Like Griboyédoff’s comedy, like Gontcharóff’s _Oblómoff_, and many other good things in Russian literature, this drama is so typically Russian that one is apt to overlook its broadly human signification. It seems to be typically Moscovite; but, change names and customs, change a few details and rise a bit higher or sink a bit lower in the strata of society; put, instead of the drunkard Lubím Tortsóff, a poor relation or an honest friend who has retained his common sense--and the drama applies to any nation and to any class of society. It is deeply human. This is what caused its tremendous success and made it a favourite on every Russian stage for fifty years. I do not speak, of course, of the foolishly exaggerated enthusiasm with which it was received by the so-called nationalists, and especially the Slavophiles, who saw in Lubím Tortsóff the personification of the “good old times” of Russia. The more sensible of Russians did not go to such lengths; but they understood what wonderful material of observation, drawn from real life, this and the other dramas of Ostróvskiy were offering. The leading review of the time was _The Contemporary_, and its leading critic, Dobrolúboff, wrote two long articles to analyse Ostróvskiy’s dramas, under the significant title of _The Kingdom of Darkness_; and when he had passed in review all the darkness which then prevailed in Russian life as represented by Ostróvskiy, he produced something which has been one of the most powerful influences in the whole subsequent intellectual development of the Russian youth. “THE THUNDERSTORM” One of the best dramas of Ostróvskiy is _The Thunderstorm_ (translated by Mrs. Constance Garnett as _The Storm_). The scene is laid in a small provincial town, somewhere on the upper Vólga, where the manners of the local trades-people have retained the stamp of primitive wildness. There is, for instance, one old merchant, Dikóy, very much respected by the inhabitants, who represents a special type of those tyrants whom Ostróvskiy has so well depicted. Whenever Dikóy has a payment to make, even though he knows perfectly well that pay he must, he stirs up a quarrel with the man to whom he is in debt. He has an old friend, Madame Kabanóva, and when he is the worse for drink, and in a bad temper, he always goes to her: “I have no business with you,” he declares, “but I have been drinking.” Following is a scene which takes place between them: _Kabanóva_: I really wonder at you; with all the crowd of folks in your house, not a single one can do anything to your liking. _Dikóy_: That’s so! _Kabanóva_: Come, what do you want of me? _Dikóy_: Well, talk me out of my temper. You’re the only person in the whole town who knows how to talk to me. _Kabanóva_: How have they put you into such a rage? _Dikóy_: I’ve been so all day since the morning. _Kabanóva_: I suppose they’ve been asking for money.