VERESТСHAGIN:¹

PAINTER, SOLDIER, TRAVELLER.

This is an extraordinary book. Seldom do we find in similar works so few pretensions, and at the same time so many topics of such real interest, such vivid mirth, and such agonizing pain. It is not an autobiography. The author forgets to give the exact date of his birth, the number of his sisters, brothers, cousins, and aunts. A few pages are devoted to his childhood, of which we gather pleasant impressions. For example:—

I had been given to learn by heart out of a geography book. My mother was sitting on a divan, my father was reading the newspaper in the adjoining drawing-room. I gave as an answer: “Air is a matrimonial body, having weight, and necessary both for animals and plants.” “What is that? Repeat it again.” “Air is a matrimonial body.” Mother laughs.

Upon this the father is summoned. Both parents laugh. But tears come into the poor child’s eyes, and the curtain is drawn on the scene.

A charming portrait is given of an old nurse whom the child loved more than anybody in the world—”more than father, mother, and brothers’’—and whose severest punishment consisted in the threat to leave. The type of that dear, loving, old creature is quite Russian, and only in Russia do I know of such affectionate relations between masters and servants. The first portrait the author gives of his child-connections is that of the beloved nurse. In fact, it is the only illustration given at all of his nearest and dearest.

The following chapter, “Incidents from the Life of a Hunter-Peasant,” is very charming in its extreme simplicity, and will doubtless interest every reader, young or old, whether of the so-called strong or so-called feeble sex. It is the narrative of an old hunter who was employed by Mr. Verestchagin’s father to supply his master’s table with game. With this finish the recollections of his childhood.

The author is already of age. He is twenty-one, and, armed with pencil and brush, he starts on his travels through the wide, wide world; and travel he does, to be sure, and with his keen, scrutinizing eye he seems to immediately grasp the ins and outs of every subject coming before him. His description of a religious sect, the “Duchobortzy,” might well be reproduced in extenso. Every page is full of charming and artless humour. Being utterly illiterate, these people learn their prayers by repeating them in turn. When one makes a mistake the others correct him: “That is not right.’’ “How should it be?” “Thus,” and then the prompter himself makes a slip, and is corrected on all hands. The author observed that “the mistakes are mostly made by men: the women know their prayers better, and the corrections come chiefly from their side.” When the whole stock of prayers is exhausted, and snoring is heard from the corners and comfortable places, then from praying they pass to singing. The author avoids giving a definite idea of that music, and, in fact, we are inclined to suspect that the performance might be more accurately called howling than singing. I cannot resist the temptation of quoting another passage referring to these dear grown-up and bearded babies. It sometimes happens that a good Duchoboretz “leaves out a long piece in the middle” of a prayer, and is not conscious of the omission till he comes to the end. After a little reflection he will say, “I seem to have left out something, for I have come to the end too soon.” Is it not charming?

In the year 1867 Verestchagin started for Central Asia, with the Governor-General of Turkestan, General Kaufmann, who left him entirely at liberty to travel where he pleased and to draw and paint what he pleased. Some of the sketches and pictures are reproduced in the present volumes. Turkestan was a horrible slave-trading market indeed; and, though Verestchagin obviously is afraid of being suspected of partiality in judging his country and countrymen, truth compels him to admit that (1.) the total number of slaves generally has decreased owing to the liberation of slaves in the territories annexed by Russia. (2.) The demand for fresh slaves has diminished, since they can no longer be disposed of in the annexed districts, and in Tashkent, Chodshent, and other towns in those parts the demand used to be considerable. (3.) There has also been a considerable decline in the slave trade in all the neighbouring uncivilized countries of Central Asia, because the inhabitants believe, not without reason, that the Russians may come any day and pay them a visit and mercilessly free the slaves, as they always do wherever they go. This belief introduces an element of uncertainty into all purchases and contracts, which has a very discouraging effect upon the whole trade. But it is not only the regular slaves that breathe more freely now: the poor and the oppressed everywhere begin to look boldly in the face of the capitalists, the gentlefolk, the ruling (local) classes, who are not a little put out thereby. And that other class of slaves, whose slavery is yet the most terrible of all— the mothers, wives, and daughters of the barbarians of Central Asia—do not they also already feel the slow but sure influence of the laws and civilization of the Kaffirs (“infidels’’) upon their position and their destiny? Yes, assuredly, and the proofs of this are not far to seek. A native was complaining to Verestchagin of all the changes introduced by the Russians. “The end of the world is coming,” he cried, with a gesture of despair, “the moment you beat your wife she threatens to go to the Russians.”

The chapters on India inserted in these two volumes are written by Mdme. Verestchagin, and undoubtedly form clever and charming pendants to those of her husband. Her descriptions are also full of observation and humour.

Our hotel (she says), although the best at Darjeeling, is not comfortable. The food is bad. One’s only consolation is the conviction that the proprietor is an excellent man. Not pleasant, however, to remain here long. As we proposed to travel into the interior of the country, Verestchagin paid a visit to the Ambassador of the King of Sikkim.

“Is it long you quitted England?” asked the stout Resident.—“A year ago,” replied Verestchagin.

“How is the Queen?”—“Quite well.”

“And her Ministers?”—“Quite well, also,” was Verestchagin’s comforting assurance.

The latter part of the work is dedicated by the author to the reminiscences of the Russo-Turkish war, in which he strives hard to avoid embellishments, and above all to prove his Olympian impartiality and objectivity. “No, decidedly, I cannot follow him in that direction. We cannot, we must not, love our country calmly, lazily. When our soul is filled with deep devotion, without which no great deed can ever be achieved, how can one hesitate, and weigh, and measure, and compare?” It is not given to us mortals to be absolutely just and absolutely accurate! Verestchagin is the Count Leon Tolstoy of painters; the same genius, the same fearlessness, the same craving for what they think—sometimes wrongly—to be the truth, and perhaps, occasionally, the same exaggerated touch of realism. Both are glorious products of Russian life, of whom their country may be proud.

O.K.

48, Dover-street, Nov. 3.  

1. “Vassili Verestchagin, Autobiographical. Sketches.” Translated by F. H. Peters. Two vols. (London: Richard Bentley and Son. 1887)