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We will not criticize these, perhaps illusory, ideas and previsions of Merezhkovsky. Russian life has become an enigma; who knows to what moral crisis the social conscience may be led by the present political crisis? Merezhkovsky's Olympian æsthetics have made him a foreigner in Russian literature.
And, as Tolstoy is "the seer of the flesh," so is Dostoyevsky "the seer of the soul." Having established this difference in principle, Merezhkovsky, by constant deduction, concludes, in consonance with his favorite idea, that Tolstoy personifies "the pagan spirit" at its height, while Dostoyevsky represents "the Christian spirit."
I respect Merezhkovsky, and think highly of him both as a man and as a writer, but we should be pulling in opposite directions.... Don't be cross with me, dear Sergey Pavlovitch: it seems to me that if you go on editing the magazine for another five years you will come to agree with me. A magazine, like a picture or a poem, must bear the stamp of one personality and one will must be felt in it.
"Above these Christian states, above these old Gothic stores," says Merezhkovsky, "rises, here and there, a Protestant wooden cross, half rotted; or a Catholic one of iron, all rusted, and no one pays any attention to them."
Since the abolition of serfdom in Russia, it has come to define the plebeian; and is a sort of personification of the rabble. The satirist Stchedrin has defined Kham as "one who eats with a knife and takes milk with his after-dinner coffee." Merezhkovsky has written a book on Gorky under the title of "The Future Kham." Elisaveta said reproachfully: "What a word Kham!"
Merezhkovsky, a more discreet psychologist, does not rely on these superficial data, but shades the portrait admirably. He makes Alexis an intelligent man, not like his father, but a man with a comprehensive, subtle spirit. He probably was crushed by the powerful individuality of his father.
It is this struggle between the two principles of Hellenic philosophy and Christian faith that Merezhkovsky has tried to show us by fixing, in his novels, the historic moments when this struggle reached its greatest intensity; and by making appear in these periods the characters who, according to him, are most typical and representative.
Thus in the conception of socialized Christianity Merezhkovsky seeks the end of the great antithesis between the "God-man" and the "man-God," between Christ and Bacchus, an antithesis which makes the generality of men often conduct themselves after the manner of that German petty kingdom, of which Heine speaks, where the people, while venerating Christ, do not forget to honor Bacchus by abundant libations.
Merezhkovsky is still very young, a student of science I believe. Those who have assimilated the wisdom of the scientific method and learned to think scientifically experience many alluring temptations.
One goes on a little further and again meets a boat with singers, and then again, and the air is full, till midnight, of the mingled strains of violins and tenor voices, and all sorts of heart-stirring sounds. Merezhkovsky, whom I have met here, is off his head with ecstasy. For us poor and oppressed Russians it is easy to go out of our minds here in a world of beauty, wealth, and freedom.
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