In 1894 he made a journey to England and America, and on his return wrote an amusing record of his travels entitled: “Without a Tongue.” In 1895 he became the editor of the magazine, _Russkoye Bogatsvo_, and since that date the great story writer has definitely devoted himself to journalism, and has now become one of Russia’s greatest publicists. The Russian heart is essentially charitable and full of human kindness. Thoroughly democratic in their relations with one another, the Russian people have the misfortune to labour under the harshest political régime in Europe. Like many of his countrymen, Korolenko now devotes his life to the cause of the suffering and the downtrodden, and to helping those who are the victims of social and political injustice. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION v MAKAR’S DREAM 1 THE MURMURING FOREST 49 IN BAD COMPANY 89 THE DAY OF ATONEMENT 191 MAKAR’S DREAM MAKAR’S DREAM A CHRISTMAS STORY This dream was dreamed by poor Makar, who herded his calves in a stern and distant land, by that same Makar upon whose head all troubles are said to fall. Makar’s birth place was the lonely village of Chalgan, lost in the far forests of Yakutsk. His parents and grandparents had wrested a strip of land from the forest, and their courage had not failed even when the dark thickets still stood about them like a hostile wall. Rail fences began to stretch across the clearing; small, smoky huts began to crowd thickly upon it; hay and straw stacks sprang up; and at last, from a knoll in the centre of the encampment, a church spire had shot toward heaven like a banner of victory. Chalgan had become a village. But while Makar’s forbears had been striving with the forest, burning it with fire and hewing it with steel, they themselves had slowly become savage in their turn. They married Yakut women, spoke the language of the Yakuts, adopted their customs, and gradually in them the characteristics of the Great Russian race had been obliterated and lost. Nevertheless, my Makar firmly believed that he was a Russian peasant of Chalgan, and not a nomad Yakut. In Chalgan he had been born, there he had lived and there he meant to die. He was very proud of his birth and station, and when he wished to vilify his fellow-townsmen would call them “heathen Yakuts,” though if the truth must be told, he differed from them neither in habits nor manner of living. He seldom spoke Russian and, when he did, spoke it badly. He dressed in skins, wore “torbas” on his feet, ate dough-cakes and drank brick-tea, supplemented on holidays and special occasions with as much cooked butter as happened to be on the table before him. He could ride very skilfully on an ox, and when he fell ill he always summoned a wizard, who would go mad and spring at him, gnashing his teeth, hoping to frighten the malady out of his patient and so drive it away.