"The Secret of Progress" by Vladimir Soloviev

I read this short piece by Soloviev this morning and it struck me to the heart and has instantly come to mean something important to me. Since I couldn’t find an easily accessible copy of it online, and since I am fairly certain it is short enough to be shared in its entirety under rules of fair use, I thought I would share it here, in case it can come to mean something to others as it has to me. The translation is by Natalie Duddington, and it can be found in A Solovyov Anthology, first published in 1950 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, and reprinted in 2020 by Angelico Press.

A 19th century Russian Icon, Unexpected Joy, probably referenced at the end of this piece.

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Do you know this fairy tale?

A huntsman lost his way in a dense forest; tired out, he sat down on a stone beside a wide, raging stream. He sat there looking into the dark depths and listening to the woodpecker tapping and tapping against the bark of a tree. His heart grew heavy within him. 'I am as lonely in life as I am in the forest', he thought. 'I have long lost my way, wandering by different paths, and there is no way out for me. Solitude, misery and perdition! Why was I born, why did I come into this forest? What good to me are all those birds and beasts that I have killed?'

At that moment someone touched him on the shoulder. He saw a bent old woman, such as generally appear on such occasions — thin as thin can be, and her skin the colour of a locust pod or of an unpolished boot. Her eyes were sullen, two tufts of grey hair stuck out on her chin, and she was clothed in precious robes that had turned into tatters, through age.

'Listen, my good man, there is a place on the other side that is a regular paradise! Once you get there, you'll forget all your troubles. You'll never find your way to it yourself, but I'll take you straight to it — I come from those parts myself. Only, carry me across the stream, for I could not struggle against the current. As it is, I can hardly stand on my feet and am almost at my last gasp — and yet I don't at all want to die, not at all.'

The huntsman was a good-natured young man. He did not in the least believe the old woman's words about the place like paradise, it was not in the least tempting to wade across the stream, and not at all alluring to carry the old creature on his shoulders, but as he looked at her, she had a bout of coughing and shook all over. 'I can't let an ancient creature like her perish!' he thought. 'She must be over a hundred years old and have borne a lot in her day, so it's only fair to do something for her.'

'Very well, granny, climb on to my back, and mind you pull your bones together, for if you fall to pieces there will be no picking them up in the water.'

The old woman climbed on to his shoulders and he felt a weight as heavy as if he had lifted a coffin with a corpse in it — he could scarcely move. 'Well,' he thought, 'it would be a shame to turn back now.' He stepped into the water, and suddenly the weight seemed less, and then it grew lighter and lighter with every step. And he felt that something miraculous was taking place. But he went straight on, looking in front of him. When he stepped ashore, he looked back: instead of the old woman an enchanting maiden, a real queen of beauty, was clinging to him! She brought him to her motherland, and never again has he complained of loneliness, or killed birds and beasts or lost his way in the forest.

Everyone knows some version of this fairy tale, and I too knew it as a child, but only today I felt its real meaning. The modern man hunting after the fleeting momentary goods and elusive fancies has lost his right path in life. The dark and turbulent stream of life is before him. Time like a woodpecker mercilessly registers the moments that have been lost. Misery and solitude, and afterwards — darkness and perdition. But behind him stands the sacred antiquity of tradition — oh, in what an unattractive form! Well, what of it? Let him only think of what he owes to her; let him with an inner heartfelt impulse revere her greyness, pity her infirmities, feel ashamed of rejecting her because of her appearance. Instead of idly looking out for phantom-like fairies beyond the clouds, let him undertake the labour of carrying this sacred burden across the real stream of history. This is the only way out of his wanderings — the only, because any other would be insufficient, unkind, impious: he could not let the ancient creature perish.

The modern man does not believe in the fairy tale, he does not believe that the decrepit old woman will be transformed into a queen of beauty. But if he does not believe it, so much the better! Why believe in the future reward when what is required is to deserve it by the present effort and self-denying heroism? Those who do not believe in the future of the old and the sacred, must at any rate remember its past. Why should he not carry her across out of reverence for her antiquity, out of pity for her decay, out of shame for being ungrateful? Blessed are the believers: while still standing on this shore they already see through the wrinkles of old age the brilliance of incorruptible beauty. But unbelievers in the future transformation have the advantage of unexpected joy. Both, the believers and the unbelievers have the same task: to go forward, taking upon their shoulders the whole weight of antiquity.

If you, the modern man, want to be a man of the future, forget not in the smoking ruins your father Anchises and the native gods. They needed a pious hero to transfer them to Italy, but they alone could give him and his descendants both Italy and power over the world. And that which we hold as holy is mightier than the Trojan gods, and we have to carry it further than Italy or the whole of the earthly world. He who saves shall be saved. That is the secret of progress — there is not and there can be no other.