Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/249

Rh "In the glittering gossamer of its fantastic buildings, tens of thousands of grey people, like patches on the ragged clothes of a beggar, creep along with weary faces and colourless eyes.

"But the precaution has been taken to blind the people, and they drink in the vile poison with silent rapture. The poison contaminates their souls. Boredom whirls about in an idle dance, expiring in the agony of its inanition.

"One thing alone is good in the garish city: you can drink in hatred to your soul's content, hatred sufficient to last throughout life, hatred of the power of stupidity!"

This sketch is valuable not merely because of the impression of a distinguished foreign writer of one of the sights of America, but because it raises in our minds an obstinate doubt of his capacity to tell the truth about life in general. Suppose a person who had never seen Coney Island should read Gorki's vivid description of it, would he really know anything about Coney Island? Of course not. The crowds at Coney Island are as different from Gorki's description of them as anything could well be. Now then, we who know the dregs of Russian life only through Gorki's pictures, can we be certain that his representations are accurate? Are they reliable history of fact, or are they the revelations of a heart that knoweth its own bitterness?