Read Ebook: Sämtliche Werke 9-10: Die Brüder Karamasoff by Dostoyevsky Fyodor Merezhkovsky Dmitry Sergeyevich Contributor Moeller Van Den Bruck Arthur Editor Rahsin E K Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 5215 lines and 396498 words, and 105 pages

I fear in my former letter I made some rather disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, but I want to take them all back. Life is a series of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on which I crossed seems a veritable floating palace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing only I am certain--I shall never, never have the courage to face the return journey.

Apart from the glory of the scenery the journey leaves much to be desired, and the weather, being exceedingly stormy since we left the ice field behind, has added greatly to our trials. The accommodations on the boat are strictly limited, and it is crowded with fishermen going north to the Labrador, and with patients for the Mission Hospital. As they come on in shoals at each harbour the refrain persistently runs through my head, "Will there be beds for all who come?" But the answer, alas, does not fit the poem. Far from there being enough and to spare, I know of two at least of my fellow passengers who took their rest in the hand basins when not otherwise wanted. Tables as beds were a luxury which only the fortunate could secure. Almost the entire space on deck is filled with cargo of every description, from building lumber to live-stock. While the passengers number nearly three hundred, there are seating accommodations on four tiny wooden benches without backs, for a dozen, if packed like sardines. Barrels of flour, kerosene, or molasses provide the rest. Although somewhat hard for a succession of days, these latter are saved from the deadly ill of monotony by the fact that as they are discharged and fresh taken on, such vantage-points have to be secured anew from day to day; and one learns to regard with equanimity if not with thankfulness what the gods please to send.

There are many sad, seasick souls strewn around. If cleanliness be next to godliness, then there is little hope of this steamer making the Kingdom of Heaven. One habit of the men is disgusting; they expectorate freely over everything but the ocean. The cold outside is so intense as to be scarcely endurable, while the closeness of the atmosphere within is less so. These are a few of the minor discomforts of travel to a mission station; the rest can be better imagined than described. If, to the Moslem, to be slain in battle signifies an immediate entrance into the pleasures of Paradise, what should be the reward of those who suffer the vagaries of this northern ocean, and endure to the end?

My trunk is lost. In the excitement of carpentering incidental to the cloudburst, the crew of the train omitted to drop it off at Come-by-Chance. I am informed that it has returned across the country to St. John's. If I had not already been travelling for a fortnight, or if Heaven had endowed me with fewer inches so that my clothing were not so exclusively my own, the problem of the interim till the next boat would be simpler.

I have had my first, and I may add my last, experience of "brewis," an indeterminate concoction much in favour as an article of diet on this coast. The dish consists of hard bread and codfish boiled together in a copious basis of what I took to be sea-water. "On the surface of the waters" float partially disintegrated chunks of fat salt pork. I am not finicking. I could face any one of these articles of diet alone; but in combination, boiled, and served up lukewarm in a soup plate for breakfast, in the hot cabin of a violently rolling little steamer, they take more than my slender stock of philosophy to cope with. Yet they save the delicacy for the Holy Sabbath. The only justification of this policy that I can see is that, being a day of rest, their stomachs can turn undivided and dogged attention to the process of digestion.

Did I say "day of rest"? The phrase is utterly inadequate. These people are the strictest of Sabbatarians. The Puritan fathers, whom we now look back upon with a shivery thankfulness that our lot did not fall among them, would, and perhaps do, regard them as kindred spirits. But they are earnest Christians, with a truly uncomplaining selflessness of life.

I have at last arrived at the back of beyond. We should have steamed right past the entrance of our harbour if the navigation had been in my hands. You make straight for a great headland jutting out into the Atlantic, when the ship suddenly takes a sharp turn round an abrupt corner, and before you know it, you are advancing into the most perfect of landlocked harbours. A great cliff rises on the left,--Quirpon Point they call it,--and clinging to its base like an overgrown limpet is a tiny cottage, with its inevitable fish stage. Farther along are more houses; then a white church with a pointed spire, and a bright-green building near by, while across the path is a very pretty square green school. Next are the Mission buildings in a group. Beyond them come more small houses--"Little Labrador" I learned later that this group is called, because the people living there have almost all come over from the other side of the Straits of Belle Isle.

The ship's ladder was dropped as we came to anchor opposite the small Mission wharf. The water is too shallow to allow a large steamer to go into it, but the hospital boat, the Northern Light, with her draft of only eight feet, can easily make a landing there. We scrambled over the side and secured a seat in the mail boat. Before we knew it four hearty sailors were sweeping us along towards the little dock. Here, absolutely wretched and forlorn, painfully conscious of crumpled and disordered garments, I turned to face the formidable row of Mission staff drawn up in solemn array to greet us. As the doctor-in-charge stepped forward and with a bland smile hoped I had had a "comfortable journey," and bade me welcome to St. Antoine, with a prodigious effort I contorted my features into something resembling a grin, and limply shook his outstretched hand. To-morrow I mean to make enquiries about retiring pensions for Mission workers!

No one had much sympathy with me over the loss of my trunk. They laughed and said I would be fortunate if it appeared by the end of the summer. You had better send me a box by freight with some clothing in it; I otherwise shall have to live in bed, or seek admission to hospital as a "chronic."

How perfectly dear of you to have a letter awaiting me at the Orphanage. Regardless of manners I fell to and devoured it, while all the "little oysters stood and waited in a row." Like the walrus, with a few becoming words I introduced myself as their future guardian, but never a word said they. As, led by a diminutive maid, I passed from their gaze I heard an awe-struck whisper, "IT'S gone upstairs!"

In answer to my questions the little maid informed me that the last mistress had left by the boat I had just missed, and that since then the children had been in her charge, with such help and supervision as the various members of the Mission staff could give. I therefore felt it was "up to me" to make a start, and I delicately enquired when the next meal was due. An exhaustive exploration of the larder revealed two herrings, one undoubtedly of very high estate. As the children looked fairly plump, I concluded that they had only been on such meagre diet since the departure of the last "mistress." The barrenness of the larder suggested a fruitful topic of conversation with which to win the confidence of these staring, open-mouthed children, and I therefore tenderly asked what they would most like to eat, supposing IT were there. One and all affirmed that "swile" meat was a delicacy such as their souls loved--and repeated questions could elucidate no further. Subsequently, on making enquiries of one of the Mission staff, I thought I detected a look which led me to suppose that I had not yet acquired the correct pronunciation of the word. We dined off the herring of lowly origin, and consigned the other to the garbage pail. Nerve as well as skill, I can assure you, is required to divide one herring into thirty-six equal parts. There is no occasion for alarm. I have not the slightest intention of starving these infants. To-morrow I go on a foraging expedition to the Mission commissariat department , and then the fat years shall succeed the lean ones.

To-night I am too tired to do more, and there is a quite absurd longing to see some one's face again. The coming year looks very long and very dreary, and although I know I shall grow to love these children, yet, oh, I wish they did not stare so when one has to blink so hard to keep the tears from falling.

Morning! And the children may stare all they like. I no longer need to repress youthful emotions. All the same it is a trifle disconcerting. I had chosen, as I thought, a very impressive portion of Scripture for Prayers, and the children were as quiet as mice. But they never let their eyes wander from me for a single moment, until I began to feel I ought at least to have a smut on the tip of my nose.

The alluring advertisement of Newfoundland, as "the coolest country on the Atlantic seaboard in the summer," is all too painfully true. It is very, very cold at present, and the sun, if sun there be, is safely ensconced behind an impenetrable bank of fog. If this is summer weather, what will the winter be!

I started to write this to you in the morning, but the day has been one long series of interruptions. The work is all new to me and not exactly what I expected, but the spice of variety is not lacking. I find it very hard to understand these children and it is evident from their faces that they fail to comprehend my meaning. Yet I have a lurking suspicion that when it is an order to be obeyed, their desire to understand is not overwhelming. The children are supposed to do the work of the Home under my superintendency, the girls undertaking the housework and the boys the outside "chores." Apparently from all I hear my predecessor was a strict disciplinarian, an economical manager, an expert needlewoman, and everything I should be and am not. The sewing simply appalls me! I confess that stitching for three dozen children of all sizes had not entered into my calculations as one of the duties of a "missionary"! Yet of course I realize they must be clad as well as taught. What a pity that the climate will not allow of a simple loin cloth and a string of beads. And how infinitely more becoming. Then, too, how much easier would be the food problem were we dusky Papuans dwelling in the far-off isles of the sea. This country produces nothing but fish, and we have to plan our food supplies for a year in advance. How much corn-meal mush will David eat in twelve months? And if David eats so much in twelve months, how much will Noah, two months younger, eat in the same period of time? If one herring satisfies thirty-six, how many dozen will a herring and a half feed? Picture me with a cold bandage round my head seeking to emulate Hoover.

A little mite has just come to the door to inform me that her dress has "gone abroad." Seeing my mystified look, she enlightened me by holding up a tattered garment which had all too evidently "gone abroad" almost beyond recall. Throwing the food problem to the winds I set myself with a businesslike air to sew together the ragged threads. A second knock brought me the cheerful tidings that the kitchen fire had languished from lack of sustenance. Now I had previously in my most impressive tones commanded one of the elder boys to attend to this matter, and he had promptly departed, as I thought, to "cleave the splits." Searching for him I found this industrious youth lying on his back complacently contemplating the heavens. To my remonstrance he somewhat indignantly remarked that he was only "taking a spell." A really magnificent and grandiloquent appeal to the boy's sense of honour and a homily on the dignity of labour were abruptly terminated by shrill cries resounding from the house. Rushing in, I was informed that Noah was "bawling" , having jammed his fingers in trying to "hist" the window. In this country children never cry; they always "bawl."

I foresee that the life of a Superintendent of an Orphan Asylum is not a simple one, and that I shall be in no danger of being "carried to the skies" on a "flowery bed of ease." Certain I am that there will only be opportunity to write to you at "scattered times"; so for the present, fare thee well.

You see before you, or you would if my very obvious instead of merely my astral body were in your presence, a changed and sobered being. I have made the acquaintance of the Labrador fly, and he has made mine. The affection is all on his side. Mosquito, black fly, sand fly--they are all alike cannibals. You have probably heard the old story about the difference between the Labrador and the New Jersey mosquito? The Labrador species can be readily distinguished by the black patch between his eyes about the size of a man's hand. Of the lot I prefer the mosquito. He at least is open about his evil intentions. The black fly darts at you quietly, settles down on an un-get-at-able spot, and sucks your blood. If I did not find my appetite so unimpaired, I should fancy this morning I was suffering from an acute attack of mumps.

Mumps is at the moment in our midst, and as is generally the case has fallen on the poorest of the community. In this instance it is a widow by the name of Kinsey, who has six children, and lives in a miserable hovel. More of her anon. Her twelve-year-old boy comes to the Home daily to get milk for the wretched baby, whom we had heard was down with the disease. When he came this morning I told him to stay outdoors while we fetched the milk, because I knew how sketchy are the precautions of his ilk against carrying infection. "No fear, miss," he assured me. "The baby was terrible bad last night, but he's all clear this morning."

But to return to the Kinsey parent. She had eight children. The Newfoundlanders are a prolific race, and life is consequently doubly hard on the women. Her husband died last fall, leaving her without a sou, and no roof over her head. The Mission gave her a sort of shack, and took two of her kiddies into the Home. The place was too crowded at the time to take any more. The doctor then wrote to the orphanages at the capital presenting the problem, and asking that they take a consignment of children. The Church of England Orphanage, of which denomination the mother is a member, was full; and the other one, which has just had a gift of beautiful buildings and grounds, "regretted they could not take any of the children, as their orphanage was exclusively for their denomination." The mother did not respond to the doctor's ironic suggestion that she should "turncoat" under the press of circumstances.

They tell a story here about Kinsey, the late and unlamented. Last spring a steamer heading north on Government business sighted a fishing punt being rowed rapidly towards it, the occupant waving a flag. The captain ordered, "Stop her," thinking that some acute emergency had arisen on the land during the long winter. A burly old chap cased in dirt clambered deliberately over the rail.

"Well, what's up?" asked the captain testily. "Can't you see you're keeping the steamer?"

"Have you got a plug or so of baccy you could give me, skipper? I hasn't had any for nigh a month, and it do be wonderful hard."

I have the greatest admiration for the women of this coast. They work like dogs from morning till nightfall, summer and winter, with "ne'er a spell," as one of them told me quite cheerfully. The men are out on the sea in boats, which at least is a life of variety, and in winter they can go into the woods for firewood. The women hang forever over the stove or the washtub, go into the stages to split the fish, or into the gardens to grow "'taties." Yet oddly enough, there is less illiteracy among the women than among the men.

Such a nice girl is here from Adlavik as maid in the hospital. Rhoda Macpherson is her name. She told me the other day that one winter the doctor of the station near her asked the men to clear a trail down a very steep hill leading to the village, as the dense trees made the descent dangerous for the dogs. Weeks went by and the men did nothing. Finally three girls, with Rhoda as leader, took their axes every Sunday afternoon and went out and worked clearing that road. In a month it was done. The doctor now calls it "Rhoda's Randy."

Yesterday afternoon I was out with my camera. A crowd of children in a disjointed procession had collected in front of the hospital, and the patients on the balconies were delightedly craning their necks. A biting blast was blowing, but the children, clad in white garments, looked oblivious to wind and weather. It was a Sunday-School picnic. A dear old fisherman was with them, evidently the leader.

"What's it all about?" I asked.

"We've come to serenade the sick, miss. 'Tis little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children, sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was "Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old fellow expressed it.

In the many weeks since I saw you--and it seems a lifetime--I have forgotten to mention one important item of news. Every properly appointed settlement along this coast has its cemetery. This place boasts two. With your predilection for epitaphs you would be content. The prevailing mode appears to be clasped hands under a bristling crown; but all the same that sort of thing makes a more "cheerful" graveyard than those gloomily beautiful monuments with their hopeless "" that you remember in the museum at Athens. There is one here which reads:

Memory of John Hill who Died December 30th. 1889

Weep not, dear Parents, For your loss 'tis My etarnal gain May Christ you all take up the Cross that we Should meat again.

The spelling may not always be according to Webster, but the sentiments portray the love and hope of a God-fearing people unspoiled by the roughening touch of civilization.

I must to bed. Stupidly enough, this climate gives me insomnia. Probably it is the mixture of the cold and the long twilight , and the ridiculous habit of growing light again at about three in the morning. I am beginning to have a fellow feeling with the chickens of Norway, poor dears!

I want to violently controvert your disparaging remarks about this "insignificant little island." Do you realize that this same "insignificant little island" is four times bigger than Scotland, and that it has under its dominion a large section of Labrador? If, as the local people say, "God made the world in five days, made Labrador on the sixth, and spent the seventh throwing stones at it," then a goodly portion of those stones landed by mischance in St. Antoine. Indeed, Le Petit Nord and Labrador are so much alike in climate, people, and conditions that this part of the island is often designated locally as Labrador . The traveller who described Newfoundland as a country composed chiefly of ponds with a little land to divide them from the sea, at least cannot be impeached for unveracity. In this northern part even that little is rendered almost impenetrable in the summer-time by the thick under-brush, known as "tuckamore," and the formidable swarms of mosquitoes and black flies. All the inhabitants live on the coast, and the interior is only travelled over in the winter with komatik and dogs.

When I look about me and see this poverty, the ignorance born of lack of opportunity, the suffering, the dirt, and degradation which are in so large a measure no fault of these poor folk, I am overwhelmed at the wealth of opportunities. Here at least every talent one has to offer counts for double what it would at home.

Thousands of fishermen come from the south each spring to take part in the summer's fishery. The Labrador "liveyeres," who remain on the coast all the year round, often have only little one-roomed huts made of wood and covered with sods. In the winter the northern people move up the bays and go "furring." Both the Indians and Eskimos are diminishing in numbers, and the former at the present time do not amount to more than three or four thousand persons--and of these the Montagnais tribe make up more than half. The Moravian missionaries have toiled untiringly amongst the Eskimos, and assuredly not for any earthly reward. They go out as young men and practically spend their whole life on the coast, their wives being selected and sent out to them from home!

The work of this Mission is among the white settlers. In the Home we have only one pure Eskimo, a few half-breeds , and the remainder are of English descent. Almost all are from Labrador.

I often fancy that I must surely have slept the sleep of Rip Van Winkle. When he woke he found that the world had marched ahead a hundred years. With me the process is reversed. I am almost inclined to yield a grudging agreement to the transmigrationalists, and believe that I am re-living one of my former existences. For the part of the country in which I have awakened is a generation or so behind the world in which we live. There is no education worthy of the name, in many places no schools at all, and in others half-educated teachers eking out a miserable existence on a mere pittance. This is chiefly due to the antediluvian custom of dividing the Government educational grant on a denominational basis. A large proportion of the people can neither read nor write. There are no roads, no means of communication, no doctors or hospitals , no opportunities for improvement, no industrial work, practically no domestic animals, and on Labrador, taxation without representation! There is only one hospital provided by the Government for the whole of this island, and that one is at St. John's, which is inaccessible to these northern people for the greater part of the year. No provision whatever is made by the Government for hospitals for the Labrador. Again the only ones are those maintained by this Mission. Lack of education, lack of opportunity, and abundance of overwhelming poverty make up the lot of the majority of people in this north part of the country. Little wonder from their point of view, that one youth, returning to this land after seeing others, declared that the man he desired above all others to shoot was John Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland.

You complain that I have told you almost nothing about these children, and you want to know what they are like. And I wish you to know, so that you will stop sending dolls to Mary who is sixteen, and cakes of scented soap to David who hates above all else to be washed. I find these children very difficult in some ways; many of them are mentally deficient, but it appears that no provision is made by the Government for dealing with such cases, and so there is nothing to do but take them in or let them starve. Some are very wild and none have the slightest idea of obedience when they first arrive.

One girl I have christened "Topsy," and I only wish you could see her when she is in one of her tantrums, which she has at frequent intervals. With her flashing black eyes, straight, jet-black hair, square, squat shoulders, she looks the very embodiment of the Evil One. She is twelve, but shows neither ability nor desire to learn. Her habits are disgusting, and unless closely watched she will be found filling her pockets with the contents of the garbage pail--and this in spite of the fact that we are no longer dining off one herring. She says that her ambition in life is to become like a fat pig! Last night, when the children were safely tucked in bed and I had sat down to write to you, piercing shrieks were heard resounding through the stillness of the house. A tour of investigation revealed Topsy creeping from bed to bed in the darkness, pretending to cut the throats of the girls with a large carving-knife which she had stolen for this purpose. To-day Topsy is going around with her hands tied behind her back as a punishment, and in the hope that without the use of her hands we may have one day of peace at least. Poor Topsy, kindness and severity alike seem unavailing. She steals and lies with the greatest readiness, and one wonders what life holds in store for her.

We have just admitted three children, so we now number more than the three dozen. One little mite of five was found last winter in a Labrador hut, deserted, half-starved, and nearly frozen to death. She was kept by a kindly neighbour until the ice conditions allowed of her being brought here. The other two, brother and sister, were found, the girl clothed in a sack, her one and only garment, and the boy in bed, minus even that covering. This is the type of child who comes to us.

The laugh is against me! Two of our boys fell ill with a mysterious sickness, and tenderly and carefully were they nursed by me and fed with delicate portions from the king's table. I later learned with much chagrin that "chewing tobacco" was the cause of this sudden onset. My sense of humour alone saved the situation for them!

"Out of the mouths of babes," etc. I have been trying to teach the little ones the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. Whilst undressing Solomon the other night I had occasion, or it seemed to me that I had, to speak somewhat sharply to one of the others. When I turned my attention again to Solomon, he enunciated solemnly in his baby tones, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

You complain most unjustly that I do not give a chronological account of events. I give you the incidents which punctuate my days, and as for the background, nothing could be simpler than to fill it in.

Ananias has broken yet another window. When I questioned him as to when the deed had been committed, he replied politely, but mournfully, that he really could not tell me how many YEARS ago it was, as if I were seeking to unearth some long undiscovered crime.

The other day Topsy had the misfortune to fall out of bed and hit her two front teeth such a violent blow on the iron bar of the cot beside hers that bits of ivory flew about the dormitory. This necessitated a prompt matutinal visit to Dr. B., the dentist. As we waited our turn in the Convalescent Room, I overheard one patient-to-be remark to his neighbour, "They do be shockin' hard on us poor sailors. They says I've got to take a bath when I comes into hospital. Why, B'y, I hasn't had a bath since my mother washed me!"

The ethics of dentistry here are so mixed that one needs a Solomon to disentangle them. Mrs. "Uncle Life"--her husband is Uncle Eliphalet--recently had all her teeth pulled out, or, to be more accurate, all her remaining teeth. As the operation involved considerable time, labour, and novocaine, she was charged for the benefit of the hospital. When two shining sets, uppers and lowers, were ready for her, she was as pleased as a boy with his first jack-knife; but not so Uncle Life. He considered it a work of supererogation that not only must one pay to have the old teeth removed, but for the new ones to replace them.

Did I ever write you about our chambermaid's feet--the new one? Her name is Asenath, and she is so perfectly spherical that if you were to start her rolling down a plank she could no more stop than can those humpty-dumpty weighted dolls. 'Senath's temper is exemplary, and her intentions of the best; in fact, she will turn into a model maid.

But the process of turning is in progress at the moment. It began with our cook, a pattern of neatness and all the virtues, coming into my office and complaining, "One of us'll have to go, miss."

"What? Which?" I enquired, dazed by the abruptness of this decision, and wondering whether she were referring to me.

"This morning, miss, you know how hot it was? Well, 'Senath comes into the kitchen and says to me, 'Tryphena, I finds my feet something wonderful.' 'Wash them, and change your stockings,' I says. 'Wash them! Why, Tryphena, I'se feared to do that. I might get a chill as would strike in.'"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet