c.

For example, Gorky needed only to write some stories in which he
places before us beings belonging to the most miserable classes of
society, to be suddenly, and perhaps against his own will, elevated
to the role of prophet of a new gospel, of annunciator from whom
they were waiting for the Word, although one could also find the
Word in the anti-socialistic circles which he depicts. Another
contemporaneous author, Tchekoff, once wrote a story about the
precarious position of the workingman in the city; he showed how
this man, after he had become old and had gone back to his native
village, suffered even more misery than before instead of getting
the rest he had hoped for. Immediately an ardent controversy took
place between the two factions of the youth of that time, the
Populists and the Marxists. The former, defending the rural
population, accused the author of having exaggerated and of having
only superficially considered the question, while the others
triumphed, confident in the activity of the people of the city.

The literary critic, however, in carefully studying the works of
these authors, tried to get at the real meaning,--the idea between
the lines. Gorky's philosophy has often been discussed; a great many
men of letters have tried to unravel what there was of pessimism, of
indifference or of mystic idealism in the soul of Tchekoff. This
everlasting habit, not to say this mania, of analyzing the mind or
soul of an author in order to get at his conception, his personal
doctrine of life, often leads to partial and erroneous conclusions,
especially when, as in most cases, the critic has only a very vague
idea of the main current of thought which formed the genesis of the
work.

The hopes and emotions which are aroused by every original
expression in literature, show more than ever what hopes are based
upon its role, the mission which has devolved on it to serve life,
by formulating the facts of the ideal to be realized.

But what is this ideal? What are these ideal aspirations? Of what
elements are they made up? What is the state of mind of the great
majority of Russian "intellectuals" in the midst of the enmity which
compromises and menaces them?

Thanks to the window pierced by Peter the Great in the thick
Muscovite wall, the Russian "intellectuals" have begun to have a
general idea of European civilization. They have admired the beauty
of this culture, and the greatness of European political and soci