This is a work unique in modern art. It is higher than art: for who, in reading it, thinks of literature? The spirit of the Gospel and the pure love of the brotherhood of man are combined with the smiling geniality of the wisdom of the people. It is full of simplicity, limpidity, and ineffable goodness of heart; and that supernatural radiance which from time to time—so naturally and inevitably—bathes the whole picture; surrounding the old Elias[1] like a halo, or hovering in the cabin of the cobbler Michael; he who, through his skylight on the ground-level, sees the feet of people passing, and whom the Lord visits in the guise of the poor whom the good cobbler has succoured.[2] Sometimes in these tales the parables of the Gospel are mingled with a vague perfume of Oriental legends, of those Thousand and One Nights which Tolstoy had loved since childhood.[3] Sometimes, again, the fantastic light takes on a sinister aspect, lending the tale a terrifying majesty. Such is Pakhom the Peasant,[4] the tale of the man who kills himself in acquiring a great surface of and—all the land which he can encircle by walking for a whole day—and who dies on completing his journey.
“On the hill the starschina, sitting on the ground, watched him as he ran; and he cackled, holding his stomach with both hands. And Pakhom fell.
