because in traditional Chinese painting, these two subjects were most abundant, and through constant exposure, their long-cultivated strengths have been unconsciously absorbed. What is most urgently needed today, and what the artists strive hardest to achieve, are the human figures — and here the weaknesses are still clearly apparent. This is, of course, unavoidable, for traditional Chinese art has left the fewest models precisely in this domain.
It seems as though my run of bad luck has not yet ended; I still cannot find any peace. What fell into my hands was issue number six of the fourth volume of the journal "Literature." The moment I opened it, a large advertisement printed in red ink leaped out at me from the frontispiece, announcing that the next issue would contain an essay of mine, entitled "Title Undetermined." Thinking back, the editor had indeed once written me a letter asking me to submit something, but I had not replied. For what I dread most is precisely this so-called essay-writing. Not replying was tantamount to saying: I will not write. But meanwhile, the advertisement had already been published on the other side — a situation that felt rather like being held hostage, and it put me in a most awkward position. At the same time, however, I reflected that this was perhaps my own fault after all. I had once publicly declared that my essays did not gush forth but were squeezed out. The editor had evidently seized upon this very weakness and was now employing the squeeze-out method. Moreover, whenever I encountered editors, I occasionally detected in them a squeezing expression that chilled one to the bone. Had I said earlier, "My essays cannot be squeezed out even by squeezing," I would doubtless have been much safer. I admire Dostoevsky for speaking little of himself, and certain literary eminences for speaking exclusively of others.
Yet old habits die hard, and the manuscript fee can, after all, be exchanged for rice; writing a little something is therefore not exactly a case of "injustice sunk to the bottom of the sea." The pen is a curious thing — it possesses the same squeezing ability as the editor. One sits with arms folded, wanting to doze, yet with pen in hand and a sheet of manuscript paper before one, one often inexplicably writes something or other. That it should be good, of course, is another matter entirely.
And then there is the matter of translating "Dead Souls." Shut away in one's study, one has only such occupations. Before setting pen to paper, one must first resolve a question: should one strive with all one's might to domesticate the text, or should one preserve as much of the foreign as possible?
In society at large, however, the prevailing view seems to be that whatever a famous person says is a famous remark, and that being famous means being omniscient and all-knowing. Thus, when translating a European history, one invites a celebrity who speaks elegant English to review it; when compiling a textbook of economics, one begs a celebrity who writes fine classical prose to inscribe the title. Academic celebrities introduce physicians, certifying that they "excel in the arts of Qi Bo and Huang Di"; business celebrities praise painters, attesting that they have "made a thorough study of the Six Laws of Painting"...
This is a widespread malady of our times. The German cellular pathologist Virchow was a towering authority in medicine, a name known throughout the nation, whose position in the history of medicine was of the utmost importance — and yet he did not believe in the theory of evolution. His lectures, which were exploited by the religious, had, as Haeckel noted, a rather harmful influence on the general public. Because his learning was so deep and his fame so great, he regarded himself so highly as to believe that what he could not understand, no one would ever understand hereafter. Without thoroughly studying the theory of evolution, he attributed everything in one stroke to God. The great French entomologist Fabre, who has been widely introduced in China, also tends in this direction. His works have two additional shortcomings: first, he ridicules the anatomists; second, he applies human morality to the insect world. Yet without anatomy, his extraordinarily precise observations would not have been possible, for the foundation of observation is itself anatomy. That agricultural scientists classify insects as beneficial or harmful according to their utility to humanity is reasonable enough, but to judge insects as good or wicked according to the prevailing human morality and law is superfluous. That some rigorous scientists express reservations about Fabre is by no means without cause. But if one takes these two points into account beforehand, then his observations are indeed of great value.
In short, when literati despise each other, it comes down to nothing more than the length of their writings and the rights and wrongs of the Way. Since writing has no measure of length and the Way no standard of right and wrong, what good does empty talk about right and wrong accomplish! Enough, enough, you people without a single weapon in your hands!
(July 1st, "Mangzhong" [Grain in Ear], Issue 8.)
Fourth Essay on "Literati Despise Each Other"
In the previous essay I did not mention that Mr. Wei Jinzhi's great article, "Clear Rights and Wrongs and Passionate Likes and Dislikes," contains a further point of considerable interest. He believes that nowadays there are "all too often people with two faces" who esteem one person and slight another. Naturally he does not mean that a literary man should bow and scrape before everyone, murmuring "What an honor, what an honor!" — merely because the other happens to be a rather admirable writer. Therefore the two gentlemen, Jia and Yi, must, "if they are to discuss rights and wrongs at this juncture, exchange their positions." Let Jia speak his piece as Jia, and Yi will discover that "the right within the wrong surpasses the wrong within the seemingly right, for the former still observes the way of friendship without regard to pedigree." Then, leaving the "pedigree" to Mr. Jia, Yi goes off in search of friends who observe the way of friendship, and if there are none to be found, he would "rather keep company with leprosy bacilli than be swindled and carved up by one who in truth is himself a swindler and a butcher."
This defense of the principle that "literati despise each other" is heroic in its pathos, yet it proves at the same time that the so-called "literati despise each other" of today — at least the kind that Mr. Wei champions — has nothing to do with "literature" at all, but rather concerns "the way of friendship." Friendship is one of the five cardinal human relationships, and the way of friendship is a fine virtue, naturally quite admirable. But swindlers have their screens and butchers have their helpers, and among themselves, they too call it "friendship.
I have no intention of taking this opportunity to investigate such difficult questions as "slavish nature is the most 'ideologically correct' thing" or "the subjective is the selection of things, while the objective is the method for things." I merely wish to say this: as Mr. Zhang Luwei has rightly observed, even in the realm of literature and art, we in China are indeed far too backward. France has Gide and Balzac, the Soviet Union has Gorky — we have no one. Japan started shouting, and only then did we follow suit — this is perhaps truly "imitation," and moreover "eternal" imitation, which amounts to "slavish nature" and the "most 'ideologically correct' thing." However, there are indeed some shouts that by no means constitute "imitation." Mr. Lin Yutang has written: "...As for literature, today they introduce a Polish poet, tomorrow a Czech literary master, yet toward the already famous English, American, French, and German writers they feel bored as though they were stale, unwilling to probe deeper and get to the bottom of things... The weakness of this prevailing fashion lies in its superficiality, and the remedy lies in learning." ("Eight Defects of Contemporary Prose" in "This Human World," no. 28.) These two gentlemen, one in the South and one in the North, both squint somewhat; each saw only one side and berated only that side. Jumping individually may still pass muster, but when they begin dancing side by side, their "courage" inevitably transforms into comedy.
Still, Mr. Lin advocates "getting to the bottom of things" and Mr. Zhang demands "direct understanding" — their spirit of "seeking truth from facts" is essentially the same in both. Only Mr. Zhang is comparatively more pessimistic, being a "prophet" who has definitively pronounced that "within a thousand years, one will never see those who introduce Gide and Balzac translate one or two important works by Gide or Balzac for Chinese readers, to say nothing of complete editions.
(September 12th.)
Seventh Essay on "Literati Despise Each Other" — Both Sides Wounded
The so-called literati went on despising each other without end, until some other writers shook their heads and sighed, feeling that the literary garden had been defiled. This is, of course, not without reason. When Tao Yuanming was "plucking chrysanthemums beneath the eastern hedge," his state of mind had to be serene and leisurely before he could "leisurely behold the Southern Mountain." But if on both sides of the hedge people were shouting and leaping, cursing and fighting, then though the Southern Mountain was still there, serenity would be quite impossible, and he could only "behold the Southern Mountain in astonishment." Today things are somewhat different from the transition between the Jin and Song dynasties: even the "ivory tower" has been moved out into the street, seemingly with some intention of "directness"; yet one still needs leisure — without it, one has nowhere to lodge one's profound grief, the literary garden loses its luster, and the clamor of the combatants becomes a grave offense. Thus the predicament of the mutually contemptuous literati grows ever more difficult: even the street is no longer a place of tumult — truly a dead end.
But what happens if they still insist on despising each other? In the Qing Dynasty there was a precedent: when a county magistrate encountered two men fighting during his rounds, he would, without inquiring who was right or wrong, order each to receive five hundred strokes on the buttocks, and that was the end of the matter. The literati who do not despise each other may have signboards reading "Silence!" and "Make Way!" at their disposal, but no bamboo paddles; so there will be no beating. Instead they resort to "literary warfare" and declare that neither side is any good.
The "Biography of Bo Yi" and the "Biography of Qu Yuan and Jia Yi" in the "Records of the Grand Historian," if one subtracts the quoted elegies, are in truth nothing more than short essays themselves. It is only because they were written by the "Grand Historian" and are widely known that no one has singled them out for reprinting. From the Jin to the Tang Dynasty, there were also quite a few notable writers; about Song prose I know nothing, but the poems of the "Jianghu School" were certainly what I would call short essays. What is generally advocated today comes from the Ming and Qing periods; their special characteristic, we are told, is the "expression of one's inner nature." At that time there were indeed some who could do nothing but express their inner nature; the spirit of the age and the environment, together with the authors' backgrounds and ways of living, permitted only such thoughts and such writings. Though they spoke of "expressing inner nature," they eventually fell into the same old ruts — it became merely a "set-piece of inner nature," a routine production according to formula. Of course there were also those who had premonitions of approaching danger and later experienced it firsthand, so that occasionally indignation crept into their short essays. But during the Literary Inquisition, all such writings were destroyed and the printing blocks smashed, so that what we see today is nothing but the lofty, transcendent inner nature that gallops like "heavenly steeds in untrammeled flight."
This "inner nature," filtered through the Qing Dynasty's process of selection, is just right for the present moment: it possesses the nonchalance of the late Ming without the so-called "heresies" of the early Qing; when there is a state, one is a lofty personage, and when there is no state, one remains at least a recluse. Even a recluse must meet certain qualifications — above all, "transcendence": as a "scholar" one rises above the common herd, as a "recluse" one transcends responsibility. That special weight is placed today on the short essays of the Ming and Qing has its perfectly good reasons and should surprise no one.
I too am one who constantly vacillates between the refined and the vulgar. What I am about to say may come close to spoiling the fun, yet at times I consider myself rather "refined"; I occasionally enjoy looking at antiquities. I remember that more than ten years ago, in Peking, I became acquainted with a provincial rich man who — I do not know how it came about — was suddenly seized by a fit of "elegance" and purchased a bronze vessel. It was said to be a Zhou-dynasty ding, and indeed: a motley mixture of earth stains and patina, the colors and fragrance of deep antiquity. But a few days later, to everyone's astonishment, he had a coppersmith scrub off every last trace of earth and verdigris, and only then did he display it in his parlor, where it shone with a brilliant copper gleam. Such a polished-bright antique bronze I had never seen again in all my life. Every "refined gentleman" who heard of it burst into great laughter, and I too could not suppress a laugh of surprise at the time. But immediately afterward I grew solemn, as though I had received a kind of revelation. This revelation was not of "philosophical profundity" but rather the realization that I was now seeing something closer to the true appearance of the Zhou-dynasty ding. The ding in the Zhou Dynasty was what the bowl is to us today; and since no one would leave a bowl unwashed for an entire year, the ding in its own time must have been spotlessly clean and gleaming with golden light — or, in scholarly parlance, it was by no means "serene and majestic" but rather had something "ardent" about it. This vulgar taste has never left me and has transformed my way of viewing ancient art. Take Greek sculpture, for example: I have always been of the opinion that its present appearance of "having nothing left but pure simplicity" is due in part to having been buried in the earth or exposed to wind and rain for ages, thereby losing its edges and its luster. At the time of its creation, it must have been sparkling new, snow-white, and gleaming. Thus what we perceive today as Greek beauty is not necessarily what the Greeks themselves understood by beauty; we should imagine it as something new.
This is indeed a shortcoming. Writing that is easy to learn and easy to use is generally not very precise. Difficult writing is not necessarily always precise, but to achieve precision, one inevitably cannot avoid a certain degree of difficulty. Romanized phonetic spelling can indicate the four tones; Latinized writing cannot — hence there is no distinction between "dong" and "dong" [different tones]. However, character writing can show the difference between "dong" and another character that Romanized spelling likewise cannot represent. To judge the superiority or inferiority of a new writing system based solely on whether one or two characters can be distinguished is not a proper critique. Moreover, once characters are organized into sentences, their meaning becomes clear. Even with character writing, if one takes only one or two isolated characters, their precise meaning is often hard to determine. For example, the two characters "ri zhe": taken by themselves, we could interpret them as "the sun, this thing," or as "in recent days," or as "a fortune-teller." Or "guoran" — this generally means "indeed," yet it is also the name of an animal, and can describe something that is raised or swollen. Even a single character like "yi," when standing alone, cannot be determined to mean the numeral one or the verb "to unify." But embedded in a sentence, all ambiguity vanishes. Therefore, picking one or two words from the Latinized system and calling them ambiguous is not a valid objection.
The real dispute between the advocates of Romanization and Latinization is not about precision versus imprecision at all, but about origin, which is to say, about purpose. The Romanization advocates take the traditional characters as their foundation and convert them into Roman letters, so that everyone writes according to this standard. The Latinization advocates, on the other hand, take the present-day dialects as their foundation and convert them into Latin letters — and that becomes the standard.
"Faust and the City" — Rou Shi
"The Modern Age" / "Studies of Ancient Chinese Society" — Guo Moruo
"The Coal King" — Guo Moruo
"The Black Cat" — Guo Moruo
"Ten Years of Creation" — Guo Moruo
"The Orchard" — Lu Xun
"Collected Plays of Tian Han" (5 volumes) — Tian Han
"The Death of Dantschegir" — Tian Han
"Collected Works of Hirabayashi Taiko" — Shen Duanxian
"Remaining Soldiers" — Zhou Quanping
"Without Cherry Blossoms" — Pengzi
"The Struggle" — Lou Jiannan
"Night Gathering" — Ding Ling
"Poetry Manuscripts" — Hu Yepin
"The Coal Miner" — Gong Binglu
"Posthumous Works of Guangci" — Jiang Guangci
"Lisa's Lament" — Jiang Guangci
"Wild Sacrifice" — Jiang Guangci
"Methods of Writing in the Vernacular" — Gao Yuhan
"Collected Works of Fujimori Seikichi" — Senbao
"Love and Hate" — Senbao
This is a catalogue of confiscated books. Every single book on this list is a testament to the suppression of free thought, a monument to those dark days when censorship devoured everything that displeased it. The names of the authors read like a roll of honor of the progressive literature of that era — writers who dared to swim against the current, whose words the authorities sought to silence by force.
As for the censors, I suspect that quite a few of them are "literary men"; if they were not, they could not perform their work so admirably. Naturally, they sometimes delete and ban in ways that leave one utterly baffled; I believe this is chiefly for the purpose of demonstrating their power. The inclination toward displays of power is hard even for a literary man to shake off, and besides, it is not really a vice. There is yet another reason, which I suspect has to do with the rice bowl. Needing to eat is certainly no vice, but when it comes to eating, the censoring literary men and the censored literary men have an equally hard time of it. The censors too have competitors watching for their slightest lapse; one moment of carelessness and the rice bowl is snatched away. Hence they must constantly produce results — that is, ceaselessly ban, delete, ban, delete, and for a third time ban, delete. When I first came to Shanghai, I once saw a Westerner emerging from a hotel, and several rickshaws immediately rushed toward him. He sat in one and drove away. Then a policeman suddenly appeared, struck one of the rickshaw pullers who had failed to get a passenger on the head, and tore the license from his rickshaw. I understood that this signified some offense, but could not fathom why it should be an offense not to have gotten a passenger, for there had been only one Westerner, who could naturally sit in only one rickshaw, and the puller had not even competed for him. Later, fortunately, a long-time Shanghai resident enlightened me: the policeman was required each month to apprehend a certain number of offenders; failure to do so meant he would be considered lazy, which was rather detrimental to his rice bowl. Real criminals being hard to find, one had to create them. I believe that when censors sometimes censor in the most bizarre ways and insist on making a few red strokes on a manuscript, the reason is much the same. If this is truly the case, then although they must inevitably reduce my "Selected Works of Chekhov" to a "landscape of ruins," I can still find it in myself to be understanding.
"Thirdly, I create because I desire to love. My love is driven by the impulse to seize, as faithfully as possible, the life or nature that appears and disappears on the other side of the wall. Therefore I raise my banner as high as I can and wave my handkerchief as vigorously as I can. The chances that this signal will be answered are naturally not great, and with a solitary character such as mine, they are even fewer. But whether twice or even once — if I can discover that my signal has been answered by an unmistakable signal in return, my life will have reached the very summit of happiness. It is for the sake of this joy that I create.
Fourthly, I also create because I wish to spur on my own life. How stupid and lacking in aspiration my life is! I am weary of it. There are already several shells that I ought to have shed. My works serve as a whip, lashing severely at those stubborn shells. May my life be transformed through my works!"
"To the Little Ones" (Chīsaki monoe) appears in the seventh volume of the "Collected Works" and is also included in the collection of Japanese stories in Romanized script.
"The Death of Osue" (Osue no shi) appears in the first volume of the "Collected Works."
Eguchi Kan
Eguchi Kan (江口渙), born in 1887, studied English literature at the University of Tokyo and joined the League of Socialists.
"Night in the Gorge" (Kyokoku no yoru) appeared in the collection "The Red Arrow-Pennant.
Everything that people say with their mouths and write with their pens is, in one sense or another, self-confession and self-justification. And so, once one begins to speak, the more one says and writes, the more one exposes oneself to ridicule. Viewed in this light, literary men might appear to be extraordinarily honest — yet in truth they are nothing of the sort. Byron, who from the very start made his self-confession into merchandise and a signboard, was certainly a figure brimming with vanity. As for Rousseau's "Confessions" — it has already been translated into Japanese and has won a great many readers; it is a renowned work of the modern era. Yet even with that book, it is rather doubtful just how far the genuine sincerity actually extends. As for Goethe's "Poetry and Truth," the objection has long been raised that its presentation of facts is inaccurate. And even with the confessions of the ancient Augustine or the modern Tolstoy, one should not swallow them whole merely because they bear the title of confessions. Carlyle wrote in an essay that the only poet of all ages who had represented himself with perfect frankness and openness was the poet Burns. These words should probably not be dismissed as mere exaggeration.
As for Japanese literature, confessional writings are even rarer still. Setting aside the new literature after the Meiji era: in Arai Hakuseki's "Record of Burning Firewood," the style is indeed skillful, but it is not a genuine self-confession.
The reason for deliberately placing a small beauty mark on the face of a beautiful woman is the same as the Japanese custom of valuing a slight blackness on the front teeth, in the belief that this can add to a young girl's charm.
If one assumes a scholarly air, it comes down to the application of the law of contrast. One places something black beside something white; one mixes comic elements into a tragedy — and the fundamental tone is thereby rendered stronger and more powerful. Aestheticians explain it by saying that the effect is heightened. The porter scene in the tragedy "Macbeth" is a fine example. On the skin of a naturally beautiful, unadorned white-skinned woman, one first applies powder and rouge, and then places upon this a dark "beauty spot." Into the powdered sugar one puts a pinch of salt to intensify the sweetness — the principle is essentially the same.
Expressions like "flawless as jade" do exist, but in truth, no matter whom one observes, there are assuredly some defects somewhere in that person's character. And so one invents an imagined being entirely without defects and calls it God — yet this being called God appears not to exist among the human race. Furthermore, when one considers each person's circumstances, there is always some deficiency. One has money, but one is ill. One enjoys perfect health, but is poor. On the one hand one earns money, on the other one loses it. Just when one thinks everything is settled, unsettled matters come following one after another. Nothing that human beings do is without flaw. Even on the most delightful journey, for instance, along a long road one inevitably carries with one a blunder or two, or some sorrow accompanies one.
Seated beside me was an elderly couple who appeared to be just returning from a summer holiday — two people of very fine character. When the train arrived at a major station, the old gentleman wished to alight here. He picked up his rather heavy traveling bag and stood up. Looking out through the train window, one could see a crowd of disorderly-looking people pushing and shoving one another, rushing toward the carriage door to board.
The old man placed his bag on the window frame and was just about to call a porter when a man of about thirty in Western dress, who had been standing behind the crowd surging toward the entrance, walked calmly up to the train window to take the bag from the old man's hands. For a moment I took him for someone who had come to meet the passengers, but the old man hesitated and seemed reluctant to hand his luggage to a complete stranger. Then the young man in Western dress beckoned with his left hand to a porter visible in the distance, and with his right hand removed his own straw hat, deftly reached in, and placed it on the seat where the old man had just been sitting. The old man thanked the man who had summoned the porter for him, and the couple alighted.
Inside the carriage there was now considerable noise and confusion on account of the many passengers who had pushed and shoved their way in. But there were far too few seats — only five or six people had gotten off, while perhaps twenty or thirty had boarded.
Then the thirty-year-old man in Western dress appeared, sauntering in at his leisure. On the seat beside me, where the old gentleman had formerly sat, a straw hat was already ensconced in magnificent solitude, and no matter how great the crush, everyone paid their respects to that hat, so that this one seat alone had remained vacant. The thirty-year-old calmly placed the straw hat back on his own head and seated the two geishas who accompanied him in this spot.
I cannot read a single letter of Russian; relying only on incomplete French and English translations, I have read a small amount of the famous dramas and novels of the previous century, so I naturally have no qualification whatsoever to pass judgment on Russia. Even when it comes to literature treated as a purely commercial enterprise, I know absolutely nothing about the latest Russian works. When one looks at the foreign telegrams in the newspapers, there are always reports about so-called extremists that seem utterly baffling, but they all appear scarcely credible and are without exception fragmentary reports from which one cannot make head or tail. What the Russians are currently thinking and doing, whether it is good or evil, right or wrong — about this, as a mere scholar, I cannot even form a judgment, not even the slightest assessment.
As for the word "Bolsheviki": I recall reading in a book written in English that its meaning is "more." But why is it translated in Japanese as "Extremist Party"? Starting from this very first point, my understanding fails. It seems unlikely that anyone would deliberately circulate a mistaken or distorted translation — and yet I do not know what to make of it. In summary: as for the Bolsheviki and also the Mensheviki — the moderate faction of the democratic socialists — I do not know the details well enough. But if it should be considered proper to translate the word "Majority Party" as "Extremist Party," then in Japan too one ought to call the Majority Party the "Extremist Party." We hear that in China of late, quite a few Japanese translation terms have been adopted. Yet precisely in the case of "Bolsheviki," the strange Japanese rendering "Extremist Party" has not been adopted; instead it has been honestly and straightforwardly transliterated.
Not only literature and art — in today's world, politics and diplomacy too have advanced. They are no longer, as before, merely a matter of tactics and keen eyesight. The labor question can no longer be solved by factory laws and the like, and the League of Nations can no longer settle matters through the mere exchange of diplomatic notes. For all activities of cultural life rest upon the foundation of intellectual life. Those who criticize Japanese diplomacy before and after the Russo-Japanese War as clumsy — it was only the Japanese newspapers of that time. We, on the other hand, have repeatedly seen foreign critics praise the skillfulness of earlier Japanese diplomacy. Skillful — yes, because it was nothing more than tactics. Quick — yes, because it was nothing more than keen eyesight. Because the customary petty cleverness of petty clever men produced a measure of success. Now, seeing the failure of the Peace Conference, some commentators attribute it to the Japanese lack of skill in propaganda. But one who has no thoughts — what is he to propagate? Even if he wished to propagate — has he any thoughts worthy of propagation? One who has nothing in his head and belly, no matter how diligently he opens and shuts his mouth, produces nothing but an empty, tedious spectacle.
It is a Japanese custom to consider the swinging of great speeches before the public a vice. When it comes to maneuvering adroitly in small back rooms, there are all manner of skills. The so-called resolutions of assemblies are mere façade; in truth they are the menu arranged in advance by a few plotters in a back room. Fortunately, the Japanese are a people who have lived for centuries believing that "the mouth is the gate of calamity," living under autocratic rule, deprived of freedom of speech, and for centuries on end, without suffering in the slightest from this — a truly astonishing race.
That evening, a grand wedding feast was laid, and the Grand Duke too was in attendance. The Grand Duke saw the splendid young couple approaching. In that instant, the Grand Duke and the young bride stood face to face. According to the court etiquette of those times, the Grand Duke bestowed a kiss upon the bride of his vassal, the house of Likerti.
It was truly but a moment. In that fleeting instant, the two could not possibly have found an opportunity to exchange words, yet the bridegroom, standing with bowed head, seemed to have heard some word or other.
That night, when bride and bridegroom sat facing each other in the candlelight of the bedchamber, the man made a pronouncement: until the day of his death, she must not set foot outside the house. She was permitted only to gaze down upon the world of men from the east window, like the chronicler in a monastery.
"As you command," she answered with her lips, but in her heart there was a different answer: another night with this demon? Before the evening bell rings, away from here — disguised as a servant, escape would be easy. — But not tomorrow. (As she thought this, her gaze grew fixed.) Father is here too; for Father's sake, stay one more day. Just a single day. The Grand Duke's procession will surely be visible again tomorrow.
Thinking thus in bed, she turned over once and fell asleep. Everyone is like this: once the matter is decided and postponed to tomorrow, one falls asleep — and this young bride was no different.
That same night, the Grand Duke too was thinking: even should this cup of happiness cost however dear or however cheap in body and soul — he would drain it in a single draught.
The shortcomings of such a life in the study have two dimensions: the effects on one's own cultivation, and the effects on society at large. The first dimension I shall leave aside; the second I feel keenly. Scholars of the study generally exert their influence on real society in their capacities as academics, thinkers, literary men, and the like. Therefore their shortcomings are not merely personal shortcomings but shortcomings in their impact upon society. The self-centered tendency and the disposition toward self-sufficiency that are characteristic of the study-bound scholar thus produce two kinds of harmful influence upon society: first, the thoughts of such scholars tend to become entirely disconnected from society; second, society comes to hold in contempt the pronouncements of these self-satisfied thinkers. The result is a gulf between the thinkers and real society. That thought and real life should grow estranged in this way is, of course, not solely the fault of the thinkers; under autocratic rule, this condition is further aggravated. Since speaking is futile in any case, thinkers easily slide into empty talk and baseless assertions.
If the purpose of human life lies in the development of culture, then we ought to respect and be grateful for the efforts of those thinkers who contribute to this cultural development. But if scholars of the study, through the shortcomings described above, are entirely cut off from real life, this constitutes a grave obstacle to the cultural development of society. The society therefore has reason to pause and reflect.
What is needed is an approach from both sides. But I speak here only of the side of the study-bound scholars, who should take the first step. That is to say: the scholars of the study must forge connections with real life, with the real world.
I still remember that my motive for buying it was rather laughable: I merely wanted to see the book titles they published every fortnight and read news from the literary scenes of various countries — passing by the butcher's shop, as it were, and inhaling the aroma, which was at least better than passing the butcher's shop and swallowing nothing at all. As for the ambitious step of actually purchasing and reading the books themselves, I had not even dreamed of it. But then I chanced upon a sample translation of the fifth chapter of "The Little Johannes" in the magazine, and was immediately captivated. A few days later I ran to the Nankodo bookshop to buy it — in vain. Then I ran to the Maruzen bookshop — likewise in vain. So I placed an order through them to Germany. About three months later, the book was actually in my hands. It was the translation by Anna Fles, with a preface by Dr. Paul Raché, a volume in the "Library of the Complete Literature of Home and Abroad" (Verlag von Otto Hendel, Halle a. d. S.), costing only seventy-five Pfennig — that is, four of our jiao — and it was even cloth-bound!
As the preface states, it is a "symbolist-realist fairy tale in prose" — a poem without rhyme, a fairy tale for adults. Owing to the author's extensive learning and delicate sensibility, it has perhaps already surpassed the ordinary adult fairy tale. In it one finds, for instance, the life story of the golden beetle, the doings of the mushrooms, the ideals of the firefly, the peace theory of the ants — all a blend of reality and fantasy. I am somewhat afraid that someone who pays little attention to the phenomena of the natural world might lose some enjoyment on that account. But I also have a premonition that there will be those who love it.
One may also cite Mrs. Bosboom-Toussaint (Gertrude Bosboom-Toussaint, 1812-86) as a precursor of the new tendency. Her earliest historical novels and novels of manners still stood within the bounds that revolved in self-satisfied expansiveness, resting upon the old Dutch epic with its conventional materials; later, however, she turned to social and psychological problems, treating them with considerable mastery in several historical novels such as "Major Frans" and "Raymond de Schrijnwerker."
Following the new tendency of the early eighteen-eighties, the first efforts were directed at the surface, at form. New modes of expression were sought for verse and prose, lending the Dutch language a fluidity and life that its former clumsiness had lacked. The initial experiments aimed to restore honor to the lyric poem, which had been much neglected until then, nearly smothered beneath the dust of two centuries of cold reminiscence. Until that time, one could scarcely speak of a Dutch lyric poem; now, however, these lyric poems, which need not fear comparison with those of other nations, had won a powerful position.
Here, first of all, the young and early-deceased Perk (Jacques Perk, 1860-81) deserves mention. His poems, published in 1883, were the first to unite all the excellences and, in the briefest span of time, secured for Dutch lyric poetry an honored place in world literature.
Among the lyric poets of "Young Holland," the Antwerp-born Pol de Mont was one of the most distinguished.
Do you now understand what it was that Johannes regarded with such reverence? With the little brown Presto, on the other hand, he was on the most intimate of terms. Presto was neither beautiful nor noble, but an exceptionally sincere and sensible animal; one could never separate it from Johannes by so much as two steps, and it listened patiently to its master's talk. I can scarcely tell you how dearly Johannes loved this Presto. Yet in his heart there remained much room for other things. His small, dim little room with its little glass windows occupied an important place there too — does that surprise you? He loved the carpet with its large patterns, in which he recognized faces, and he had studied its form many times over, when he was ill or lay awake in bed in the morning. He loved the one little picture that hung there, showing motionless strollers walking in an equally motionless garden, along a mirror-smooth pond from which a sky-high fountain leaped, and charming swans were swimming. But most of all he loved the clock. He always wound it with the greatest care; when it struck, he would look at it, regarding this as a solemn duty. Only, of course, so long as Johannes had not yet fallen asleep. If the clock stopped through his negligence, Johannes felt very sorry indeed, and begged its pardon a hundred and a hundred times over. You would probably laugh if you heard him talking to his clock or to his room. But take care — how often do you talk to yourselves! You find that not at all laughable. Moreover, Johannes believed that his counterpart understood him perfectly.
They crossed the meadow and from the other side climbed the hill. Pah! It was heavy going in the deep sand — but when Johannes caught hold of Windkin's translucent blue cloak, he flew up lightly and swiftly. Halfway up the hill was a wild rabbit's burrow. The rabbit that lived there lay with its head and paws at the entrance of its hole, enjoying the beautiful night air. The wild roses were still in bud, and their delicate, tender fragrance mingled with the scent of the thyme that grew on the hill.
Johannes had often seen the wild rabbit slip into its hole and had asked himself each time: "What does it look like in there? How many of them might be gathered together? Don't they worry?"
He was therefore delighted when he heard his companion ask the rabbit whether they might have a look inside the burrow.
"As far as I'm concerned, you may," said the rabbit. "But the timing is unfortunate: just this evening I have given over my burrow for a charity gathering, so I am no longer the master in my own house."
"Oh dear, has some misfortune occurred?"
"Alas, yes!" said the rabbit sorrowfully. "A terrible blow from which we shall suffer for years to come. A thousand hops from here, a human dwelling is being built. So big, so big! People have moved in and brought dogs with them. Seven members of my family have met with disaster there, and the homeless number three times as many. It has been especially bad for the mouse clan and the ground-squirrel family, and the toads have also suffered greatly. So we are holding a gathering for the bereaved; everyone does what he can, and I am providing my burrow. One must look after one's own kind, after all.
Where was he then, Presto? Where was your little master? When he woke in the boat among the reeds, how startled he was! He was alone — his master had vanished without a trace. That was enough to make one anxious and afraid. You have been running about for a long time now, barking ceaselessly in excitement as you searched for him, haven't you? Poor Presto. How could you have slept so soundly and failed to notice when your master left the boat! Normally you were awake the moment he so much as stirred. Your usually keen nose is of no use to you today. You can scarcely determine where your master came ashore, and in the sand dunes you have completely lost his trail. Even your eager sniffing does not help. Oh, this despair! The master is gone! Vanished without a trace! Then search, Presto, search for him! Wait — right in front of you on the dune slope — isn't there something small and dark lying there? Take a good look!
The little dog stood motionless, listening for a while, gazing into the distance. Then he suddenly raised his head and ran with all the strength of his four thin legs toward the dark spot on the dune slope.
When he found the painfully missed, long-lost little master, he did everything he could to express his joy and gratitude, and still it seemed not enough. He wagged his tail, leaped, whimpered, barked, sniffed and licked the one he had sought so long, pressing his cold nose against his face.
"Quiet, Presto, into your basket!" Johannes called out, half asleep.
"Nearby stood a slender, sturdy blade of grass, swaying gently in the evening breeze. The beetle gripped it firmly with its six crooked legs. Seen from below, it appeared like a tall, mighty giant, exceedingly steep. But the golden beetle wanted to climb still higher. That is life's duty, it thought, and timidly began its ascent. It went slowly; several times it slid back, but it pressed on. When at last it reached the very tip and sat there, bobbing and swaying, it felt content and happy. What it saw from there — it seemed to it that it beheld the whole world. On all sides it was surrounded by air — what bliss! It puffed up its abdomen as much as it could. It was in the finest of spirits! It wanted always to rise higher! In its delight it lifted the wing cases and let the net-wings quiver for a moment — it wanted to ascend, always to ascend — and quivered its wings once more, the claws released the blade of grass, and — oh, what rapture! ... whoo — whoo — it flew upward — free and joyful — into the still, warm evening sky."
"And then?" asked Johannes.
"What comes after is not so pleasant; I shall tell you another time."
They flew across the pond. Two dawdling white butterflies fluttered along with them.
"Where is the journey heading, you sprites?" they asked.
"To the great wild rose over there on the slope, the one that is blooming."
"We shall come along with you!"
Even from afar one could clearly see its many pale yellow, soft blossoms. The little buds were already dyed deep red, while the open flowers still showed pale pink edges.
The pale man said that God had made the sun shine so cheerfully for their gathering. Windkin laughed at him mockingly and threw an acorn from the dense foliage onto his nose.
"He ought to try holding a different opinion," he said. "My father has to shine for them — what on earth does the fellow imagine!"
But the pale man, hit by the acorn that seemed to have fallen from the sky, flew into a rage. He spoke at great length, and the longer he spoke, the louder he grew. In the end his face alternated between pale and red, he clenched his fists and shouted so loudly that the leaves trembled and even the grass swayed back and forth in fright. When he finally calmed down again, the company resumed their singing.
"Bah," said an oriole that had come down from the tall tree to have a look, "this is dreadful nonsense! I should prefer it if a herd of cows came into the forest. Just listen to that, bah!"
Well, the oriole was a connoisseur and had refined taste.
After the singing, the company produced all manner of foodstuffs from baskets, boxes, and paper bags. Many papers were spread out, rolls and oranges distributed. Bottles also made their appearance.
Thereupon Windkin summoned his comrades and opened the attack upon the merry gathering.
A bold toad hopped onto the lap of an elderly lady, right next to the roll she was about to put into her mouth, and sat there as though astonished at its own audacity. The lady let out a loud shriek, stared in horror at the assailant, and did not dare to touch it.
Johannes did not eat, indeed. He took a dried twig and stuck it into the fleshy cap. It looked rather comical, and all the others laughed. There was also a cluster of feeble little mushrooms with brown caps that had apparently all pushed their way out together within about two hours and were pressing outward to see the world. The toadstool turned blue with rage — which also proved it was of the poisonous kind.
The earth-stars stretched their round, swollen little heads upward on their four-pointed pedestals. From time to time they blew the finest dust from the mouth of their round little heads, forming a small brownish cloud. This dust fell on damp earth and formed lines of black soil, and the following year hundreds of new earth-stars grew there.
"What a beautiful existence!" they said to one another. "Blowing dust-clouds is the highest purpose of life. As long as one lives, one blows dust — what happiness!"
And so, with fervent longing, they sent their little dust-clouds up into the air.
"Are they right, Windkin?"
"Why not? How could they know any better? They do not ask for more happiness, because they are not capable of more."
The night had grown deep, and the shadows of the trees had merged into a uniform darkness, yet the mysterious trembling of the forest had not ceased. In the grass and the bushes, little twigs rustled and crackled everywhere, dry leaves whispered. Johannes felt the inaudible breeze of beating wings and knew that invisible beings had drawn near. Now he heard distinct voices whispering and tiny feet hopping with soft steps. Look there — from the black depths of the bushes glimmered a tiny point of light.
"Yes, yes! That is the one, that is it exactly! Will you help me, if I tell you?"
"If I can, of course!"
"Then listen, Johannes!" Knowall opened his eyes frightfully wide and raised his eyebrows even higher than usual. Then he stretched out his hand and said softly: "Man guards the golden chest, the elf guards the golden key. The enemy of the elves cannot find it; only the friend of the elves can open it. The spring night is the right time — the robin knows it well."
"Is it true, is it true?" cried Johannes, thinking of his little key.
"True!" said Knowall.
"Then why has no one found it yet? So many people are searching for it."
"What I have entrusted to you, I have told no one, not a single soul."
"I have it, Knowall! I can help you!" Johannes shouted joyfully, clapping his hands. "I shall ask Windkin."
He flew back over moss and dry leaves. But he stumbled many times; his steps had grown heavy. Thick branches cracked beneath his feet, where before not even a blade of grass would bend.
Here was the lush bracken beneath which he had once slept. How small it seemed to him now!
"Windkin!" he called. And he was frightened by his own voice.
"Windkin!" It sounded like a human voice, and a timid nightingale flew away shrieking.
Beneath the bracken it was empty — Johannes saw nothing at all.
The little blue light had gone out; around him was coldness and bottomless darkness.
Tolstoy's influence upon the writers of the entire world, and especially upon those of Russia, was extraordinarily great. Garshin, Leskov, Ertel, Chekhov, Kuprin, Veresaev, Artsybashev, Maxim Gorky, Shmelyov, Sergeyev-Tsensky, and others — each belonged to a different era and received different impressions, yet all savored and admired the mighty talent of this literary colossus in regard to his social outlook, his realism, and his Tolstoyan style of expression that could move people so profoundly. The Russian writers, moreover, regarded Tolstoy as a religious idol. Even the deeply self-respecting Dostoevsky, after finishing "Anna Karenina," cried out: "This is a god of art!" And Maxim Gorky called Tolstoy the god of Russia, seated upon a jade throne beneath a golden Bodhi tree.
"This young officer has put us all in the shade" — that was Grigorovich's half-joking, half-bitter lament. This young officer became our Homer, our national treasure, the new Rousseau of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Before him the writers of the entire world bowed their heads, filled with a pure joy that knew no envy.
Yet Tolstoy, this Rousseau of the nineteenth century, had closely observed the contradictory phenomena of society in the chaotic second half of the century. The great poet Pushkin had not yet known such vast contradictions; according to Belinsky, "the class principle was an eternal truth." But Tolstoy did not believe in the unshakable immutability of his own class. He witnessed the fall of Sevastopol, experienced the death of Nicholas I, observed the conditions of the reform era, and recognized that one end of the great severed chain struck the landowning class while the other end terrified the peasants. He further witnessed the so-called popular enlightenment movement and experienced firsthand the alarming contradictions that intensified together with the growth of the cities. He himself, however, became the last nobleman. In the eighteen-seventies and eighties, he proclaimed the decline of the estate whose way of life he had previously poeticized, embellished, and celebrated — just as Bulba in Gogol's masterpiece said to Andrei: "I made you, and I shall also kill you." Thus he transformed his thinking and became an exposer of the ugly phenomena that had hitherto been concealed beneath the splendid garments of art.
The author of the "Confessions," "Émile," and the "New Héloïse" — Rousseau — came from a petit-bourgeois artisan family, grew up amid hardship, felt the hypocrisy of life in the eighteenth century, and, like a plebeian of ancient Rome, declared war upon the aristocracy.
In 1860, at Soden, his beloved brother Nikolai closed his eyes forever in his arms. Nikolai was a gifted, outstanding man. At that time, filled with disappointment and grief and seized by the shudder of death, he wrote to Fet: "Tomorrow too will begin with the hateful death, the hypocrisy and self-deception, and will end with the empty nothing from which one gains nothing. What a farce." — "If from the fact that Nikolai Nikolayevich Tolstoy once existed not the slightest thing remains — then for what purpose should one labor, for what purpose should one strive?" His brother had been unable to find anything to hold on to and had been tormented by the thought "You return to nothingness" — this Tolstoy now understood. At that time Tolstoy was not yet married and could not grasp the happiness of a family; nor could he grasp the Iufan-style labor; he clung only to scholarly research... The dark clouds seemed to disperse... But then came the journey to Pensa in 1869 and the terror of Arzamas, then between 1873 and 1876 the deaths of five close relatives — three children and two aunts. And among these was the death of that Aunt Yergolskaya who had raised Tolstoy in place of his birth mother and had taught him the spiritual joy of love; and the death of the eighty-year-old protectress Pelageya Ilinishna... At Yasnaya Polyana there had long been no brilliant life; death was beating its black wings. Where could one flee from those wings?
In September 1863, he wrote in a letter to this aunt:
"I no longer probe my own state of mind, that is to say, my own feelings. As for family matters, I simply feel, without thinking. This state of mind grants me a very broad intellectual domain. Never before have I felt that my mental powers were so free and could devote themselves to my work with such dedication."
The work "Family Happiness," written in 1859, is the preface to entering this period of life. This novella is written in the graceful Turgenev style, but the Turgenev-like young woman in the story ultimately becomes a Tolstoyan wife and mother. And the questions of marriage, family, childbirth, parental duty, and love are the focal points of our literary giant's attention. Thus the two masterworks, each running to some two thousand pages — "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" — emerged as powerful depictions of the familial and domestic life of the fortunate amid the opulent aristocratic existence.
If "Childhood," "Boyhood," and "Youth" drew their material from the neighboring landowner Islenev's family, Sophia Andreyevna's mother, the tutor Ressler, and Saint-Thomas, then "War and Peace" drew its material from the family chronicles of Tolstoy's three blood lines. Not only the maternal grandfather Volkonsky, the birth mother, Aunt Yergolskaya, Grandfather Tolstoy, the grandmother, and the father — even his own bride Sophia Andreyevna found her way into the work.
The face of the muzhik, as revealed in the "Diary," gradually concealed the face of the pupil raised by a French tutor.
Turgenev once jested about Tolstoy, saying: "He loves the peasants like a pregnant woman — with hysterical devotion."
Tolstoy, who despised the aristocratic attitude, loved the common people fervently and wished to save himself through the people. This is precisely the sentiment of Nekhlyudov in "Resurrection," to whom Katyusha Maslova says: "You want to save yourself through me!"
Tolstoy learned from the people, learned from the Cossack Epishka, received instruction from the fortress soldiers at Sevastopol, from Iufan, Siutaev, Bandarev, and others. Before the people he made his confession, asked forgiveness for the sins of his ancestors, and made his own way of life the same as that of the common people. The strength of the people was immense. It was not Alexander I who had driven out Napoleon, nor was it the generals — it was the grey, ordinary people. Kutuzov's victory was due to the fact that he was a man of the people.
During the Battle of Sevastopol, Tolstoy knelt before the ignorant and desireless hero — the peasant — and wrote: "The great affair in which the Russian people played the leading role will forever preserve its glory in the history of Russia."
The connection with the people, especially with the peasant masses, continued to expand, and Tolstoy gradually shed the French manner of observation and expression.