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p In May 1960 the workers of the Kirov (the former Putilov) Works in Leningrad congratulated Sholokhov on his Lenin Prise award for Virgin Soil Upturned and invited him to pay them a visit.

p “I’ll be with you at the first possible opportunity,” Sholokhov cabled back.

p In March 1961 a large “Sholokhov delegation" including the writer and his family and people from Veshensky District—collective farmers and Party workers—arrived in Leningrad.

p A meeting was held in the Works Party Committee room. Sholokhov introduced the delegation with the following words: “Your Davidovs are old-age pensioners now and these are young representatives of Gremyachy Log, representatives of the collective farms, people who have distinguished themselves by outstanding achievements in farm production, who are carrying on the good work of the pioneers of the collective-farm movement.”  [255•* 

p Sholokhov told the Kirov workers how he created Semyon Davidov: “I’m often asked why Semyon Davidov is a Baltic sailor and not a Kharkov or Mariupol man. I’ll tell you quite frankly: when I wrote Virgin Soil Upturned I was paying a tribute of admiration to the Petrograd working class to which the Putilov workers belong. Why a sailor? I was paying a tribute of admiration for a second time—to the sailors of the Baltic Fleet.

p “That’s how I created a character that was one of your lads. I am proud of the fact that he is your son.... And how grand it is to see the new generation that owes its experience and schooling to Semyon Davidov and his 256 contemporaries and has also inherited their best traditions.”  [256•* 

p The question of “prototypes” for Sholokhov’s novels is a purely derivative one. The factual basis of his novels cannot be reduced to any concrete people or events. His characters were the product of countless impressions and observations in the school of life.

p An essential feature of Sholokhov’s novels is that throughout we feel the presence of a mind striving to assess the fundamental problems of human life. In creating his characters or recounting events he tries to show them in their historical perspective and reveal all the complex links between a man and his time.

p As a philosopher, thinker and “lyric”, Sholokhov does not limit himself to showing what people were like in 1930, but tries to comprehend man historically, in the perspective of the country’s rapid development. Sholokhov examines the qualities which, born of reality itself, transform the human personality and make the most ordinary people of Gremyachy village approach the ideal harmony and perfection of the truly beautiful, noble individual.

p This alluring light of the ideal creates a special, intellectual and moral atmosphere in Sholokhov’s novel.

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p Sholokhov has a remarkable way of disclosing the warming glow of the noble and beautiful in the most humdrum everyday circumstances, and singling out in intense emotional struggles those fine features which ennoble his favourite heroes and give the reader an idea of what a real man should be.

p In Book One Davidov’s essential nature is revealed mainly in how he behaves in the events of great social importance.

p Davidov rallies all the best, most progressive forces in Gremyachy Log around him. Kondrat Maidannikov, with his pure heart, reflective mind and painful doubts is drawn to Davidov and expects advice and support from 257 him. Davidov helps and advises the village Communists Nagulnov and Razmyotnov, poor peasant activists like Lyubishkin and Ushakov, and has quite an influence on them.

p In the modest appearance of this mechanic from the Putilov Works with his cap, an overcoat with a worn sheepskin collar, and an old pair of shoes, there’s nothing to suggest the truly heroic qualities that will come out in crucial moments.

p From our very first meeting with Davidov, during his argument with the Secretary of the District Party Committee who is a “careful” man, and “a bit shaky on the right leg" when it comes to dealing with the kulaks, we feel ourselves in the presence of a man of great integrity. He may not always find the right words during a heated argument, but he thinks carefully before making a decision and once he has made it sticks to it.

p His integrity and firmness immediately arouse trust and sympathy. On returning home after his first meeting with Davidov, Andrei Razmyotnov “remembered Davidov’s stocky, solidly built figure, his determined, tightly bunched face with its firm folds at the sides of the mouth, and the humourously wise expression of his eyes.... And as Andrei remembered this, he decided joyfully, ’No, that one won’t let us down’" (1, 58).

p Davidov’s great inner strength and sense of purpose come from his awareness of the vital importance for the nation of the mission the Party has sent him on and his feeling of oneness with the masses.

p At the very first meeting of the Gremyachy Log poor peasants Davidov managed to explain the collective farm in such a simple straightforward manner that the assembled peasants immediately declared their support: “‘But we’re heart and soul for the collective farm!’

p “‘We’ll start tonight, if you like!’

p “‘Take our names down now!’

p “‘Lead us to smash the kulaks’" (1, 39).

p Davidov’s strength and directness is reflected in his speech. He tries to choose words that cannot possibly be twisted or misconstrued, so that there is no room for ambiguity. He speaks clearly, concisely and to the point. His words, fired by strong conviction and iron logic, always find their mark. “The Party is planning complete 258 collectivisation so that it can hitch you up lo a tractor and haul you out of your poverty. What did Comrade Lenin say before he died? The only salvation from poverty for the toiling peasant is in the collective farm. Otherwise he’s done for. The vampire kulak will suck him dry. And you must take the path that has been pointed out to you, absolutely firmly" (1, 33-34).

p True, his speech at times seems rather blunt and journalese, but behind it one feels the passionate enthusiasm of the Bolshevik capable of great self-sacrifice. When the kulaks were being dispossessed Tit Borodin struck him with an iron bar. That very evening Davidov, with his head bandaged, presides at a meeting. He answers all the questions put to him carefully and intelligently, and convincingly tells the peasants of the advantages of the collective farm. There is an uproar in the overcrowded school-house. Some support the collective farm, others are hesitant and yet others are openly hostile to it. It almost comes to an open brawl. When the shouts die down, a belated voice full of malice is heard: “‘You can’t herd us together like sheep! Titok blooded you once, and it can be done again.’

p “Something seemed to strike Davidov like a whip. For a minute he stood pale-faced, his gap teeth parted, in the tense silence, then he shouted hoarsely:

p “’You there! Voice of the enemy! So you haven’t had enough of my blood! I’ll live to see the day when we’ll bury your kind, everyone of you. But if it’s necessary, for the Party, for my Party, for the cause of the workers, I’ll give every drop of my blood! Do you hear, you kulak swine? All, to the very last drop!’" (1, 88).

p There in the crowded school-house, in the tense silence that follows the enemy’s threat, Davidov’s words sound like a vow taken before the battle.

p Less than a month later Davidov finds himself alone facing a furious crowd aroused by kulak propaganda. The kulaks have spread the rumour that the seed grain is to be exported abroad, and a large number of the Cossacks dash to the public barns and demand that Davidov give them the keys so that they can share out the grain.

p Davidov tries to calm the crowd by addressing them in a cool, self-assured, authoritative manner. “...But the 259 women hemmed him in, shouting deafeningly with the silent approval of their menfolk at the back.” He tries to gain time for help to arrive and says that the keys are at his lodgings, then that they are at Nagulnov’s. On the way the women start to beat him. “His ear was bleeding, his lips and nose were cut, but he still smiled with his puffy lips, showing his missing front tooth, and with mild unhurried movements warded off the women who attacked him wilh particular fury.” Yet Davidov does not lose control of himself. In the end he has been knocked about so badly that he can hardly stand and sits down in the road. “‘But it’s for you, curse you...’ Davidov said suddenly in an unusually resonant voice and looked round with a strange new light in his eyes, ’it’s for you we’re doing all this. And you’re killing me. Blast you! I won’t give you the keys, understand? Fact I won’t! Well?’" (1, 343-344). There is readiness to meet death sleadfaslly, without faltering, and deep pity for the deluded people in his words.

p “...But that’s not the stuff we, Bolsheviks, are made of, cilizens, and nobody’s going to squeeze us into the shape they want! I was bealen up by the cadels in the Civil War and even they couldn’t knock the stuffing out of me! The Bolsheviks have never gone on their knees to anyone, and they never will, fact!" Davidov says at a meeting where he addresses the villagers, including those who have beaten him and are now shamefacedly keep quiet (1, 361).

p From scattered biographical facts and from the way Davidov behaves at dramatic and often unexpected turns in the bitter struggle for collectivisation, there gradually emerges a picture of a Bolshevik, a man of unbending will and courage. Davidov is so attractive because this is not a declarative image but a character revealed in concrete actions and situations. What we are told of him and what he tells us of himself is in full accordance wilh his actions.

p Davidov says that he is prepared to shed his blood “to the very last drop" for the Party, and we are able to note that this is so, for we see him go alone and unarmed against an angry mob, we admire the dignity with which he bears himself when he is almost bealen to death, we see him rise to his feet and, wiping away the blood, stagger 260 weakly to the barns to prevent them being plundered. The cadets who had beaten him got nothing for their pains and we know that this is no empty boast. This detail sheds a little more light on his character, showing us how he was tempered in the crucible of the Civil War. Thus, in the figure of Davidov, Sholokhov has created a remarkably authentic and convincing character.

p As soon as he hears that there is trouble in Lyubishkin’s team during the spring ploughing, Davidov leaves the managing to his assistant and is off to the fields. Not to give them a rating, but to “teach them to work”, for as he himself says: “That’s what leadership is!" When Razmyotnov protests, he replies: “Do you think I haven’t seen any good commanders in my time? The good ones lead by example when they’re in a tight spot. And that’s what I’ve got to do" (1, 370-371).

p Leading means teaching people how to work, and there is no better way of teaching than by example. Such are the rules of Bolshevik leadership that Davidov applies in his practical work.

p The episode where Davidov goes ploughing for the first time in his life, and sparks off socialist emulation in Lyubishkin’s team is certainly one of the most exciting and poetic in Book One.

p In striving to emulate Davidov and one another, the men in the team learn the joy of labour for the common weal. The spirit of the new life has got into them, dictating their actions without their even noticing it.

p “Our breed are not bad workers,” shouted Antip the Rook, one of a group Davidov had dubbed the “low-power crew" and which suddenly shot to a top place. He was probably not aware of the fact that with that old worn expression he was expressing something quite new, that he was no longer working just for himself, but for the collective farm and hence for the whole country.

p Davidov takes a kind, considerate interest in other people. He notices Lyubishkin and upbraids the village Communists for having neglected the former partisan and failed to educate him. As a result of Davidov’s attention Lyubishkin is made a team leader and once the spring sowing is over is accepted into the ranks of the Party. Davidov also rewards Shaly the blacksmith for his good 261 work and praises Kondrat Maidannikov for being “a real shock-worker”, lie is able to arouse the best feelings in a man. and in all he does we feel the strength of the Party which is capable of waking the creative energy of the masses and directing it toward building a new life.

p Davidov goes about with great awareness that he is a master of the new life, its builder and creator.

p “The way he walks, the son-of-a-bitch! As if he was lord of creation! As if he was walking about his own house!" Yakov Lukich Oslrovnov thinks with anger and fear, sure that Davidov has come to arrest him for the murder of the poor peasant Khoprov. Davidov does not understand what Yakov Lukich is so frightened about. He liked the man’s good, sensible speech at the meeting and has come to him for advice and to get some agricultural magazines to read.

p In the scene in Ostrovnov’s house Sholokhov has created a tense, highly dramatic situation, bringing Davidov into contact with his enemies, whose existence so close at hand he did not suspect for a moment. In this first engagement Davidov wins a clear moral victory. Yakov Lukich cringes and fawns before Davidov when he learns what he has come to see him for, while Davidov listens attentively to his advice about farming, questioning him carefully, little guessing that his clever host is his enemy. Polovtsev stands in the cold best room listening “with intense hatred" to the hoarse young voice of his enemy, separated only by a door. “‘Shouted himself hoarse at his meetings, the dog! I’d take you and.... If only I could do it now!’ Polovtsev pressed his blood-swollen fists to his chest and dug his nails into his palms" (1, 134).

p Sholokhov contrasts the destructive hatred of the vulture Polovtsev awaiting chance prey and the base sabotage of the white-livered Ostrovnov with Davidov’s constructive life, courage and humanism.

p While Polovtsev and Ostrovnov fight for their former or possible future privileges in the name of “sacred private property" Davidov is giving all his strength—and is prepared to give even his life—for the well-being of all the working people. In this lay his strength and his superiority over those pitiful isolated enemies with their feeble attempts to put a spoke in the wheel of progress.

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p Davidov’s rich nature is reflected in his speech, in which we hear now a passionate note (“I am for the Party”), now a harmless joke, now the iron logic that goes with conviction, now tremendous energy, or firmness.

p There is nothing sentimental about Davidov, however. On occasion he can even be intentionally sharp and blunt, as when he upbraids Nagulnov for putting up with the conduct of his “loose” wife who has got “tangled up" with the son of a kulak. We sometimes feel he is too strict with himself and ought to relax a little and that he does not have enough experience to be able to understand another’s heart. When Nagulnov explains what kind of a man Tit Borodin, now a kulak, was in the glorious days of the Civil War, fighting as a Red partisan, Davidov twice interrupts him impatiently and urges him to “make it shorter”. “You can’t make a thing like this shorter,” Nagulnov retorts. “The pain of it curdles your blood.” To Davidov, impatient for the meeting to pass a resolution evicting the kulaks and their families, Nagulnov seems to be merely “telling tear-jerking tales".

p Davidov is often unnecessarily serious, “gloomy” even. Whereas Andrei Razmyotnov is often quite carried away by a joke or a funny story, Davidov never loses sight of the “business in hand”. But certainly there’s no denying he has his share of worries. “Collectivisation is so young and terribly vital. Everyone must go along with us,” he says. He has given himself heart and soul to the task of organising “young collectivisation" and it never ceases to worry him, giving him no time at all to think of himself.

p Lushka realises this and cunningly worms her way into his heart by getting him to talk about collectivefarm affairs.

p Whenever the farm suffers some set-back or other Davidov feels it as a personal tragedy. By the time Razmyotnov has finished telling him of the wholesale slaughter of cattle in the village “splintery wrinkles had gathered round his eyes, and his face seems to have grown older”; when he learns that Ostrovnov had maliciously let the farm oxen get frostbite, “his eyes fill with tears of anger".

p However, Sholokhov does not only test his hero in the events directly linked with collectivisation, the most important matter in hand, but in all life’s circumstances, in family, everyday, and personal relationships.

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p The story of Davidov’s relationship with Lushka occupies an important place in Book Two. Though it may not appear so at first sight, it is in fact closely connected with the main theme of collectivisation.

p The hero seems to “fall” before our very eyes. The village youngsters would run along the street teasing the pair of them as Davidov walked arm in arm with Lushka in defiance of Cossack custom. Andrei Razmyotnov smiles knowingly, and Makar Nagulnov is genuinely distressed.... “Why, he used to live in my house, he saw what sort of a menace she was, he saw me battling with that domestic counter-revolutionary all the time, and now he’s in a mess! And what a mess! When 1 looked at him just now, believe me, my heart bled for him. Thin as a rake, that guilty look all over him, his eyes darting this way and that...” (2, 60).

p There is also a stern note of condemnation in the author’s account of how Davidov had changed. “Somehow, without noticing it himself, Davidov had grown a bit slack. An unaccustomed irritability appeared in his character....” He had changed in outward appearance too: “His shoulder-blades jutted out from under the jacket that was draped over them, his hair had not been cut for a long time and thick black curls dangled from under the cap on the back of his head, reaching down his broad brown neck to the greasy collar of his jacket. There was something unpleasant and wretched in his whole appearance.”

p Ippolit Shaly’s words contain even severer condemnation. “...You’re chairman only at meetings; for everyday work it’s Ostrovnov. That’s where all the trouble arises.... You’re not chairman of the collective farm, but a kind of hanger-on, as they say.” He goes on to enumerate to Davidov his failings, his loss of vigilance, his political irresponsibility, his failure to see his enemies’ plots: “...you, lad, don’t sec these dangers at all. All your young goings-on have darkened your mind—" (2, 159 and 161).

p Is the hero being debunked? If so, how is it that the reader is still so well-disposed towards Davidov?

p Sholokhov shows us his hero from all sides, both his strength and his weaknesses, testing his whole character in the actual circumstances of “bitter-sweet” life. At the 264 same time, he presents people and events in such a way that the reader is always aware of a character’s essential nature, be it Davidov, Nagulnov or Razmyotnov, and also of the kindness and excellence which determine their real and undeniable worth. There is no doubt about it, Davidov’s weakness is condemned, yet this does not tarnish his human beauty and rather serves to enhance it by casting a new light on it. The hero has grown a bit slack, but he will find the strength to pull himself together and correct his mistakes. In this lies the true strength and beauty of Davidov, whose number one concern is the well-being of the village peasants.

p Sholokhov’s tremendous triumph is the skill with which he manages to arouse ardent faith in man, in the inner strength, the great humanity, and the honest and noble intentions of the Communist leader.

p From any number of situations where Davidov meets other people, and from the ensuing conversations and thoughts, we can observe with what consummate skill and tact Sholokhov preserves the reader’s faith in his hero.

p Upset by his shameful relationship with Lushka, Davidov drives out to Agafon Dubtsov’s ploughing team. “Davidov felt a pleasant thrill when he saw how everyone rose together from the table.... As he strode forward, hands stretched out to greet him and smiles gleamed on the dark sunburnt faces of the men and the lightly tanned faces of the girls and women.... Davidov smiled as he glanced at the familiar faces. These people had got to know him well; they were genuinely glad to see him and welcomed him as one of their own....”

p One has only to compare a few episodes from Book One and Book Two that show the Cossacks’ attitude to Davidov to appreciate the tremendous change that took place in the Cossacks’ whole outlook, and to gain a clear picture of the political and moral authority Davidov won among the villagers of Gremyachy in a comparatively short time.

p At first the villagers had given Davidov the cold shoulder, adopting a cautious “wait-and-see” attitude. A few months later, at the meeting held after the “women’s riot”, “a warm and cheerful bass said in a deeply moved tone; ’Davidov, the chicken’s liver for you! Good old 265 Davidov! For not bearing a grudge in your heart ... for not remembering old wrongs. The folk here are all worked up ... we don’t know which way to look we feel so ashamed. And the women are all a-flutter. But we’ve got to live together—’"

p “We’ve got to live together"—these words were recognition of the fact that Davidov’s work in Gremyachy was necessary. The Cossacks came to trust him, for they saw that even in the most difficult circumstances, Davidov did not let himself be guided by motives of personal injury and desire for revenge, but by the high moral principles of revolutionary humanitarianism. Stirred up by his enemies, the women had almost beaten him to death, and yet the very next evening, still rather the worse for the rough treatment he had received at the hands of the women, Davidov told a silent gathering of villagers in the school: “The Bolsheviks do not take revenge, they punish mercilessly only enemies.... You are wavering middle peasants that have temporarily gone astray, and we shall not take administrative measures against you, but we shall open your eyes to the facts.” These words serve to melt the last ice of estrangement, fear and doubt.

p This faith in the ordinary labourer who may waver and go astray, but in the long run will understand where his place is, this faith in the ultimate triumph of the collective-farm system as “terribly necessary" for all, this readiness to give himself heart and soul for the wellbeing of the working folk was bound to find a response in the Gremyachy Cossacks.

p A little later Dubtsov’s team welcome Davidov “as one of their own" and are “genuinely glad to see him”. The feeling of closeness that has arisen between the Petrograd worker and the Gremyachy peasants in the struggle for the collective farm is growing and developing.

p A major criterion by which man is judged in Soviet literature is his relationship to the people and their just struggle. The subjective intentions of a character are put to the decisive test in the concrete circumstances of the life of the people, and in the last analysis it is this that determines a writer’s aesthetic standpoint.

p Davidov “stands trial" before the supreme court, the people, in Book Two of Virgin Soil Upturned. He has got 266 tangled up with Lushka, and has committed a number of serious mistakes in his work. Yet we see that he has achieved the most important thing through his work and human qualities—he has earned the trust and love of the people. It is this love, indeed, demanding and critical as it is, that helps Davidov overcome his weaknesses and errors, and find his way again.

p In this respect the conversation between Davidov and Ippolit Shaly, the village blacksmith, is extremely important. Shaly’s words express both the uncompromising, high demands the people make on their leader and their faith in him. This frank conversation was triggered off by the careful blacksmith’s fear that the kulak’s son Timofei the Torn who had escaped from exile might make an attempt on Davidov’s life. “That’s why I asked you over, to warn you”. This stern, direct expression of genuine anxiety for Davidov’s safety was an involuntary recognition of what he meant to the villagers.

p Davidov’s deep humanity, his understanding, sympathetic nature, are apparent in the way he reacted to Ivan Arzhanov’s dreadful confession about how, when still a lad in tsarist times, he had killed his father’s murderers. Indeed, the very fact that a man who “had crawled into his shell in childhood" locked himself up and wouldn’t let anybody into his soul, confided so freely in Davidov is a sign of tremendous faith in his human qualities.

p Here is the same Davidov we knew in Book One, and yet not quite the same, for while having lost none of his former inner strength and integrity he is the richer for many essential, new qualities.

p Davidov changes noticeably as a result of the class struggle in the village, his serious mistakes, and his catastrophic love affair.

p In Book One Davidov is occasionally criticised even by Razmyotnov and Nagulnov, his closest comrades, for adopting too rigid an attitude and lacking the necessary tact and sympathy in cases involving complex moral conflicts (Razmyotnov during the expropriation of the kulaks, and Nagulnov when talking about Borodin’s past, about Lushka and so on).

p Anticipating an unpleasant conversation about Lushka, Nagulnov makes a rather sly dig at Davidov: “How am I to talk to you?... If I go a bit wide of the mark, you’re 267 down on me with ’Anarchist! Doviationisl!"’ A little while later he exclaims: “You’re like a rod of iron" (1, 144).

p The Davidov we meet in Book Two has “softened” somewhat. This appears first and foremost in his relationships with other people, about which we have already spoken, but also in what would seem to be insignificant minor details.

p Davidov arrived on his visit to Dubtsov’s ploughing team at lunch time. He sat down to table without any ado and when he had finished “boyishly licking his wooden spoon, he looked up".

p This boyish movement shows us the chairman of the collective farm in a new light. Davidov has already been described eating in Book One: “He immediately bit off a huge lump of bread, and as he chewed, the muscles rippled in his flushed cheeks.... Soon Davidov was eating in gulps" (1, 139).

p In Book One we have a harassed man who is tired and hungry, upset by a piece of unpleasant news. The Davidov who sits down to lunch with Dubtsov’s team in Book Two is quite different. What is it about Davidov licking his spoon boyishly that is so important as to merit our attention? Surely, if the writer wanted to mention a habit left over from Davidov’s hungry childhood, he had opportunity enough to do so earlier.

p The fact is that for Sholokhov “childishness” is a manifestation of untouched purity, goodness, naive faith in others, and a certain charming defencelessness in the face of the dramas and tragedies of the big world. This “childish” quality was just not present in the “gloomy looking" Davidov of Book One. It only makes its appearance after Davidov has known the torments of passion for Lushka, the exhausting struggle between duty and desire which was really below his dignity both as a man and a leader.

p But Davidov does not go down, and after this he listens with undivided attention and great sympathy to Arzhanov’s confession, and behaves terribly carefully and considerately towards Vary a Kharlamova when she falls in love with him.

p The “childishness” Sholokhov draws our attention to in Davidov has the force of a sudden illumination. As is the case with all truly great art, the external detail of appearance leads us straight lo the very roots of the character.

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p The colourful, “metaphoric world" in which the hero’s relationship with his environment is revealed is tremendously important in a work of art.

p The milieu in which a character lived and was brought up, his biography in the widest sense of the word, his temperament and so on, are reflected not merely in the actual words he utters in direct speech, but also in the images and constructions the author uses in narrating.

p In this respect Sholokhov undoubtedly encountered the greatest difficulty in creating Semyon Davidov. A Petrograd worker and sailor of the Baltic Fleet is transferred into a totally different social milieu, where everything, from the way of life to social outlook and even language, was unfamiliar and strange to him.

p Right from the first the Cossacks were quick to note Davidov’s hard Russian “g”, and realise that he was not “one of their own" from the Don, but an “outsider”....

p The link that grew up between Davidov and the villagers was based on the realisation that they had common historical interests, on the humanitarian aims of the revolutionary transformation of the countryside.

p As it happens, what we learn of Davidov’s character does not alienate him from the villagers, since Sholokhov avoids stressing local characteristics that would make the “townee” and “worker” stand out too much from the “peasant” and “Cossack”.

p Sholokhov did not fall for the easy bait of describing superficial traits “typical” of this or that milieu. He was too aware of what they had in common. But neither does he overlook features that could only belong to a man representing a particular social layer.

p Thus the passage in chapter thirteen where Davidov is thinking over his first week in Gremyachy is full of associations and comparisons with his life at the factory in Petrograd.

p “To him the village was like a complex new machine and he tried intently to understand it, to study and get the feel of every part, to hear every irregular note in the incessant daily throbbing of this queer machine" (1, 122).

p Even the sudden change in his train of thought, when he passes from his recollections of the factory to his work in Gremyachy is expressed by an image connected with factory work:

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p “Then his mind would suddenly return to Gremyachy, as if someone had firmly put over a switch and sent the current of his thoughts down a new channel" (1, 121-22).

p This restricted choice of terms is perfectly justified psychologically. Davidov still feels a part of the factory and has not yet fully adapted himself to the transfer from his old job at the factory to his new life in the village.

p However, for this Davidov the first simile in the passage seems very unexpected: “Like a trapped wolf, he would try to break out of the circle of thoughts connected with the collective farm; he would recall his shop at the factory, his friends, his work" (1, 121). This image is hardly one that would occur to a town worker, it belongs to the life that is still strange to Davidov. In leaps to the eye all the more in view of the “factory” terms that follow: “tractor engine”, “lather”, “the current of his thoughts" and so on.

p It is interesting to compare this image with one in book three of And Quiet Flows the Don, bearing in mind that it was finished just before Book One of Virgin Soil Upturned was written. “Why had his spirit tossed like a hunted wolf in search of a way of escape, of solving contradictions?" One feels that an image which was extremely effective when applied to Grigory Melekhov and his tormenting doubts has lost all its power when “misapplied” to Davidov. But was it in fact a question of misuse? Is it really an example of mental inertia on the part of the writer?

p Imagery is never neutral. Any comparison contains a tremendous charge of emotional judgment, which is transmitted to the reader.

p The writer does not force the reader to accept his view: he seems to be merely expressing things as they really are without comment. But as a rule the poetic expression of the connections observed by the writer hides a certain tendentiousness and partiality.

p The comparison with a trapped wolf was intended to express the great strain Davidov was living under during his first few days in Gremyachy and his painful search for the right solutions.

p However, this comparison has certain overtones. Strictly speaking, only a man with some form of moral guilt can be compared to a wolf, someone whose behaviour does not conform to the popular concepts of good or is decidedly anti- 270 social. Grigory Melekhov could rightly ho comparer! to a wolf since lie was at the time actively engaged in the struggle against Soviet power, as he galloped across the empty steppe to take part in the Upper Don uprising. Not so Davidov, whose nature and future activity would seem to exclude such comparisons.

p But so far we have said nothing of the content of the imagery that characterises Davidov. As a rule, both in the author’s narrative and the direct speech this imagery is constructed on a broad lexico-semantic basis common to the masses.

p The everyday speech of the Cossacks was full of images that originated in folklore. Davidov also uses the odd folklore image, and when he does so it is always to the point.

p “A horse has four legs but it can still stumble, so they say,” Davidov says to Nesterenko (2, 110). The “so they say" is sufficient indication to show that he is not seeking to justify himself with a proverb, but is merely recognising a sad fact.

p Davidov has no great difficulty in entering the peasant’s world of imagery. His hard-working past is a help to him here. Even the fact—at first sight insignificant perhaps—that in the Civil War he had manned a machine gun mounted on a horse-driven cart helps him find a common language with the villagers relatively easily.

p At the assembly of the village poor, where he first meets the people of Gremyachy Log, he effectively squashes Lyubishkin with his well-aimed remark: “First you’ve got to create a collective farm, then worry about the machines. But you want to buy a collar first, then fit the horse into it" (1, 38).

p The general mirth and shouts of approval that this is greeted with (“Ho-ho!".... “But we’re heart and soul for the collective farm!".... “He got it right there, about the collar....”) wore the natural response to an apt remark which illustrated an important historical principle through a simple everyday image.

p When Ivan Arzhanov is driving slowly on the way to Dubtsov’s ploughing team, Davidov asks grimly: “Do you think you’re carrying pots to a fair, Uncle Ivan? Afraid of breaking them?" (2, 63).

p Such a comparison is quite natural for Davidov after six months in the village, for he is quick to catch and 271 imitate the way of thinking of the environment in which he lives and works. It testifies to the way he has come to understand the villagers and really become “one of them".

p Once, waxing lyrical, Davidov says to Lushka: “Lushka, darling, you’re like a flower! Even your freckles have a scent, and that’s a fact! Do you know what they smell of?... A sort of freshness, like the dew or something.... You know what—like snowdrops. You can hardly smell it, but it’s good" (2, 39).

p There is something terribly natural and convincing about the way Davidov’s private world comes to light and we hear that lyrical note which could not have sounded in the difficult first months of the struggle to set up the farm. But with the spring floods over, and the passage of the flocks of birds towards the north, when everything is in flower and the nightingales sing their song, the “ex-sailor" appears to us in quite a different light.

p He does not rest content with comparing Lushka to a flower, but instinctively seeks just the right comparison to express most exactly what he feels. His feelings and imagination work like those of a poet. “All lovers are poets,” and Davidov is not satisfied until he has found the best possible image. “Like snowdrops. You can hardly smell it, but it’s good.”

p This alone testifies to subtle powers of perception and susceptibility to beauty. We have been shown yet another aspect of Davidov’s nature. Poetic imagery in the hero’s speech is one of the most adaptable of instruments enabling the writer to reveal his character’s inner world.

p This poetic side of Davidov’s nature is also reflected in the author’s descriptions, such as the following passage where Davidov’s mind suddenly goes back to the past__

p “Breathing deep of the heady scents of the grass and the moist black earth, Davidov gazed at the long line of ancient burial mounds in the distance. Those distant blue barrows reminded him in some way of the storm-roused waves of the Baltic and, unable to fight a sudden rush of melancholy, he sighed heavily and quickly averted his misty eyes...” (2, 62).

p The connection Davidov saw between the Don steppe and the sea, speaks of his poetic imaginativeness. He had to feel an attachment to the steppe, in order to visualise sea 272 waves in those rows of burial mounds. The heady scents of the grass and the black earth had become as dear lo him as the waves and the Lang of the sea.

p This is just another reason why the peasants in Dublsov’s learn should welcome Uavidov as “one of their own".

p The author extends the comparisons between Davidov’s former life in the Navy and his present, bringing out more and more subtle emotional links.

p “Steppe, the boundless, rolling steppe. Ancient barrows in a light-blue mist. A black eagle in the sky. The soft rustle of wind-blown grass__ Davidov felt very small and lost in this huge expanse, as he gazed wistfully over the tormentingly endless plain. His love for Lushka, the grief of parting, the unrealised desire to see her, now seemed trivial and unimportant. He was oppressed by a feeling of loneliness, of isolation from the whole living world. Something like this he had experienced long ago, when he had stood watch at night in the bows of his ship. What a long time ago that had been! It seemed like an old, half-forgotten dream.”

p The associations and connections seem to arise automatically here. The steppe is as boundless as the sea, and both inspire feelings of awe at the grandeur of nature which makes the temporal seem “trivial and unimportant”. The feeling of loneliness arid isolation from the living world that the boundless steppe evokes is naturally reminiscent of what it was like to be on watch at night in the open sea.

p In a true work of art characters are not given a cutand-dried portrayal, and only a person who is insensitive to art seeks ready-made patterns.

The author’s tenderness, anger or indignation can be revealed gradually and imperceptibly, evoking a response from the reader’s heart with the inspired imagery, and the subtle power of beauty.

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p Sholokhov’s love for his fellow men is especially in evidence in Book Two of Virgin Soil Upturned, where it can all the time be felt in the increasingly poetic narrative and the lyrical digressions.

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p The time is still 1930, the early period of collectivisation with its bitter class conflicts and clashes.

p The clashes between Davidov, Razmyotnov, Kondratko, and Naidyonov on the one hand, and Nagulnov on the other did not only involve moral principles: more often than not they turned into political arguments about methods of leadership.

p In a number of episodes in Book Two Sholokhov shows the method of persuasion, based on the democratic traditions of the Parly and the very essence of the Soviet regime, as against the method of coercion, which Nagulnov considered the most effective means of overcoming the private-property prejudices of the Cossack masses.

p Much in Book Two is relevant to vital present-day issues. One of the most interesting of these passages is the one where Davidov clashes with Ustin Rykalin. As usual with Sholokhov it is not abstract ideas and views that clash but living people whose characters are expertly portrayed.

p Davidov is furious because the Cossacks have left off work at the busiest time of the season and are sitting round playing cards. He comes galloping up and starts shouting and threatening, quite beside himself. Ustin Rykalin decides to take Davidov down a peg or two, and his replies, questions and drawn-out views are exaggeratedly calm and ironic.

p What cuts Davidov to the quick is not so much the provoking questions about days-off, as Ustin Rykalin casting doubt on the sincerity of his motives.

p “You only want to fulfil the plan, that’s why you’re making all this fuss about the hay.... You’re trying to show the district authorities what you can do, the district’s trying to show the region, and we have to suffer for the jolly lot of you. Do you think the people don’t see anything? Do you think they’re blind? They see everything, but how can they keep away from climbers like you? We can’t push you, or your like, out of your jobs, can we? Oh, no! And so you just do what you think you will. And Moscow’s far away, Moscow don’t know what tricks you get up to, here" (2, 198, 199).

p Davidov a “climber”! Surely nothing could be more insulting than that. Even though it came from Ustin, a White, and a counter-revolutionary.

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p This dramatic scene is handled with remarkable skill. The “external action" and the inner workings of Davidov’s turbulent thoughts/and feelings are inextricably interwoven.

p On the surface of it a duel is going on between Davidov and Ustin, and Davidov has to defeat the arguments of his sharp-tongued, sharp-witted opponent and show up what is noxious and unsound in them.

p At the same time he is boiling inside. Davidov’s blind fury and resentment are ready to erupt at any moment in a savage act of violence. But they are checked by his sense of duty, his awareness of his responsibilities as a leader who must defeat Ustin not through the power his position gives him, by resorting to threats, but through ideological superiority, strength of conviction, unquestionable truth, and last but not least, his moral superiority.

p Davidov does not merely “knock Ustin flat" but he also overcomes the Nagulnov in himself.

p The “fearless” Ustin’s words are a remarkable mixture of foolish kulak talk and desperate defence of his human dignity, his right to think and speak as he thinks fit.

p “But how do you set about it?" he asked Davidov. “Almost before you’ve got here you’re shouting at the top of your voice: ’Why aren’t you working?!’ Who talks to the people like that nowadays? Soviet power has come, and the people, you know, they’ve dug their pride up out of their big chests, and they don’t fancy being shouted at.... And you and Nagulnov ought to realise by now that times have changed, and you’d better give up the old habits....”

p Nesterenko, the Secretary of the District Party Committee, had said as if in passing but obviously intentionally: “Some very incompetent ways of doing things have taken root in our Party life and we’ve got fitting expressions for them. We talk about ’taking shavings’ off a man, ’sandpapering’ him, and ’scouring’ him, as if we were talking about a chunk of rusty iron instead of a human being. Is that right, I ask you? And the people who use these expressions most, mind you, are people who’ve never taken a shaving off metal or wood in their lives, and probably never had an emery wheel in their hands either. People are very sensitive, and you’ve got to be terribly careful how you treat them!”

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p Davidov can hardly have remembered these words during his clash with Ustin. But as a Communist, he was perfectly aware of the fact that “you’ve got to be terribly careful how you treat people”. This, indeed, is the source of that “inner self-criticism" which is an essential factor determining his behaviour, and makes him such a noble character.

p Davidov is a merciless judge of his own behaviour. He has a strong Party conscience, he always knows for whom and for what he is living, and this prevents him from making serious mistakes.

p Bitterly dissatisfied and angry with his own behaviour, Davidov had frankly to admit to himself, “that he had unconsciously begun to adopt the rough, Nagulnov way of treating people; he had ’slipped the collar’, as Andrei Razmyotnov would say”. Moreover, he found the courage to declare for all to hear: “As a matter of fact, I needn’t have bawled at you like that, you’re right there, Ustin.”

p Although Davidov has not yet cooled down after the encounter and is still convinced that Ustin is “an open enemy of collectivisation”, he is nevertheless prepared to listen to old Osetrov’s account of Ustin’s hard life.

p His heart, ever responsive to human misfortune, is moved by what he hears, and he immediately begins thinking about how to help clothe and feed Ustin’s numerous children and see that they’re sent to school.

p Sholokhov does not have a narrow understanding of the purpose of art and does not limit himself to posing or answering “questions” of social importance. A “problem” interests him in so far as it enables him to understand people, to understand the motives for their actions.

p Thus, the argument about methods of leadership has the wider implications of a serious reflection on the essence of humanism, on the new kind of social relationships, on honour, and all that which is finest in man.

p Sholokhov is a “thoroughly earthly" writer for whom the very concepts of beauty are intrinsically bound up with concrete reality.

Davidov’s fine qualities are evident not only in his thoughts and convictions but also in practice, in his everyday behaviour and relations with other people.

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p Davidov’s inner beauty, as we have already noted, is revealed not only in events of great moment and sociohistorical importance. No less important for understanding his character is Varya Kharlamova’s pure, innocent love for him, which is contrasted with Lushka’s cynical, calculating feelings. Whereas his relationship with Lushka lowered Davidov, “smeared him with tar" as Shaly put it, Varya’s love ennobles him.

p Grigory and Aksinya’s love in And Quiet Flows the Don which, especially at first, swept them up in a mighty storm of passion and desire, is told dramatically. The story of Varya and Davidov is narrated with remarkable tenderness, and has all the bitter-sweet pain, innocence and artlessness of first love.

p Varya, with her swiftly changing moods, her joy and pain, tears of disillusionment and the gay laughter, is indeed “as pure as the sunrise on a fine morning".

p This love, which Sholokhov describes with his usual deep understanding of the human heart, helps us understand a great deal about Davidov. He is tormented by his strong carnal lust for Lushka, and his going out to the distant fields where Dubtsov’s ploughing team was working was like “the shameful flight of a man who desired yet feared the final untying of a love-knot".

p At first he is indifferent to Varya’s love, but his attitude to her feelings is so clean, it reveals such kindly understanding and sensitivity as speak of a really fine nature.

p The reader may find it difficult to reconcile his picture of Davidov with the passage where he trudges wearily behind the plough in his sweat-stained, tattered shirt, desperately trying to hide from Varya’s innocent eyes the obscenity that has been tattooed on his stomach in his foolish sailor days.

p Sholokhov seems to be telling us that if we look closely at this “thoroughly earthly man" who is far from perfect, and has many mistakes and failures behind him, we shall see those fine qualities which the struggle for the Revolution and Soviet power had instilled in him, and also great spiritual beauty.

p This is perhaps the main message of Sholokhov’s novel for contemporary literature—that there is no need for 277 “romanticising”, no need for the “exceptional”, for in our present life the future is being born, and the fine, noble man of the future is already emerging.

p “Where did you spring from and what do I need of you, you sweet kid? Davidov thought absently, regarding the girl’s violently blushing face. And what do you need of me? You’ve got so many young fellows running after you, and you look at me, you blind little thing! Why, I’m twice your age; all scarred and ugly, and half my front teeth are missing; but you can’t see it.... No, I don’t want you, poor little Varya. Grow up without me, my dear.”

p That was when he first realised that Varya was in love with him. Later, when he knew her a little from having worked together in the fields with her, he began to sadly reflect that with a girl like Varya it was all or nothing, and he had best leave her alone. The fact that his thoughts are so down to earth only serves to stress the purity and sincerity of his motives.

p “No, that kid can only be loved seriously, my conscience wouldn’t let me just fool around with her. Why, she’s as pure as the sunrise on a fine morning, and her eyes are so clear when she looks at me—So if I haven’t learned to love properly, if I don’t understand that side of things yet, then there’s no point in worrying the girl’s head for nothing. Now it’s a case of cut your moorings, seaman Davidov, and be quick about it! And I think I’d better keep away from her in future. Yes, I’ll just tell her gently, so she’ll understand, then keep away, Davidov decided with an involuntary sigh.”

p Without knowing it Davidov learns what true love is, and still distrusting himself he goes out to meet this love, the one and only he is to cherish all his life. His passion for Lushka disperses like mist in the warm rays of Varya’s love.

p At first, thinking about Varya Davidov wished that Lushka would gaze at him “with such selfless devotion and love".

p Later that day, out in the field Varya bent down to give him his jacket, and their heads almost touched. “His nostrils twitched as he caught the fragrance of her hair. Her whole body smelled of the midday sun, the sultry grasses, and that singularly fresh and bewitching scent of youth 278 that no one has ever yet been able to describe in words.

p “What a sweet kid! he thought, and sighed.”

p That evening, back at camp, Davidov was falling asleep when he heard Varya laughing, and her laughter reminded him of the “cooing of a turtle dove”. “What a sweet kid, he thought as he dropped off to sleep. She’s grown up though, fit to be a bride, but she has the mind of a child. Good luck to you, Varya dear.”

p Words of endearment like “sweet” and “dear” acquire especially moving overtones coming from the rather gruff, reserved Davidov.

p Yet there is really nothing so surprising in the fact that tender poetic epithets and comparisons should well up unawares in the heart of a man with such strong feelings as Davidov.

p It was certainly no accident that Davidov first thought of marriage when he came across an abandoned nest in a salt-marsh. The sudden thought seemed “absurd and foolish”. Apparently he did not suspect for a moment that it was Varya who had aroused in him the eternal human longing for a family.

p Such was the consummate artistry with which Sholokhov “set the scene for" the decisive conversation between Varya and Davidov.

p As is almost invariably the case with Sholokhov, an external event suddenly brings to a head with amazing dramatic force something seemingly unimportant that has been building up for some time. This dynamic leap gives a new turn to the mood, emotions and feelings of the characters.

p Varya tells Davidov that her mother is trying to marry her off to Vanka Obnizov. Davidov is plunged into “utter confusion" by the news.

p “Dismayed, numb with surprise, his heart pricking painfully, he gripped Varya’a hands and, taking a step back, looked into her tearful downcast face, not knowing what to say. And only now did it dawn on him that for a long time perhaps, without acknowledging it even to himself, he had loved this girl with a love that for a man like him with all his experience of life was strangely fresh and pure, and that now he stood almost face to face with the two sad friends and companions of nearly all true love—parting and loss.”

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p A sad premonition has crept into this terse description of Davidov’s feelings. Davidov and Varya could hardly have imagined on that night which seemed to unite them, that they were soon to be parted for ever. The lines pack tremendous heart-breaking sorrow, pain and tenderness.

p Davidov’s love is no blind, egoistic passion. His main concern is for Varya and her future. It took real self-sacrifice on his part to ask Varya to be his “lawful wedded wife" and then send her straight off to town to study at an agricultural college. By so doing he is helping her make sure she’s not making a mistake.

p There was another important consideration behind this decision. Davidov evidently wanted Varya to break out of that narrow world she lived in and plunge with all the ardour of youth into intelligent life, so that she could become his true partner in their common struggle.

p Sholokhov is too laconic to explain all this in detail, and thus merely mentions Davidov’s decision, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the motives.

p Another motive behind Davidov’s decision to marry Varya deserves our attention as throwing further light on his character. It is difficult to say what was uppermost in his mind that sleepless night when he decided to “take the plunge": awareness of his love for Varya or compassion for the large and needy Kharlamov family that had long been without a proper breadwinner.

p Davidov always tried terribly hard to hide his sympathetic heart behind a wall of sternness and almost roughness. He was always ready to come to the aid of those in need, to lighten other people’s burdens and help wherever possible.

The appearance of the fine features of the new, Communist morality in Davidov, a man who seemed so ordinary and unassuming on the surface, is presented most convincingly. It is as if we can see the light of the future shining forth in a still far from perfect reality, the agelong artistic ideal of the strong, good and noble man being made flesh.