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(From the Novel What Can Be Done?)
Once more Vera Pavlovna has a dream, seemingly: She hears a voice—a voice oh so familiar to her now!—a voice from far away which comes yet nearer, yet nearer:
How grandly Nature
Shines over me!
How gleams the Sun!
How laughs the Field!
And Vera Pavlovna sees that it is so, that it is all so …
A cultivated field shines with a golden light; a plain is covered with flowers, hundreds, thousands of flowers are unfolded on the shrubbery which encompasses it, the woods which rise behind the shrubbery glow green and murmur, and they too are bright with flowers; fragrances waft from the field, from the meadow, from the shrubs, from the flowers abounding in the woods; birds flutter through the boughs and thousands of their voices come from the branches with their fragrance; and beyond the field, beyond the meadow, beyond the shrubs and woods can be seen more cultivated fields which glow in gold, and meadows covered with flowers, shrubs covered with flowers as far as the distant mountains covered with woods bright in the sun, and over their summits here and there, there and here, light, silver, gold, purple, transparent clouds shadow lightly the bright blue of the horizon with their iridescence; the sun has risen, nature is joyous and celebrant, sending light and warmth, fragrance and song, love and bliss into one’s breast, and a song of joy and bliss, love and goodness swells out of one’s breast—”Oh Earth, oh bliss! oh love! oh love, golden, beautiful, like morning clouds over the summits of those mountains!”
Oh Earth! Oh Sun!
Oh bliss! Oh joy!
Oh love, oh love.
So golden bright
As morning clouds
On distant heights!
“Do you know me now? Do you know I am good? But you do not know; none of you have yet seen me in all my beauty. See what was, what is, and what will be. Listen and see:
Gleams the glass of crimson wine,
Gleam the eyes of all the guests …
At the foot of the mountain on the edge of the forest among the blossoming shrubs of high thick hedges rises a castle.
“Let us go there.”—They walked on, as though flying. A magnificent banquet. Wine foams; the eyes of the guests shine. Noise, and whispers under the noise, laughter, and secretly, pressing of hands and at times a stealthy silent kiss. “A song! A song! There cannot be joy unconfined without a song!” The poet rises to his feet. His brow and his thought are touched by inspiration, and nature tells to him her secrets, history reveals to him its intent, and the centuries are heard in his song in a succession of scenes.
1.
(The first scene described by the poet is in the Middle East where flocks graze against a background of olives, palms, and snowcapped mountains. A Beautiful Woman speaks to the poet and says that she does not exist here; this is the time of Astarte, a goddess who is the slave of her master and whose task in life is to please him.)
2.
(The poet describes the beautiful city of Athens, and its magnificent goddess, Aphrodite. But the Athenians do not respect women and she too is half a slave, and so in spite of her beauty the Beautiful Woman says she is not in Athens.)
3.
(The European Middle Ages and the time of the Cult of the Fair Lady. Here the knights either worship women at a distance or abuse the peasant girls who are their vassals. The ideal woman of the time is modest, gentle, delicate, and beautiful, more beautiful than Astarte or Aphrodite, but her beauty is cast over with melancholy and pain. “The earth,” she says “is a vale of tears.” The Beautiful Woman says she has no place here.)
4.
(The poet summarizes the status of women in these ages: when women were prized for beauty alone, then Astarte ruled. When Aphrodite ruled men women were admired as beautiful objects, but men still refused to accept them as human beings. When woman was pure, but untouchable on one hand, and the object for men’s lust on the other, then it was the time of the melancholy kingdom of the Virgin. The first man to recognize that woman was also a human being was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) as he described her in his book, La Nouvelle Héloise. Now the world has begun to understand the nature of woman and to sense what she might mean in the future.)
5.
(Vera Pavlovna sees that she is identical with the Beautiful Woman when she is loved, more beautiful than any of the goddesses of the past).
6.
(Women can come into their own only when men see them as equals, not as property. Then a woman loves a man as he loves her; then he has no rights over her and she none over him. This is the source of women’s greatest charm. Without equality, the love of women as objects of beauty is evil. But as yet, her kingdom is small, and it will reach its fullness only in the future.)
7.
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8.
“Oh, my love, now I know all your Freedom; I know that it will come; but what will it be like? How will men live then?”
“I alone cannot tell you that, to do so I need the help of my older sister—she who long ago appeared to you. She is my mistress and my servant. I can be only what she makes me; but she also serves me. Sister, come to our aid.” Then the sister and the bride of her bride-grooms appeared: “Greetings, my sister,” she says to the empress. “And are you here too, my sister?” she says to Vera Pavlovna, “Do you want to see how people will live when the empress, my ward, reigns over all? Look then.”
A building, an enormous, enormous building, such as exists now in few of the largest capitals—or no, there is now not one like it! It stands in the midst of cultivated fields and meadows, orchards and groves. There are fields of grain, but not such as we have now, but dense, dense, rich, rich. Is it really wheat? Who has ever seen such ears? Who has ever seen such grain? Only in a hothouse could one grow such ears with such grain. Those fields, those are our fields; but such flowers grow now only in our hothouses. Orchards, lemon and orange, peach and apricot—how could they grow in an open field? Ah, but those columns which surround them, open for the summer; yes, this is a hothouse open for the summer. Those woods—they are ours: oak and linden, maple and elm—yes, the woods are as they are now; but they have very solicitous care, there is not one tree among them that is diseased, but the woods are the same—only they have remained as they are now. But that building—what is its architecture? There is nothing like it now; no, there is one which is reminiscent of it—the palace which stands on the hill at Sydenham; iron and glass, iron and glass—and nothing more. No, this is not all: this is only the framework of the building; its external walls; there within is the actual building, an immense building: it is enclosed by this iron and crystal building, as though in a shell; it forms broad galleries around it at all levels. How airy is the architecture in the interior, what slender pillars between the windows—and the windows are huge, wide, the whole height of the story! Its stone walls are like a row of pilasters forming a frame for the windows which look onto the galleries. But what kind of floors and ceilings are these? Of what are the doors and window frames made? What is this? Silver? Platinum? And the furniture is made of the same substance—wooden furniture is only a caprice, for the sake of novelty—but out of what are made the rest of the furniture, the ceilings and floors?
“Try to move this chair,” says the elder empress. This metal furniture is lighter than ours made of walnut. But what kind of metal is it? Ah, now I know. Sasha had shown me a sheet of it, it was light like glass, and earrings and brooches are made of it, yet, Sasha said that sooner or later aluminum would take the place of wood, and also stone. And how richly everything is adorned here! Aluminum can be seen everywhere and all the intervals between the windows are hung with great mirrors. And what rugs on the floor! In this hall half of the floor is uncovered, and it too is made of aluminum.
“You can see it is unpolished, so that it would not be slippery—that is where the children play with their elders; and in the other hall the floor is also without rugs—for dancing.”
And everywhere there are tropical trees and flowers; the entire building is a great greenhouse.
But who lives in this great building which is more splendid than palaces?
“Many people live here; walk on and we will see them.”
They go onto a balcony which projects from the upper floor of one of the galleries. How could it have been that Vera Pavlovna had not seen them earlier?
“In the fields are groups of people; everywhere are men and women, the elderly, the young, and children together. But most of them are young; there are few old men and yet fewer old women, more children than old people, but still they are not numerous. More than half of the children are at home where they maintain the quarters: they do almost all such work, for they love it; with them are a few old women. And there are few old men and women because they age only late in life, here life is healthy and tranquil; this maintains their youth.”
The groups working in the fields are almost all singing; what kind of work are they doing? Ah, they are harvesting grain. How quickly their work goes! And of course their work goes quickly and why should they not sing! Machines do almost everything for them—cutting and binding the sheaves and carrying them away—people only walk about, ride, and operate the machines. And how conveniently they have arranged their work; the day is sultry, but this means nothing to them: over that part of the meadow where they are working a great cloth has been spread; as their work advances so does it—how they have arranged a cool place for themselves! Why should they not work joyfully and quickly and sing at their work! I would like to join them in the harvest! And songs, always songs—unknown songs, new songs; but now they have remembered one of ours; I recognize it:
We will live together nobly,
These people are our friends,
Whatever your heart desires,
With them it will be yours …
But now the work is done and everyone is proceeding toward the building.
“Let us enter the hall once more to see how they will dine,” says the elder sister. They enter the largest of the great halls. Half of it is full of tables—the tables are set—how numerous they are!
“How many will come to eat?”
“A thousand people or more: Not everyone is here; he who desires so may eat alone.”
Those old women and men and children who did not go into the fields have prepared all of this.
“Cooking, domestic work, cleaning—this is too light work for the others to do it,” says the elder sister. “It can be done by those who are too young or cannot do anything else.”
The table service is excellent. Everything is made of aluminum and crystal; along the center of the broad tables are vases with flowers, the dishes are on the table, the workers enter and sit down to eat, both they and those who prepared the dinner.
“And who will wait on the tables?”
“When? During the meal? And why? After all, there are only five or six dishes: those which must be hot are placed on areas which do not cool; you see in those sunken areas containers with boiling water,” said the elder sister.
“You live well, you enjoy good food, do you have such dinners as this often?”
“A few times each year.”
“But this is their usual meal; he who wishes may have yet better food, but this is at an extra cost; but he who demands nothing other than what is given to all, pays nothing. And thus it is everywhere: those who want only what is common to all receive without cost, but for every special thing or whim there is a cost.”
“Is this really us? Is this our land? I heard one of our songs and they are speaking Russian.”
“Yes, you can see a river not far away—that is the Oka; these people, like you and I, are Russian!”
“And have you done all this?”
“It has been done for me, and I inspired its doing. I inspired its perfection, but it was done by her, my elder sister, she is a laborer, while I live for pleasure.”
“And will everyone live like this?”
“Everyone,” said the elder sister, “for everyone will have eternal spring and summer, eternal joy for all. But we have showed you only the end of my half of the day, labor, and the beginning of her half; we will look upon these people once more in the evening two months from now.”
9.
The flowers have begun to fade; the leaves have begun to fall from the trees; the picture has become doleful.
“You see, it is such a dreary scene and it would be dreary to live here,” says the younger sister. “I would not want to do that.”
“The halls are empty and no one is in the fields and orchards,” says the elder sister. “This I have done at the request of your sister, the empress.”
“Is the palace in fact now vacant?”
“Yes, it is cold and damp, why remain here? Out of the 2,000 who were here, only ten or twenty independent people have felt that it would lend pleasant variety to their lives to linger here in the country to observe the northern autumn in solitude. In a short time new people will come, small parties of those who love winter walks to spend a few days with winter diversions.”
“But where are they now?”
“Any place where it is warm and pleasant,” says the elder sister. “When there was much work and it was pleasant here many guests came from the south to spend the summer; we were in a building where all the residents were of your kind; but many buildings have been built for guests, in others live foreign visitors and their hosts together, those who like and have chosen such company. But although you have received multitudes of guests and workers for the summer, you yourselves for seven or eight of the bad months of the year go to the south—wherever one desires. But there is a special country which most of your people visit. This district is called New Russia.”
“Is this where Odessa and Kherson are located?”
“In your time yes, but now see where you will find New Russia.”
Mountains adorned with orchards; among the mountains are narrow valleys and broad plains.
“These mountains were formerly barren cliffs,” says the elder sister. “Now they are covered with a thick layer of soil, and on them in the midst of the orchards are groves of the tallest trees; further below in the humid defiles are coffee plantations; higher there are date and fig groves; vineyards are interspersed with sugar cane plantations; in the fields also grows wheat, but rice is more common.”
“What land is this?”
“Let us climb a minute more and you will see its boundaries.”
In the distant northeast are two rivers which merge directly to the east from where Vera Pavlovna stands in contemplation; further south but still in a southeast direction is a long and broad gulf; the land extends far to the south, expanding still more between the gulf and a long narrow bay which forms its western boundary. Between the narrow western gulf and the sea which is far to the northwest is a narrow isthmus.
“But are we in the center of a desert?” says Vera Pavlovna in astonishment.
“Yes, in the midst of a former desert; but now as you see all of the space from the north from that great river on the northeast has been transformed into such a land as that strip of land along the sea to the north of us which was said to be in olden days and is once more ‘a land of milk and honey.’ We are not far, as you can see, from the southern boundary of the cultivated territory, the mountain district of the peninsula is still sand, a barren steppe, which all the peninsula was in your time; every year people, you Russians, are pushing back the edge of the desert to the south. Others work in different countries: there is much room for all and work enough, and life is spacious and rich. Indeed, from the great northeastern river all the territory to the south including half of the peninsula is green and flowering, great buildings, as in the north, stand two or three miles apart, like innumerable great chessmen on an enormous board.”
“Let us visit one of them,” says the elder sister.
The same enormous crystal building, but its columns are white.
“They are made of aluminum,” says the elder sister, “because it is very hot here and the white metal becomes less heated in the sun, and thus although it is more expensive it is more convenient.”
See what else they have devised here: at some distance around the crystal palace are rows of slender, very tall columns, and from them extends a white cloth high above the palace, covering it completely and stretching for a third of a mile beyond it.
“It is constantly sprinkled with water,” says the elder sister. “You can see a little fountain rising out of every column above the cloth which sprinkles water in its vicinity so that it is cool here; you can see that they alter the temperature as they wish.”
“But what of those who like the heat and the bright local sun?”
“You can see pavilions and tents in the distance. Everyone can live as he desires; I am leading them to that and it is for this alone that I work.”
“Does this mean that there are cities for those who like them?”
“There are not many such people; there are fewer cities than formerly—they exist almost entirely as centers of communication and transportation, at the best harbors, and other central points, but they are larger, more splendid than those of old; everyone visits them for the sake of variety; the greater part of their inhabitants are constantly changing and visit them to work for short periods of time.”
“But what of those who want to live in them permanently?”
“They live as you live in your Petersburgs, Parises, or Londons—why not? Who would hinder them? Everyone lives as he wishes; but the great majority, 99 people out of 100, live as your sister and I have shown you, because it is more pleasant and advantageous. But go into the palace, it is already rather late and it is time to observe the inhabitants.”
“But first I want to know, how was this done?”
“What was done?”
“The manner in which this barren desert was transformed into a fertile land where almost all of us now spend two-thirds of our time.”
“How was it done? Is it so difficult to understand? It was not done in one year, not in ten years. I advanced the work but slowly over a long period of time. From the northeast from the banks of the great river, from the northwest from the great sea—they have many powerful machines—they brought clay to bind the sands, dug canals, introduced irrigation, and vegetation appeared and the air became more humid; they took one step after another, a few miles at a time, sometimes only a mile a year, and now they are advancing to the south, and what is so unusual about this? They have only become intelligent and begun to employ their great strength and resources which were formerly wasted and indeed were harmfully turned inward. It is not in vain that I work and teach. It was only difficult for people to understand what was useful, for in your time they were still savages, so coarse, cruel, and thoughtless but I taught and taught them; and when they began to understand it was not difficult for them to work. I make no great demands, as you know. You are doing something in my fashion, for me—is that really bad?”
“No.”
“Of course it is not. Remember your workshop, did you have many resources to build it? More than others?”
“No, and what were our resources?”
“But your seamstresses had ten times more conveniences, twenty times more pleasures in life, and only one hundredth of the pains than those who had the same resources as you. You have proved that in your time people can live very freely. One must only be judicious and be able to manage and discover how most advantageously to employ one’s resources.”
“Yes, yes. I know that.”
“Go to see the way that people will live some time after they began to understand what you understood long ago.”
10.
They entered the building. The same enormous and splendid hall. It was evening and there were great diversion and merriment, for the sun had set three hours earlier: it was the time for merriment. How brilliantly the hall was lighted, but how was it done? Neither candelabras nor chandeliers were visible—ah there it was!—in the dome was a large flat area made of opaque glass from which streamed light—as it should be: precisely like sunshine, white, bright, and soft—it was electrical lighting. There were about one thousand people in the hall, but it could easily hold three times as many.
“And it sometimes happens that guests come,” said the radiant and beautiful woman, “sometimes there are more.”
“Then what is the occasion? Isn’t this a grand ball? Is this simply an ordinary evening?”
“Certainly.”
“But by our standards this would be a royal ball, the women’s attire is so magnificent, but this is a different time as can be seen from the fashions. Several of the women are wearing our styles, but this is obviously for novelty, in jest; yes, they mock their own costumes; others are wearing the most varied apparel, of different eastern and southern styles, all of them more graceful than ours; but the most common dress resembled that worn by Greek women during the refined Athenian period—light and free, and the men are also wearing full, long robes free at the waist, something like robes: it is apparent that this is their usual domestic dress and how modest and beautiful it is! How softly and delicately it outlines the body, how it enhances the movement of the body! And what an orchestra is playing, more than one hundred men and women performing, but particularly, what a choir!”
“Yes, in all of Europe you did not have ten voices to compare with a hundred which are in this hall alone, and there are as many in every hall: they live differently, both in good health and with refinement, and therefore their chests are better and their voices too,” said the radiant empress.
But the orchestra members and the singers change constantly: some leave while others take their place; they leave to dance, or the dancers take their place.
This is their evening, their common, ordinary evening; every evening they amuse themselves and dance; but when else have I seen such energetic merriment? But why should their merriment not be so energetic, so unknown to us? Their work was completed in the morning. He who has not worked to his satisfaction is not ready to feel the fullness of merriment. And now the merriment of simple people, when they find time to divert themselves is more joyous, lively, and unconstrained than ours; but our simple people do not have the means to amuse themselves, but here the resources are richer than with us; and the merriment of our simple people is shadowed by the recollection of inconveniences and deprivations, of poverty and suffering, shadowed by the premonition of what is to come—it is a passing moment to forget need and misery—and can need and misery be completely forgotten? Will not the sands of the desert be overwhelming? Will the miasmas of the marsh not infect the little strip of good land with its good air lying between the desert and the marsh? But here there are no recollections, no fears of need or misery; here there are only recollections of free labor granted willingly, with satisfaction, good will, and pleasure, and the anticipation of more to come in the future. What a comparison! And besides: our working people have strong nerves and therefore they are prepared for much merriment, but their nerves are crude and insensitive. But here their nerves are strong, as with our working people, and they are well developed, impressionable, as are ours; and readiness for merriment, a healthy, strong thirst for it, which we do not have, and which comes only from great health and physical labor, is united in these people with a delicacy of feelings which we possess too; they have all our moral development as well as the physical development of our working people; it is understandable that their merriment, their pleasures, their passions—are more lively, more vigorous, more expansive, more voluptuous than ours. Happy people!
No, now people do not know what authentic merriment is, because such a life is not yet possible which is essential for it, and there are not yet such people. Only such people could amuse themselves and know all the ecstasy of pleasure! How they glow with health and strength, how handsome and graceful they are, how energetic and expressive are their features! They are all happy, beautiful people leading free lives of labor and pleasure—happy people!
Half of the people are amusing themselves in the enormous hall, and where are the others?
“Where are the others?” says the radiant empress. “They are everywhere; some are in the theater, they are actors, others are musicians, others are spectators, as each wishes; some are dispersed in auditoriums, museums, and libraries; some stroll in the gardens, some are in their rooms to rest alone or with their children, but most of them, most of them—that is my secret. You saw in the hall how checks were blushing, eyes shining; you saw how some left and others arrived—it is I who drew them away, here the room of every man and woman is my refuge, in them my mysteries are inviolable, curtains on the doors, luxuriant carpets which swallow sounds, there it is quiet, there it is secret; they have returned—it is I who have recalled them from the kingdom of my mysteries to light merriment. Here rule I.”
“Here rule I. Here everything is for me! Labor prepares freshness of feeling and strength for me, merriment is to prepare for me, and rest after me. Here I am the goal of life, here I am all of life.”
11.
“My sister holds the greatest happiness in life,” said the elder sister, “but you see here any kind of happiness that anyone could need. Everyone lives here in a manner that would be impossible to better, here everyone has complete freedom, boundless freedom.”
“What we have shown you will not soon come into being as you saw it. Many generations will pass away before what you have sensed will be realized. No, not many generations: my work goes rapidly, every year more rapidly, but still you will not enter my sister’s completed kingdom; but at least you have seen it, you know the future. It is radiant, it is beautiful. Tell everyone: this is what will be in the future, the future is radiant and beautiful. Love it, strive for it, work for it, bring it nearer, bring from it what you can into the present: your life will be as radiant and good, full of happiness and pleasure, depending how much of the future you can bring into it. Strive toward it, work for it, bring it nearer, bring from it into the present all that you can.”
(1862) Translated by Leland Fetzer, edited by A.L.