The people looked and saw that it was a goat, and they spat at the fool and went home. * * * * * This story, more than pages of analysis and more than chapters of argument, illustrates what I mean: namely, that if the Russian poet and the Russian peasant, the one in his verse, the other in his folk tales and fairy stories, are matter-of-fact, alien to flights of exaggerated fancy, and above all things enamoured of the truth; if by their closeness to nature, their gift of seeing things as they are, and expressing these things in terms of the utmost simplicity, without fuss, without affectation and without artificiality,--if, I say, all this entitles us to call them realists, then this realism is not and must never be thought of as being the fad of a special school, the theory of a limited clique, or the watchword of a literary camp, but it is rather the natural expression of the Russian temperament and the Russian character. I will try throughout this book to attempt to illustrate this character and this temperament as best I can, by observing widely different manifestations of it; but all these manifestations, however different they may be, contain one great quality in common: that is, the quality of reality of which I have been writing. And unless the student of Russian literature realises this and appreciates what Russian realism consists of, and what it really means, he will be unable to understand either the men or the literature of Russia. FOOTNOTES: [3] This translation is in the metre of the original. It is literal; but hopelessly inadequate. [4] In the Russian, although every word of the poem is familiar, not a word of slang is used. CHAPTER III GOGOL AND THE CHEERFULNESS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE The first thing that strikes the English reader when he dips into translations of Russian literature, is the unrelieved gloom, the unmitigated pessimism of the characters and the circumstances described. Everything is grey, everybody is depressed; the atmosphere is one of hopeless melancholy. On the other hand, the first thing that strikes the English traveller when he arrives in Russia for the first time, is the cheerfulness of the Russian people. Nowhere have I seen this better described than in an article, written by Mr. Charles Hands, which appeared in the summer of 1905 in _The Daily Mail_. Mr. Hands summed up his idea of the Russian people, which he had gathered after living with them for two years, both in peace and in war, in a short article. His final impression was the same as that which he received on the day he arrived in Russia for the first time. That was in winter; it was snowing; the cold was intense. The streets of St. Petersburg were full of people, and in spite of the driving snow, the bitter wind, and the cruel cold, everybody was smiling, everybody was making the best of it. Nowhere did you hear people grumbling, or come across a face stamped with a grievance.