and only learns to love her when she becomes a social queen and it is too late. An "Ode to Napoleon" by Pushkin is inferior to a similar ode by Lermontoff, his natural successor, whose poem of "The Demon" is noteworthy. TATIANA'S RETROSPECT. (From "Eugene Oneguin.") I was younger, then, Oneguin, And it seems to me, I was better then, And I loved you,-and what was my reward? What did I find in your heart? What response? Naught but coldness. Is it not true that for you A simple maiden's love was no novelty? And now-God !-my blood runs cold Even at the bare remembranee of that icy look, But do not think, I blame you. In that awful hour You acted well and honorably; You were right in all you said and did; My triumphs and successes in the world, My fashionable home and gay evenings; What are these to me? This minute I'd gladly All this masquerading frippery, All this noisy, vaporish pomp, For the old shelf of books, the wild garden, The poor, humble village home, The spot where first I saw you, Oneguin, Or for the quiet churchyard, Where now a cross and the shade of cypress-tree Mark the grave of poor old nurse. For happiness was so conceivably possible, So nearly within our grasp. But my fate It may be, I acted: But with tears and conjuring prayers My mother entreated me, and for poor Tatiana I married, and now you must, I implore you,-you must now leave me. The stern claims of pride and honor. I love you, why seek to play the hypocrite? And will forever remain true to him. THE LOT OF MAN. THE common lot of men awaited him; Bid adieu to poetry, and take a wife, of gout; Eat, drink, mope, grow fat and weak, Till last scene of all, he dies quietly in his bed. Tended by his wife and children, The village leech and whining nurse. THE VANITY OF LIFE. VAIN gift,-gift of chance, O life, why wert thou granted me? What god, with unfriendly power, And troubled my mind with torturing doubt? An aimless future lies before me, My heart is dry, my mind is void, MY MONUMENT. I have reared to myself a monument not made with hands, Higher than Napoleon's column. No! I shall not wholly die, the soul that inspires my sacred muse And I shall be glorious, whilst in our sublunary sphere NIKOLAI GOGOL. MODERN Russian realism is traced to Nikolai Vasilievitch Gogol (1809-1852). Born in the government of Poltava, his grandfather had been one of those Zaparog-Cossacks whose heroic ex ploits Gogol was to celebrate in his great epopee of "Taras Bulba." His childhood was fed on the legends of the Malo-Russians, and in later life he ransacked the memories of all his relatives and friends for these old traditions. Naturally his initial apprenticeship to the romantic phase of Pushkin lasted but a brief time and was quickly cured by the ridicule which greeted his weak German idyll, Hans Knechel Garten, In 1830 appeared the first story of his Cossack series, "Evenings at the Farm," purporting to be narrated by Rudui Panko (Sandy the little nobleman). This work has been well described as being "at once modern and archaic, learned and enthusiastic, mystic and refined-in a word, Russian." The tales are divided into two parts named respectively after the two towns of Didanka and Mirgorod. The former contains the story of "The Fair at Sorotchinsui," of which the devil is hero. Another is a witch tale. The latter included "OldTime Proprietors" (a delightful provincial picture which somewhat foreshadowed Turgenieff's "Virgin Soil"), and "Taras Bulba," the germ soon after expanded into a wonderful romance. "When Gogol set the colossal Taras on his feet," declared Turgenieff, "he revealed genius." The expanded tale is a grand masterpiece of Cossack color, spirit and lore. It deals with the Atamán Taras Bulba and his two sons, whom he takes to the Setch camp of the Zaporozhtsui on an island in the Dnieper to make them warriors. Andre deserts to the Poles through love of a Polish sweetheart, meets his father face to face in battle, and is executed by the stern parent. The rigor of these primitive times is stirringly reproduced. The success of this masterpiece led Gogol to plan a History of Little Russia, but he was to be inspired to a greater work. From a comedy, "The Revizor" (InspectorGeneral), in which he satirized official cupidity, arrogance and corruption, he rose to a powerful satire on all Russia in his weirdly-named romance, "Dead Souls." The hero, Tchitchikof, is an impecunious adventurer who buys the dead and runaway slaves since the last Russian census, intending to raise a large loan by mortgaging these imaginary human chattels. He journeys from estate to estate in his leatherflapped britchka, accompanied by his stupid lackey Petrushka and his talkative coachınan Selifan. Every small proprietor is described in a vivid portrait. The strokes are cruel, but just. There are such psychological and picturesque types as Plushkin, the miser, which stamp themselves indelibly on the memory. Not only are the repellent traits of the owners of serfs portrayed, but the cruelty of the subaltern burmistrs and the corruption of the Russian Tchinoviks. Terrible was the picture Gogol drew of the Russia of his day. He looked to Tzar Nicholas, who had issued a ukaze abolishing serfdom and then had cancelled it under pressure from the nobility, to remedy this grievous situation. But Gogol failed to paint the woes of the serf himself and his innate human nature. Emancipation waited, therefore, for the pen of revelation of Ivan Turgenieff. As for poor Gogol, who had passed from fantasy and imagination to satire and then to mysticism, his brain finally broke down, and, after burning many pages of his "Dead Souls," he died insane in Italy in 1852. His earlier tales are full of the beauty of the great Russian steppes and the Ukraine nights. There is an appreciable element of savagery in Gogol, relishable to the Russian. His characters are the half-barbarous peasants and Cossack lads of the hamlets bordering on the infinite steppes. THE COSSACK MOTHER. (From "Taras Bulba.") BULBA was soon snoring, and all in the courtyard followed his example. All who were lying stretched in its different corners began to slumber and snore. The first to fall asleep was the watchman, for he had drunk more than the rest in honor of his master's arrival. The poor mother alone could not sleep. She hung over the pillow of her dear sons, who were lying side by side. She gently smoothed their young dishevelled locks and moistened them with her tears. She watched them long and eagerly, gazing on them with all her soul, yet, though her whole being was absorbed in sight, she could not gaze enough. With her own breast she had nourished them; she had lovingly tended them and watched their youth; and now she has them near her, but only for a moment. Sons, my dear sons, what fate is in store for you? If I could have you with me but for a little week.' And tears fell down on the wrinkles that disfigured her once handsome face. . . . In truth, she was to be pitied, as was every woman in those early times. She would see her husband for two or three days in a year, and then for years together would see and hear nothing of him. And when they did meet, and when they did live together, what kind of life was it that she led? Then she had to endure insults and even blows; no kindness, save a few formal caresses, did she receive; she had, as it were, no home, and was out of her place in the rough camp of unwedded warriors. She had seen her youth glide by without enjoyment, and her fresh cheeks grew wrinkled before their time. All her love, all her desire, all that is tender and passionate in woman, all was now concentrated in one feeling, that of a mother. And like a bird of the steppe, she feverishly, passionately, tearfully hovered over her children. Her sons, her darling |