And then—
A loud report, and with a cry, the cry of a woman, one shrill despairing cry—
Or no, hang it—I can't consent to end up a story in that fashion, with the dead woman prone across the bed, the smoking pistol, with a jewel on the hilt, still clasped in her hand—the red blood welling over the white laces of her gown—while the two men gaze down upon her cold face with horror in their eyes. Not a bit. Let's end it like this:
"A shrill despairing cry—'Ed! Charlie! Come in here quick! Hurry! The steam coil has blown out a plug! You two boys quit talking and come in here, for heaven's sake, and fix it.'" And, indeed, if the reader will look back he will see there is nothing in the dialogue to preclude it. He was misled, that's all. I merely said that Mrs. Dangerfield had left her husband a few days before. So she had—to do some shopping in New York. She thought it mean of him to follow her. And I never said that Mrs. Dangerfield had any connection whatever with The Woman with whom Marsden was in love. Not at all. He knew her, of course, because he came from Brick City. But she had thought he was in Philadelphia, and naturally she was surprised to see him back in New York. That's why she exclaimed "Back!" And as a matter of plain fact, you can't pick up a revolver without its pointing somewhere. No one said he meant to fire it.
In fact, if the reader will glance back at the dialogue—I know he has no time to, but if he does—he will see that, being something of a snoopopath himself, he has invented the whole story.
III. Foreign Fiction in Imported Instalments.
Serge the Superman: A Russian Novel
(Translated, with a hand pump, out of the original Russian)
SPECIAL EDITORIAL NOTE, OR, FIT OF CONVULSIONS INTO
WHICH AN EDITOR FALLS IN INTRODUCING THIS SORT OF
STORY TO HIS READERS. We need offer no apology to
our readers in presenting to them a Russian novel.
There is no doubt that the future in literature lies
with Russia. The names of Tolstoi, of Turgan-something,
and Dostoi-what-is-it are household words in America.
We may say with certainty that Serge the Superman is
the most distinctly Russian thing produced in years.
The Russian view of life is melancholy and fatalistic.
It is dark with the gloom of the great forests of the
Volga, and saddened with the infinite silence of the
Siberian plain. Hence the Russian speech, like the
Russian thought, is direct, terse and almost crude in
its elemental power. All this appears in Serge the
Superman. It is the directest, tersest, crudest thing
we have ever seen. We showed the manuscript to a friend
of ours, a critic, a man who has a greater Command of
the language of criticism than perhaps any two men in
New York to-day. He said at once, "This is big. It is
a big thing, done by a big man, a man with big ideas,
writing at his very biggest. The whole thing has a
bigness about it that is—" and here he paused and
thought a moment and added—"big." After this he sat
back in his chair and said, "big, big, big," till we
left him. We next showed the story to an English critic
and he said without hesitation, or with very little,
"This is really not half bad." Last of all we read
the story ourselves and we rose after its perusal—itself
not an easy thing to do—and said, "Wonderful but
terrible." All through our (free) lunch that day we
shuddered.
CHAPTER I
As a child. Serge lived with his father—Ivan Ivanovitch—and his mother—Katrina Katerinavitch. In the house, too were Nitska, the serving maid. Itch, the serving man, and Yump, the cook, his wife.
The house stood on the borders of a Russian town. It was in the heart of Russia. All about it was the great plain with the river running between low banks and over it the dull sky.
Across the plain ran the post road, naked and bare. In the distance one could see a moujik driving a three-horse tarantula, or perhaps Swill, the swine-herd, herding the swine. Far away the road dipped over the horizon and was lost.
"Where does it go to?" asked Serge. But no one could tell him.
In the winter there came the great snows and the river was frozen and Serge could walk on it.
On such days Yob, the postman, would come to the door, stamping his feet with the cold as he gave the letters to Itch.
"It is a cold day," Yob would say.
"It is God's will," said Itch. Then he would fetch a glass of Kwas steaming hot from the great stove, built of wood, that stood in the kitchen.
"Drink, little brother," he would say to Yob, and Yob would answer, "Little Uncle, I drink your health," and he would go down the road again, stamping his feet with the cold.
Then later the spring would come and all the plain was bright with flowers and Serge could pick them. Then the rain came and Serge could catch it in a cup. Then the summer came and the great heat and the storms, and Serge could watch the lightning.
"What is lightning for?" he would ask of Yump, the cook, as she stood kneading the mush, or dough, to make slab, or pancake, for the morrow. Yump shook her knob, or head, with a look of perplexity on her big mugg, or face.
"It is God's will," she said.
Thus Serge grew up a thoughtful child.
At times he would say to his mother, "Matrinska (little mother), why is the sky blue?" And she couldn't tell him.
Or at times he would say to his father, "Boob (Russian for father), what is three times six?" But his father didn't know.
Each year Serge grew.
Life began to perplex the boy. He couldn't understand it. No one could tell him anything.
Sometimes he would talk with Itch, the serving man.
"Itch," he asked, "what is morality?" But Itch didn't know. In his simple life he had never heard of it.
At times people came to the house—Snip, the schoolmaster, who could read and write, and Cinch, the harness maker, who made harness.
Once there came Popoff, the inspector of police, in his blue coat with fur on it. He stood in front of the fire writing down the names of all the people in the house. And when he came to Itch, Serge noticed