Rezánov | ||
INTRODUCTION
A long list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer. She is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is distinctively feminine, though she is in matters historical a passionate partisan. Most of the critics who approve her work agree that in the main she views life with somewhat of the masculine spirit of liberality. She is as much the realist as one can be who is saturated with the romance that is California, her birthplace and her home, if such a true cosmopolite as she can be said to have a home. In all she has written there is abounding life; her grasp of character is firm; her style has a warm, glowing plasticity, frequently a rhythm variously expressive of all the wide range of feeling which a writer must have to make his or her books living things. She does no less well in the depiction of men than in the portraiture of women. All stand out of their vivid environment distinctly and they are all personalities of power— even, occasionally, of "that strong power called weakness." And they all wear something of a glory imparted to them by the sympathy of their creator and interpreter. High upon any roster of our best American writers we must enroll the name of Mrs. Atherton.
Of all her books I like best this "Rezánov," though I have not found many to agree with me. It is not so pretentious as others more frequently commended. It is a simple story, almost one might say an incident or an anecdote. It is not literally sophisticated. For me that is its unfailing charm. I find in it not a little of the strange, primeval quality that makes me think of "Aucassin and Nicolette." For it is not so much a novel as an historical idyl, not to be read without a persisting suffusion of sympathy and never to be remembered without a recurring tenderness. Remembered, did I say? It is unforgettable. There are few books of American origin that resist so well the passing of the years, that take on more steadily the glamour of "the unimaginable touch of time." "Rezánov" is a classic, or I miss my guess. This, though it was first published so recently as 1906.
The story has the merit of being, to some extent historically, and wholly artistically, true. For the matter-of-facts Mrs. Atherton provides a bibliography of her authorities. Those authorities I have not read, nor should others. Sufficient unto me is the authority of the novel itself splendidly demonstrated and established in the high court of the reader's head and heart by the author's visualizing veritism. Not twenty pages have you turned before you know this Rezánov, privy councilor, grand chamberlain, plenipotentiary of the Russo-American company, imperial inspector of the
And he meets the girl, Concha Argüello. He sees her in the setting of burning and sweet Castilian roses—a girl who has had the benefit of education, who keeps the graces of old Madrid in this realm beyond sea, a burgeoning bud of womanhood, daughter of the commandante. The doom of both is upon them at once. They have drunk the poisoned cup. Rezánov resists the first approaches of the delightful delirium, remembering Russia, his duty, his ambition, the poor starving men of the Sitka factory. At a party he dances with Concha and they both know that for each there is none other. So in that setting so wild, so strange, so remote, so lovely for the old world grace that is made native there by this bright, deep, fond girl, the high gods proceed to have their will upon the two. The little community life pulses around them
These lovers prate very little of love. Their desire runs too deep for mere speech. It is a desire made up of as much spiritual as carnal fire. It is
There is a meeting on a path that overlooks where the white seas strike their tents. It is a meeting of little action, of few words. It is tense with the almost inexpressible, but at its end, confronting the doubtful future, realizing that when Rezánov goes he may not return, this girl tells him: "I will give myself to you forever, how much or little that may mean here on earth. Forever!" And then that scene in the moonlight amid the scent of the Castilian roses, when Concha, as signal of her trust in her lover, lifts the little wisps of hair that conceal her ears and shows them to him—it throbs with passionate purity in memory yet.
Rezánov sails away to Sitka with provisions, thence to Siberia, and then begins the long ride over endless versts of land, across streams in icy flood, in rain and cold and snow towards the capitol and the Czar. Delays, disasters to vehicles and horses and the maddening lengthening of time. From drenchings and freezing comes the fever that calls for more speed. Krasnoiarsk is reached. The fever mounts, the traveler must stop and rest and be
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