Part 13

"Money?"

"Yes," said the lad.

"Look at him," said the children.

"For money, we could do those tricks ourselves."

The audience became hostile toward the artist, and betook itself to the field, ridiculing and insulting him. Of course, none of them had any money. I myself, had only seven kopecks about me. I put two coins in the boy's dusty palm. He moved them with his finger and with a kindly smile said: "Thank you."

He went away, and I noticed that his shirt around his back was all in black blotches and was clinging close to his shoulder-blades.

"Hold on, what is it?"

He stopped, turned about, scrutinised me and said distinctly, with the same kindly smile:

"You mean the blotches on my back? That's from falling off the trapeze. It happened on Easter. My father is still lying in bed, but I am quite well now."

I lifted his shirt. On his back, running down from his left shoulder to the side, was a wide dark scratch which had now become dried up into a thick crust. While he was exhibiting his tricks the wound broke open in several spots and red blood was now trickling from the openings.

"It doesn't hurt any more," said he with a smile. "It doesn't hurt, it only itches."

And bravely, as it becomes a hero, he looked in my eyes and went on, speaking like a serious grown-up person:

"You think--I have been doing this for myself? Upon my word--I have not. My father ... there is not a crust of bread in the house, and my father is lying badly hurt. So you see, I have to work hard. And to make matters worse, we are Jews, and everybody laughs at us. Good-bye."

He spoke with a smile, cheerfully and courageously. With a nod of his curly head, he quickly went on, passing by the houses which looked at him with their glass eyes, indifferent and dead.

All this is insignificant and simple, is it not?

Yet many a time in the darkest days of my life I remembered with gratitude the courage and bravery of the little Jewish boy. And now, in these sorrowful days of suffering and bloody outrages which fall upon the grey head of the ancient nation, the creator of Gods and religion,--I think again of the boy, for in him I see the symbol of true manly bravery,--not the pliant patience of slaves, who live by uncertain hopes, but the courage of the strong who are certain of their victory.

* * * * *

THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL

Fyodor Sologub is the pseudonym of Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, novelist and poet. A considerable portion of his prose works has been recently made accessible to the English reader. Sologub's poetic output includes lyrical pieces of rare beauty. He was born in 1864.

THE FATHERLAND FOR ALL

BY FYODOR SOLOGUB

The great war, which we did not want, but which we are conducting with intense fervour, exerting all our spiritual and material forces, has put before our consciousness and our moral sense the fundamental problems of our social and political organisation. Not in vain have the newspapers hastened to style this war a Fatherland War. The question of the Fatherland has suddenly acquired for us a peculiar keenness and significance.

The war has taken Russian society and the Russian people by surprise, but luckily it has come to us at the moment when the questions which were confronting us had already been settled both in our reason and conscience. The heroic labour of the Russian intellectual has not been in vain. And now what we have to do is not to argue and demonstrate, but to determine the meaning of events. And the meaning of what is going on is such that we are forced to consider this war not only as one of defence, but also as one of emancipation. It appears to us not only as a struggle for the rights of small states threatened by large ones, and as a war against German militarism, but also as a strife against... internal danger, whatever may be the various forms this danger assumes.

The first and chief danger which threatened, and is still threatening us, is the danger of internal division and disorder. The equal readiness and zeal to stand up for her which all the peoples inhabiting Russia have manifested has shown how unjust is the preaching of hatred and of narrow nationalism. The peoples who bear the same burdens of our state as the Russians do, who defend our common fatherland just as faithfully as the Russians, thereby assert that our fatherland is for all, that Russia is for every one who is considered a Russian subject and meets his duties toward the state. Russia is not only for those who are Russians by language and birth, she is for all who live under her sovereign dominion. No one in Russia is benefited by the unequal rights of her various peoples; this inequality does not add to our political power, it only supports our internal disorder. Its abolition by no means contradicts the fundamental conceptions of Russian statehood.

You will say that Russia has been created by the Russian race. Well, then, her policy must be determined by the qualities of the Russian popular spirit,--but animosity and exclusiveness are things strange and repulsive to it. The soul of the Russian people is trusting and open to all influences. And this is only natural: only that nation can become the basis of a great state which is able with ease and joy to unite with all the races it meets on its historic road. The history of Russia illustrates this. Besides, who has ever asserted that people born unto the Russian tongue are racially pure Slavs?

You will say that Russia is a Christian state. Agreed. But do not Christ's commandments teach us to see a friend and a brother and one's equal in every man? The more we are Christians, the less of animosity and exclusiveness can be in our hearts. What difference does it make that two men speak different languages and pray in different ways? When it is a question of paying duties and taxes, and bearing arms in defence of the fatherland, religious and race peculiarities do not matter.

The fatherland is for all of us, because we are all for the fatherland. The fatherland is our common home, and this home we build, keep in good order, and defend. We build our common home not like hirelings, to whom, after they get their pay, the building becomes alien. In rearing, decorating and defending it we bargain with no one, we give everything that is necessary for its upbuilding and defence,--we give our property, our labour, our very life. Even when our labour appears selfish, even then--provided it is not criminal--it is for the good of our common home: for, all that adds to the happiness, well-being and freedom of each one living in the home, adds to its strength and beauty.

We build our common home, decorate it and defend it, and we do it with joy and willingness because in our common home we are neither hirelings nor guests. In our common home, then, who are we? We must know and always remember that in our common home we are all masters of the house. It is not our right, but our duty toward our home, of which we must take care just as every good master takes care of his house. The consciousness of the fact that we are the masters of our common home is clear; for it is seen that every one of us in whom conscience and reason do not slumber, feels responsible for the disorder of our life.