Turgenev was born on the 28 October 1818, at Orel, in south centralRussia, about half-way between Moscow and Kiev. Thus, although thetemperament of Turgenev was entirely different from that of Gogol, hewas born not far from the latter's beloved Ukraine. He came honestlyby the patrician quality that unconsciously animated all his books,for his family was both ancient and noble. His mother was wealthy, andin 1817 was married to a handsome, unprincipled military officer sixyears younger than herself. Their life together was an excellentexample of the exact opposite of domestic bliss, and in treating theboy like a culprit, they transformed him--as always happens in similarcases--into a severe judge of their own conduct. The father'sunbridled sensuality and the mother's unbridled tongue gave asuccession of moving pictures of family discord to the inquisitiveeyes of the future novelist. His childhood was anything but cheerful,and late in life he said he could distinctly remember the salt tasteof the frequent tears that trickled into the corners of his mouth.Fortunately for all concerned, the father died while Turgenev was aboy, leaving him with only one--even if the more formidable--of hisparents to contend with. His mother despised writers, especially thosewho wrote in Russian; she insisted that Ivan should make anadvantageous marriage, and "have a career"; but the boy was determinednever to marry, and he had not the slightest ambition for governmentfavours. The two utterly failed to understand each other, and, wearyof his mother's capricious violence of temper, he became completelyestranged. Years later, in her last illness, Turgenev made repeatedattempts to see her, all of which she angrily repulsed. He endeavouredto see her at the very last, but she died before his arrival. He wasthen informed that on the evening of her death she had given orders tohave an orchestra play dance-music in an adjoining chamber, todistract her mind during the final agony. And her last thought was anattempt to ruin Ivan and his brother by leaving orders to haveeverything sold at a wretched price, and to set fire to other parts ofthe property. His comment on his dead mother was "Enfin, il fautoublier."
It is significant that Turgenev has nowhere in all his novelsportrayed a mother who combined intelligence with goodness.
French, German, and English Turgenev learned as a child, first fromgovernesses, and then from regular foreign tutors. The language of hisown country, of which he was to become the greatest master that hasever lived, he was forced to learn from the house-servants. His fatherand mother conversed only in French; his mother even prayed in French.Later, he studied at the Universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, andBerlin. At Berlin he breathed for the first time the free air ofintellectual Europe, and he was never able long to live out of thatelement again. One of his closest comrades at the University wasBakunin, a hot-headed young Radical, who subsequently became aNihilist agitator. There is no doubt that his fiery harangues gaveTurgenev much material for his later novels. It is characteristic,too, that while his student friends went wild at the theatre overSchiller, Turgenev immensely preferred Goethe, and could practicallyrepeat the whole first part of "Faust" by heart. Turgenev, likeGoethe, was a natural aristocrat in his manner and in his literarytaste--and had the same dislike for extremists of all kinds. With theexception of Turgenev's quiet but profound pessimism, his temperamentwas very similar to that of the great German--such a man will surelyincur the hatred of the true Reformer type.
Turgenev was one of the best educated among modern men-of-letters; hisknowledge was not superficial and fragmentary, it was solid andaccurate. Of all modern novelists, he is the best exponent of genuineculture.
Turgenev often ridiculed in his novels the Russian Anglo-maniac; butin one respect he was more English than the English themselves. Thisis seen in his passion for shooting. Nearly all of his trips toBritain were made solely for this purpose, and most of thedistinguished Englishmen that he met, like Tennyson, he met whilevisiting England for grouse. Shooting, to be sure, is common enough inRussia; it appears in Artsybashev's "Sanin," and there was a time whenTolstoi was devoted to this sport, though it later appeared on hislong blacklist. But Turgenev had the passion for it characteristiconly of the English race; and it is interesting to observe that thishumane and peace-loving man entered literature with a gun in his hand.It was on his various shooting excursions in Russia that he obtainedso intimate a knowledge of the peasants and of peasant life; and hisfirst important book, "A Sportsman's Sketches," revealed to the worldtwo things: the dawn of a new literary genius, and the wretchedcondition of the serfs. This book has often been called the "UncleTom's Cabin" of Russia; no title could be more absurd. In the wholerange of literary history, it would be difficult to find twopersonalities more unlike than that of Turgenev and Mrs. Stowe. Thegreat Russian utterly lacked the temperament of the advocate; but hisinnate truthfulness, his wonderful art, and his very calmness made thepicture of woe all the more clear. There is no doubt that the bookbecame, without its author's intention, a social document; there is nodoubt that Turgenev, a sympathetic and highly civilised man, hatedslavery, and that his picture of it helped in an indirect way to bringabout the emancipation of the serfs. But its chief value is artisticrather than sociological. It is interesting that "Uncle Tom's Cabin"and "A Sportsman's Sketches" should have appeared at about the sametime, and that emancipation in each country should have followed atabout the same interval; but the parallel is chronological rather thanlogical.*
*There is an interesting and amusing reference to Harriet BeecherStowe in the fourth chapter of "Smoke."
The year of the publication of Turgenev's book (1852) saw the death ofGogol: and the new author quite naturally wrote a public letter ofeulogy. In no other country would such a thing have excited anythingbut favourable comment; in Russia it raised a storm; thegovernment--always jealous of anything that makes for Russia's realgreatness--became suspicious, and Turgenev was banished to hisestates. Like one of his own dogs, he was told to "go home." Home hewent, and continued to write books. Freedom was granted him a fewyears later, and he left Russia never to return except as a visitor.He lived first in Germany, and finally in Paris, one of the literarylions of the literary capital of the world. There, on the 3 September1883, he died. His body was taken to Russia, and with that cruelperversity that makes us speak evil of men while they are alive andsensitive, and good only when they are beyond the reach of our pettypraise and blame, friends and foes united in one shout of praise whoseechoes filled the whole world.
Turgenev, like Daniel Webster, looked the part. He was a great greygiant, with the Russian winter in his hair and beard. His face inrepose had an expression of infinite refinement, infinite gentleness,and infinite sorrow. When the little son of Alphonse Daudet sawTurgenev and Flaubert come into the room, arm in arm, the boy criedout, "Why, papa, they are giants!" George Moore said that at a ball inMontmartre, he saw Turgenev come walking across the hall; he lookedlike a giant striding among pigmies. Turgenev had that peculiar gentlesweetness that so well accompanies great bodily size and strength. Hismodesty was the genuine humility of a truly great man. He was alwayssurprised at the admiration his books received, and amazed when heheard of their success in America. Innumerable anecdotes are toldillustrating the beauty of his character; the most recent to appear inprint is from the late Mr. Conway, who said that Turgenev was "a grandman in every way, physically and mentally, intelligence and refinementin every feature. . . I found him modest almost to shyness, and in hisconversation--he spoke English--never loud or doctrinaire. At theWalter Scott centennial he was present,--the greatest man at thecelebration,--but did not make himself known. There was an excursionto Abbotsford, and carriages were provided for guests. One in which Iwas seated passed Turgenev on foot. I alighted and walked with him, atevery step impressed by his greatness and his simplicity."
We shall not know until the year 1920 how far Turgenev was influencedby Madame Viardot, nor exactly what were his relations with thisextraordinary woman. Pauline Garcia was a great singer who made herfirst appearance in Petersburg in 1843. Turgenev was charmed with her,and they remained intimate friends until his death forty years
later.After this event, she published some of his letters. She died in Parisin 1910, at the age of eighty-nine. It is reported that among herpapers is a complete manuscript novel by Turgenev, which he gave toher some fifty years ago, on the distinct understanding that it shouldnot be published until ten years after her death. We must accordinglywait for this book with what patience we can command. If this novelreally exists, it is surely a strange sensation to know that there isa manuscript which, when published, is certain to be an addition tothe world's literature. It is infinitely more valuable on that accountthan for any light it may throw on the relations between the twoindividuals.
When Madame Viardot gave up the opera in 1864, and went to live atBaden, Turgenev followed the family thither, lived in a little houseclose to them, and saw them every day. He was on the most intimateterms with her, with her husband, and with her daughters, whom heloved devotedly. He was essentially a lonely man, and in thishousehold found the only real home he ever knew. It is reported thathe once said that he would gladly surrender all his literary fame ifhe had a hearth of his own, where there was a woman who cared whetherhe came home late or not. What direction the influence of MadameViardot on Turgenev took no one knows. Perhaps she simply supplied himwith music, which was one of the greatest passions and inspirations ofhis life. This alone would be sufficient to account for theirintimacy. Perhaps she merely stimulated his literary activity, andkept him at his desk; for, like all authors except Anthony Trollope,he hated regular work. His definition of happiness is not only aself-revelation, it will appeal to many humble individuals who are notwriters at all. Being asked for a definition of happiness, he gave itin two words--"Remorseless Laziness."
It is one of the curious contradictions in human nature that Tolstoi,so aggressive an apostle of Christianity, was himself so lacking inthe cardinal Christian virtues of meekness, humility, gentleness, andadmiration for others; and that Turgenev, who was without religiousbelief of any kind, should have been so beautiful an example of thereal kindly tolerance and unselfish modesty that should accompany aChristian faith. There is no better illustration in modern history ofthe grand old name of gentleman.
His pessimism was the true Slavonic pessimism, quiet, profound, andundemonstrative. I heard the late Professor Boyesen say that he hadnever personally known any man who suffered like Turgenev from mereDespair. His pessimism was temperamental, and he very early losteverything that resembled a definite religious belief. Seated in agarden, he was the solitary witness of a strife between a snake and atoad; this made him first doubt God's Providence.
He was far more helpful to Russia, living in Paris, than he could havebeen at home. Just as Ibsen found that he could best describe socialconditions in Norway from the distance of Munich or Rome, just as thebest time to describe a snowstorm is on a hot summer's day,--forpoets, as Mrs. Browning said, are always most present with thedistant,--so Turgenev's pictures of Russian character and life arenearer to the truth than if he had penned them in the hurly-burly ofpolitical excitement. Besides, it was through Turgenev that theFrench, and later the whole Western world, became acquainted withRussian literature; for a long time he was the only Russian novelistwell known outside of his country. It was also owing largely to hispersonal efforts that Tolstoi's work first became known in France. Hedistributed copies to the leading writers and men of influence, andasked them to arouse the public. Turgenev had a veritable genius foradmiration; he had recognised the greatness of his younger rivalimmediately, and without a twinge of jealousy. When he read"Sevastopol," he shouted "Hurrah!" and drank the author's health.Their subsequent friendship was broken by a bitter and melancholyquarrel which lasted sixteen years. Then after Tolstoi had embracedChristianity, he considered it his duty to write to Turgenev, andsuggest a renewal of their acquaintance. This was in 1878. Turgenevreplied immediately, saying that all hostile feelings on his part hadlong since disappeared; that he remembered only his old friend, andthe great writer whom he had had the good fortune to salute beforeothers had discovered him. In the summer of that year they had afriendly meeting in Russia, but Turgenev could not appreciate theimportance of Tolstoi's new religious views; and that very autumnTolstoi wrote to Fet, "He is a very disagreeable man." At the sametime Turgenev also wrote to Fet, expressing his great pleasure in therenewal of the old friendship, and saying that Tolstoi's "name isbeginning to have a European reputation, and we others, we Russians,have known for a long time that he has no rival among us." In 1880,Turgenev returned to Russia to participate in the Pushkin celebration,and was disappointed at Tolstoi's refusal to take part. The truth is,that Tolstoi always hated Turgenev during the latter's lifetime, whileTurgenev always admired Tolstoi. On his death-bed, he wrote to him oneof the most unselfish and beautiful letters that one great man eversent to another.
"For a long time I have not written to you, because I was and I am onmy death-bed. I cannot get well, it is not even to be thought of. Iwrite to tell you how happy I am to have been your contemporary, andto send you one last petition. My friend! resume your literary work!It is your gift, which comes from whence comes everything else. Ah!how happy I should be if I could only think that my words would havesome influence on you! . . . I can neither eat nor sleep. But it istiresome to talk about such things. My friend, great writer of ourRussian land, listen to my request. Let me know if you get this bit ofpaper, and permit me once more to heartily embrace you and yours. Ican write no more. I am exhausted."
Tolstoi cannot be blamed for paying no heed to this earnest appeal,because every man must follow his conscience, no matter whither it maylead. He felt that he could not even reply to it, as he had grown sofar away from "literature" as he had previously understood it. But theletter is a final illustration of the modesty and greatness ofTurgenev's spirit; also of his true Russian patriotism, his desire tosee his country advanced in the eyes of the world. When we reflectthat at the moment of his writing this letter, he himself was stillregarded in Europe as Russia's foremost author, there is true nobilityin his remark, "How happy I am to have been your contemporary!" EdwinBooth said that a Christian was one who rejoiced in the superiority ofa rival. If this be true, how few are they that shall enter into thekingdom of God.
After the death of Turgenev, Tolstoi realised his greatness as he hadnever done before. He even consented to deliver a public address inhonour of the dead man. In order to prepare himself for this, he beganto re-read Turgenev's books, and wrote enthusiastically: "I amconstantly thinking of Turgenev and I love him passionately. I pityhim and I keep on reading him. I live all the time with him. . . . Ihave just read "Enough." What an exquisite thing!"* The date was setfor the public address. Intense public excitement was aroused. Thenthe government stepped in and prohibited it!
* In 1865, he wrote to Fet, "'Enough' does not please me. Personalityand subjectivity are all right, so long as there is plenty of life andpassion. But his subjectivity is full of pain, without life."
Turgenev, like most novelists, began his literary career with thepublication of verse. He never regarded his poems highly, however, norhis plays, of which he wrote a considerable number. His reputationbegan, as has been said, with the appearance of "A Sportsman'sSketches," which are not primarily political or social in theirintention, but were written, like all his works, from the serenestandpoint of the artist. They are full of delicate character-analysis,both of men and of dogs; they clearly revealed, even in theirmelancholy humour, the actual condition of the serfs. But perhapsthey are chiefly remarkable for their exquisite descriptions ofnature. Russian fiction as a whole is not notable for nature-pictures;the writers have either not been particularly sensitive to beauty ofsky and landscape, or like Browning, their interest in the human soulhas been so predominant that everything else must take a subordinateplace. Turgenev is the great exception, and in this field he standsin Russian literature without a rival, even among the professionalpoets.
Although "Sportsman's Sketches" and the many other short tales thatTurgenev wrote at intervals during his who
le career are thoroughlyworth reading, his great reputation is based on his seven completenovels, which should be read in the order of composition, even thoughthey do not form an ascending climax. All of them are short; comparedwith the huge novels so much in vogue at this moment, they look liketiny models of massive machinery. Turgenev's method was first to writea story at great length, and then submit it to rigid and remorselesscompression, so that what he finally gave to the public was thequintessence of his art. It is one of his most extraordinary powersthat he was able to depict so many characters and so many lifehistories in so very few words. The reader has a sense of absolutecompleteness.
It was in his first novel, "Rudin," that Turgenev made the firstfull-length portrait of the typical educated Russian of the nineteenthcentury. In doing this, he added an immortal character to the world'sliterature. "Such and such a man is a Rudin," has been a commonexpression for over fifty years, as we speak of the Tartuffes and thePecksniffs. The character was sharply individualised, but he stands asthe representative of an exceedingly familiar Slavonic type, and noother novelist has succeeded so well, because no other novelist hasunderstood Rudin so clearly as his creator. It is an entire mistake tospeak of him, as so many do nowadays, as an obsolete or rather a"transitional" type. The word "transitional" has been altogetheroverworked in dealing with Turgenev. Rudins are as common in Russiato-day as they were in 1850; for although Turgenev diagnosed thedisease in a masterly fashion, he was unable to suggest a remedy. Solate as 1894 Stepniak remarked, "it may be truly said that everyeducated Russian of our time has a bit of Dmitri Rudin in him." IfRudin is a transitional type, why does the same kind of characterappear in Tolstoi, in Dostoevski, in Gorki, in Artsybashev? Why hasSienkiewicz described the racial temperament in two words,improductivite slave? It is generally agreed that no man has succeededbetter than Chekhov in portraying the typical Russian of the lasttwenty years of the nineteenth century. In 1894 some one sent to himin writing this question, "What should a Russian desire at thispresent time?" He replied, "Desire! he needs most of all desire--forceof character. We have enough of that whining shapelessness." Kropotkinsays of him: "He knew, and more than knew--he felt with every nerve ofhis poetical mind--that, apart from a handful of stronger men andwomen, the true curse of the Russian 'intellectual' is the weakness ofhis will, the insufficient strength of his desires. Perhaps he felt itin himself. . . . This absence of strong desire and weakness of willhe continually, over and over again, represented in his heroes. Butthis predilection was not a mere accident of temperament andcharacter. It was a direct product of the times he lived in." If itwas, as Kropotkin says, a direct product of the times he lived in,then Rudin is not a transitional type, for the direct product of theforties and fifties, when compared with the direct product of theeighties and nineties, is precisely the same. Turgenev's Rudin is farfrom obsolete. He is the educated Slav of all time; he to a largeextent explains mapless Poland, and the political inefficiency of thegreat empire of Russia. There is not a single person in any English orAmerican novel who can be said to represent his national type in themanner of Rudin. When we remember the extreme brevity of the book, itwas an achievement of the highest genius.
Rudin, like the Duke in "The Statue and the Bust," is a splendidsheath without a sword, "empty and fine like a swordless sheath." Hismind is covered with the decorations of art, music, philosophy, andall the ornaments engraved on it by wide travel, sound culture, andprolonged thought; but he can do no execution with it, because thereis no single, steady, informing purpose inside. The moment the girl'sresolution strikes against him, he gives forth a hollow sound. He islike a stale athlete, who has great muscles and no vitality. To callhim a hypocrite would be to misjudge him entirely. He is more subtleand complex than that. One of his acquaintances, hearing him spoken ofas Tartuffe, replies, "No, the point is, he is not a Tartuffe.Tartuffe at least knew what he was aiming at." A man of smallintelligence who knows exactly what he wants is more likely to get itthan a man of brilliant intelligence who doesn't know what he wants,is to get anything, or anywhere.
Perhaps Turgenev, who was the greatest diagnostician among allnovelists, felt that by constantly depicting this manner of man Russiawould realise her cardinal weakness, and some remedy might be foundfor it--just as the emancipation of the serfs had been partly broughtabout by his dispassionate analysis of their condition. Perhaps herepeated this character so often because he saw Rudin in his ownheart. At all events, he never wearied of showing Russians what theywere, and he took this means of showing it. In nearly all his novels,and in many of his short tales, he has given us a whole gallery ofRudins under various names. In "Acia," for example, we have a charmingpicture of the young painter, Gagin.
"Gagin showed me all his canvases. In his sketches there was a gooddeal of life and truth, a certain breadth and freedom; but not one ofthem was finished, and the drawing struck me as careless andincorrect. I gave candid expression to my opinion.
"'Yes, yes,' he assented, with a sigh, 'you're right; it's all verypoor and crude; what's to be done? I haven't had the training I oughtto have had; besides, one's cursed Slavonic slackness gets the betterof one. While one dreams of work, one soars away in eagle flight; onefancies one's going to shake the earth out of its place--but when itcomes to doing anything, one's weak and weary directly."
The heroine of "Rudin," the young girl Natalya, is a faint sketch ofthe future Lisa. Turgenev's girls never seem to have any fun; howdifferent they are from the twentieth century American novelist'sheroine, for whom the world is a garden of delight, with exceedinglyattractive young men as gardeners! These Russian young women aregrave, serious, modest, religious, who ask and expect little forthemselves, and who radiate feminine charm. They have indomitablepower of will, characters of rocklike steadfastness, enveloped in adisposition of ineffable sweetness. Of course they at first fall aneasy prey to the men who have the gift of eloquence; for nothinghypnotises a woman more speedily than noble sentiments in the mouth ofa man. Her whole being vibrates in mute adoration, like flowers to thesunlight. The essential goodness of a woman's heart is fertile soilfor an orator, whether he speaks from the platform or in aconservatory. Natalya is limed almost instantly by the honey ofRudin's language, and her virgin soul expands at his declaration oflove. Despite the opposition of her mother, despite the iron bonds ofconvention, she is ready to forsake all and follow him. To herunspeakable amazement and dismay, she finds that the great orator isvox, et praeterea nihil.
"'And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?'
"'What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you, I shalltrust you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?'
"'My plans--Your mother certainly will turn me out of the house.'
"'Perhaps. She told me yesterday that she must break off allacquaintance with you. But you do not answer my question.'
"'What question?'
"'What do you think we must do now?'
"'What we must do?' replied Rudin, 'of course submit.'
"'Submit?' repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white.
"'Submit to destiny,' continued Rudin 'What is to be done?'"
But, although the average Anglo-Saxon reader is very angry with Rudin,he is not altogether contemptible If every man were of the Roosevelttype, the world would become not a fair field, but a free fight. Weneed Roosevelts and we need Rudins The Rudins allure to brighterworlds, even if they do not lead the way. If the ideals they setbefore us by their eloquence are true, their own failures do notnegate them. Whose fault is it if we do not reach them? Lezhnyov givesthe inefficient Rudin a splendid eulogy.
"Genius, very likely he has! but as for being natural. . . . That'sjust his misfortune, that there's nothing natural in him. . . . I wantto speak of what is good; of what is rare in him. He has enthusiasm;and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the mostprecious quality in our times. We have all become insufferablyreasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, andthanks to any one w
ho will wake us up and warm us! . . . He is not anactor, as I called him, nor a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives atother people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child. . . .He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, noblood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use? thathis words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whomnature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action, and thefaculty of carrying out their own ideas? . . . I drink to the healthof Rudin! I drink to the comrade of my best years, I drink to youth,to its hopes, its endeavours, its faith, and its purity, to all thatour hearts beat for at twenty; we have known, and shall know, nothingbetter than that in life. . . . I drink to that golden time,--to thehealth of Rudin!"
It is plain that the speaker is something of a Rudin himself.
The next novel, "A House of Gentlefolk,"* is, with the possibleexception of "Fathers and Children," Turgenev's masterpiece. I know ofno novel which gives a richer return for repeated re-readings. As thetitle implies, this book deals, not with an exciting narrative, butwith a group of characters; who can forget them? Like all of itsauthor's works, it is a love-story; this passion is the mainspringof the chief personages, and their minds and hearts are revealed byits power. It is commonly said that Turgenev lacked passion; onemight say with equal truth that Wordsworth lacked love of nature.Many of his novels and tales are tremulous with passion, but theyare never noisy with it. Like the true patrician that he was, hestudied restraint and reserve. The garden scene between Lisa andLavretsky is the very ecstasy of passion, although, like the twocharacters, it is marked by a pure and chaste beauty of word andaction, that seems to prove that Love is something divine. Only thetruly virtuous really understand passion--just as the sorrows of menare deeper than the sorrows of children, even though the latter beaccompanied by more tears. Those who believe that the master passionof love expresses itself by floods of words or by abominable imagery,will understand Turgenev as little as they understand life. In readingthe few pages in which the lovers meet by night in the garden, onefeels almost like an intruder--as one feels at the scene ofreconciliation between Lear and Cordelia. It is the very essence ofintimacy--the air is filled with something high and holy.
* In the original, "A Nobleman's Nest."
Lisa is the greatest of all Turgenev's great heroines. No one can helpbeing better for knowing such a girl. She is not very beautiful, sheis not very accomplished, not even very quick-witted; but she has eineschone Seele. There is nothing regal about her; she never tries toqueen it in the drawing-room. She is not proud, high-spirited, andhaughty; she does not constantly "draw herself up to her full height,"a species of gymnastics in great favour with most fiction-heroines.But she draws all men unto herself. She is beloved by the two oppositeextremes of manhood--Panshin and Lavretsky. Lacking beauty, wit, andlearning, she has an irrepressible and an irresistible virginalcharm--the exceedingly rare charm of youth when it seeks not its own.When she appears on the scene, the pages of the book seem illuminated,and her smile is a benediction. She is exactly the kind of woman to beloved by Lavretsky, and to be desired by a rake like Panshin. For aman like Lavretsky will love what is lovely, and a satiated rake willalways eagerly long to defile what is beyond his reach.
It is contemptuously said by many critics--why is it that so manycritics lose sensitiveness to beauty, and are afraid of their ownfeelings?--it is said that Lisa, like Rudin, is an obsolete type, thetype of Russian girl of 1850, and that she is now interesting only asa fashion that has passed away, and because of the enthusiasm she onceawakened. We are informed, with a shade of cynicism, that all theRussian girls then tried to look like Lisa, and to imitate her manner.Is her character really out of style and out of date? If this weretrue, it would be unfortunate; for the kind of girl that Lisarepresents will become obsolete only when purity, modesty, andgentleness in women become unattractive. We have not yet progressedquite so far as that. Instead of saying that Lisa is a type of theRussian girl of 1850, I should say that she is a type of theEwig-weibliche.
At the conclusion of the great garden-scene, Turgenev, by what seemsthe pure inspiration of genius, has expressed the ecstasy of love inold Lemm's wonderful music It is as though the passion of the lovershad mounted to that pitch where language would be utterly inadequate;indeed, one feels in reading that scene that the next page must be ananti-climax. It would have been if the author had not carried us stillhigher, by means of an emotional expression far nobler than words. Thedead silence of the sleeping little town is broken by "strains ofdivine, triumphant music. . . . The music resounded in still greatermagnificence; a mighty flood of melody--and all his bliss seemedspeaking and singing in its strains. . . The sweet, passionate melodywent to his heart from the first note; it was glowing and languishingwith inspiration, happiness, and beauty; it swelled and melted away;it touched on all that is precious, mysterious, and holy on earth. Itbreathed of deathless sorrow and mounted dying away to the heavens."
Elena, the heroine of "On the Eve," resembles Lisa in the absoluteintegrity of her mind, and in her immovable sincerity; but in allother respects she is a quite different person. The difference issimply the difference between the passive and the active voice. Lisais static, Elena dynamic. The former's ideal is to be good, thelatter's is to do good. Elena was strenuous even as a child, was madehotly angry by scenes of cruelty or injustice, and tried to helpeverything, from stray animals to suffering men and women. As Turgenevexpresses it, "she thirsted for action." She is naturallyincomprehensible to her conservative and ease-loving parents, who havea well-founded fear that she will eventually do something shocking.Her father says of her, rather shrewdly: "Elena Nikolaevna I don'tpretend to understand. I am not elevated enough for her. Her heart isso large that it embraces all nature down to the last beetle or frog,everything in fact except her own father." In a word, Elena isunconventional, the first of the innumerable brood of the vigorous,untrammelled, defiant young women of modern fiction, who puzzle theirparents by insisting on "living their own life." She is only a faintshadow, however, of the type so familiar to-day in the pages of Ibsen,Bjornson, and other writers. Their heroines would regard Elena astimid and conventional, for with all her self-assertion, she stillbelieves in God and marriage, two ideas that to our contemporaryemancipated females are the symbols of slavery.
Elena, with all her virtues, completely lacks the subtle charm ofLisa; for an aggressive, independent, determined woman will perhapslose something of the charm that goes with mystery. There is nomystery about Elena, at all events; and she sees through her variousadorers with eyes unblinded by sentiment. To an artist who makes loveto her she says "I believe in your repentance and I believe in yourtears But it seems to me that even your repentance amuses you--yes,and your tears too." Naturally there is no Russian fit to be the mateof this incarnation of Will. The hero of the novel, and the man whocaptures the proud heart of Elena, is a foreigner--a Bulgarian, whohas only one idea, the liberation of his country. He is purposelydrawn in sharp contrast to the cultivated charming Russian gentlemenwith whom he talks. Indeed, he rather dislikes talk, an unusual traitin a professional reformer. Elena is immediately conquered by thelaconic answer he makes to her question, "You love your country verydearly?" "That remains to be shown. When one of us dies for her, thenone can say he loved his country." Perhaps it is hypercritical toobserve that in such a case others would have to say it for him.
He proves that he is a man of action in a humorous incident. At apicnic, the ladies are insulted by a colossal German, even as Gemma isinsulted by a German in "Torrents of Spring." Insarov is not aconventional person, but he immediately performs an act that isexceedingly conventional in fiction, though rare enough in real life.Although he is neither big, nor strong, nor in good health, heinflicts corporal chastisement on the brute before his lady'seyes--something that pleases women so keenly, and soothes man's vanityso enormously, that it is a great pity it usually happens only inbooks. He lifts the giant from the ground and pitches him into a pond.Thi
s is one of the very few scenes in Turgenev that ring false, thatbelong to fiction-mongers rather than to fiction-masters. Nothing ismore delightful than to knock down a husky ruffian who has insultedthe woman you love; but it is a desperate undertaking, and rarelycrowned with success. For in real life ruffians are surprisinglyunwilling to play this complaisant role.
Finding himself falling in love with Elena, Insarov determines to goaway like Lancelot, without saying farewell. Elena, however, meets himin a thunderstorm--not so sinister a storm as the Aeneas adventure in"Torrents of Spring"-and says "I am braver than you. I was going toyou." She is actually forced into a declaration of love. This is anexceedingly difficult scene for a novelist, but not too difficult forTurgenev, who has made it beautiful and sweet. Love, which will ruinBazarov, ennobles and stimulates Insarov; for the strong man has foundhis mate. She will leave father and mother for his sake, and cleaveunto him. And, notwithstanding the anger and disgust of her parentsshe leaves Russia forever with her husband.
All Turgenev's stories are tales of frustration. Rudin is destroyed byhis own temperament. The heroes of "A House of Gentlefolk" and"Torrents of Spring" are ruined by the malign machinations of satanicwomen. Bazarov is snuffed out by a capriciously evil destiny.Insarov's splendid mind and noble aspirations accomplish nothing,because his lungs are weak. He falls back on the sofa, and Elena,thinking he has fainted, calls for help. A grotesque little Italiandoctor, with wig and spectacles, quietly remarks, "Signora, theforeign gentleman is dead--of aneurism in combination with disease ofthe lungs."
This novel caused great excitement in Russia, and the title, "On theEve," was a subject for vehement discussion everywhere. What didTurgenev mean? On the eve of what? Turgenev made no answer; but overthe troubled waters of his story moves the brooding spirit ofcreation. Russians must and will learn manhood from foreigners, frommen who die only from bodily disease, who are not sicklied o'er withthe pale cast of thought. At the very close of the book, one man asksanother, "Will there ever be men among us?" And the other "flourishedhis fingers and fixed his enigmatical stare into the far distance."Perhaps Turgenev meant that salvation would eventually come through awoman--through women like Elena. For since her appearance, many arethe Russian women who have given their lives for their country.*
* See an article in the "Forum" for August, 1910.
The best-known novel of Turgenev, and with the possible exception of"A House of Gentlefolk," his masterpiece, is "Fathers and Children,"which perhaps he intended to indicate the real dawn suggested by "Onthe Eve." The terrific uproar caused in Russia by this book has notyet entirely ceased. Russian critics are, as a rule, very bad judgesof Russian literature. Shut off from participation in free, public,parliamentary political debate, the Russians of 1860 and of to-day arealmost certain to judge the literary value of a work by what theyregard as its political and social tendency. Political bias isabsolutely blinding in an attempt to estimate the significance of anybook by Turgenev; for although be took the deepest interest in thestruggles of his unfortunate country, he was, from the beginning tothe end of his career, simply a supreme artist. He saw life clearly inits various manifestations, and described it as he saw it, from thecalm and lonely vantage-ground of genius. Naturally he was bothclaimed and despised by both parties. Here are some examples fromcontemporary Russian criticism* (1862):--
* To the best of my knowledge, these reviews have never before beentranslated. These translations were made for me by a Russian friend,Mr. William S. Gordon.
"This novel differs from others of the same sort in that it is chieflyphilosophical. Turgenev hardly touches on any of the social questionsof his day. His principal aim is to place side by side the philosophyof the fathers and the philosophy of the children and to show that thephilosophy of the children is opposed to human nature and thereforecannot be accepted in life. The problem of the novel is, as you see, aserious one; to solve this problem the author ought to haveconscientiously and impartially studied both systems of speculationand then only reach certain conclusions. But on its very first pagesyou see that the author is deficient in every mental preparation toaccomplish the aim of his novel. He not only has not the slightestunderstanding of the new positive philosophy, but even of the oldideal systems his knowledge is merely superficial and puerile. Youcould laugh at the heroes of the novel alone as you read their sillyand 'hashy' discussions on the young generation had not the novel as awhole been founded on these identical discussions."
The radical critic Antonovich condemned the book in the followingterms:--
"From an artistic standpoint the novel is entirely unsatisfactory, notto say anything more out of respect for the talent of Turgenev, forhis former merits, and for his numerous admirers. There is no commonthread, no common action which would have tied together all the partsof the novel; all of it is in some way just separate rhapsodies. . . .This novel is didactic, a real learned treatise written in dialecticform, and each character as he appears serves as an expression andrepresentative of a certain opinion and direction. . . . All theattention of the author is turned on the principal hero and the otheracting characters, however, not on their personality, not on theemotions of their souls, their feelings and passions, but ratheralmost exclusively on their talks and reasonings. This is the reasonwhy the novel, with the exception of one nice old woman, does notcontain a single living character, a single living soul, but only somesort of abstract ideas, and various movements which are personifiedand called by proper names. Turgenev's novel is not a creation purelyobjective; in it the personality of the author steps out too clearly,his sympathies, his inspiration, even his personal bitterness andirritation. From this we get the opportunity to find in the novel thepersonal opinions of the author himself, and in this we have one pointto start from--that we should accept as the opinions of the author theviews expressed in the novel, at least those views which have beenexpressed with a noticeable feeling for them on the part of the authorand put into the mouths of those characters whom he apparentlyfavours. Had the author had at least a spark of sympathy for the'children,' for the young generation, had he had at least a spark oftrue and clear understanding of their views and inclinations, it wouldhave necessarily flashed out somewhere in the run of the novel.
"The 'fathers' as opposed to the 'children' are permeated with loveand poetry; they are men, modestly and quietly doing good deeds; theywould not for the world change their age. Even such an empty nothingas Pavel Petrovich, even he is raised on stilts and made a nice man.Turgenev could not solve his problem; instead of sketching therelations between the 'fathers' and the 'children' he wrote apanegyric to the 'fathers' and a decrial against the 'children'; buthe did not even understand the children; instead of a decrial it wasnothing but a libel. The spreaders of healthy ideas among the younggeneration he wanted to show up as corrupters of youth, the sowers ofdiscord and evil, haters of good, and in a word, very devils. Invarious places of the novel we see that his principal hero is no fool;on the contrary, a very able and gifted man, who is eager to learn andworks diligently and knows much, but notwithstanding all this, he getsquite lost in disputes, utters absurdities, and preaches ridiculousthings, which should not be pardoned even in a most narrow and limitedmind. . . . In general the novel is nothing else but a merciless anddestructive criticism on the young generation. In all thecontemporaneous questions, intellectual movements, debates and idealswith which the young generation is occupied, Turgenev finds not theleast common sense and gives us to understand that they lead only todemoralisation, emptiness, prosaic shallowness, and cynicism. Turgenevfinds his ideal in quite a different place, namely in the 'fathers,'in the more or less old generation. Consequently, he draws a paralleland contrast between the 'fathers' and the 'children,' and we cannotformulate the sense of the novel in this way; among a number of goodchildren there are also bad ones who are the ones that are ridiculedin the novel; this is not its aim, its purpose is quite different andmay be formulated thus: the children are bad and thus are theyrepresented in th
e novel in all their ugliness; but the 'fathers' aregood, which is also proven in the novel."
One of the very few criticisms from a truly artistic standpointappeared in the "Russian Herald" during the year 1862, from which abrief quotation must suffice:--
"Everything in this work bears witness to the ripened power ofTurgenev's wonderful talent; the clearness of ideas, the masterlyskill in sketching types, the simplicity of plot and of movement ofthe action, and moderation and evenness of the work as a whole; thedramatic element which comes up naturally from the most ordinarysituations; there is nothing superfluous, nothing retarding, nothingextraneous. But in addition to these general merits, we are alsointerested in Turgenev's novel because in it is caught and held acurrent, fleeting moment of a passing phenomenon, and in which amomentary phase of our life is typically drawn and arrested not onlyfor the time being but forever."
These prophetically true words constitute a great exception to theprevailing contemporary criticism, which, as has been seen, waspassionately unjust. Twenty years later, a Russian writer, Boorenin,was able to view the novel as we see it to-day:--
"We can say with assurance that since the time of "Dead Souls" not asingle Russian novel made such an impression as "Fathers and Children"has made. A deep mind, a no less deep observation, an incomparableability for a bold and true analysis of the phenomena of life, and fortheir broadest relations to each other,--all these have shownthemselves in the fundamental thought of this positively historicalcreation. Turgenev has explained with lifelike images of 'fathers' and'children' the essence of that life struggle between the dying periodof the nobility which found its strength in the possession of peasantsand the new period of reforms whose essence made up the principalelement of our 'resurrection' and for which, however, none had found areal, true (BRIGHT) definition. Turgenev not only gave such adefinition, not only illumined the inner sense of the new movement inthe life of that time, but he also has pointed out its principalcharacteristic sign--negation in the name of realism, as theopposition to the old ideally liberal conservatism. It is known thathe found not only an unusually appropriate nickname for this negation,but a nickname which later became attached to a certain group ofphenomena and types and as such was accepted not only by Russia alonebut by the whole of Europe. The artist created in the image of Bazarovan exceedingly characteristic representative of the new formation oflife, of the new movement, and christened it with a wonderfullyfitting word, which made so much noise, which called forth so muchcondemnation and praise, sympathy and hatred, timid alarm and boldraving. We can point out but few instances in the history ofliterature of such a deep and lively stir called forth in our literarymidst by an artistic creation and by a type of almost politicalsignificance. This novel even after twenty years appears the samedeep, bright, and truthful reflection of life, as it was at the momentof its first appearance. Now its depth and truthfulness seem even moreclear and arouse even more wonder and respect for the creative thoughtof the artist who wrote it. In our days, when the period ofdevelopment pointed at by Turgenev in his celebrated novel is almostentirely lived through, we can only wonder at that deep insight withwhich the author had guessed the fundamental characteristic in thatlife movement which had celebrated that period. The struggle of twosocial streams, the anti-reform and post-reform stream, the struggleof two generations; the old brought up on aesthetical idealism forwhich the leisure of the nobility, made possible by their rights overthe peasants, afforded such a fertile soil; and the young generationwhich was carried away by realism and negation,--this is what made upthe essence of the movement of the epoch in the sixties. Turgenev withthe instinct of genius saw through this fundamental movement in lifeand imaged it in living bright pictures with all its positive andnegative, pathetic and humorous sides.
"In his novel Turgenev did not at all side with the 'fathers' as theunsympathetic progressive critics of that time insisted, he did notwish to in the least extol them above the 'children' in order todegrade the latter. Just so he had no intention of showing up in thecharacter of the representative of the 'children' some kind of modelof a 'thinking realist' to whom the young generation should have bowedand imitated, as the progressive critics who received the worksympathetically imagined. Such a one-sided view was foreign to theauthor; he sketched both the 'fathers' and the 'children' as far aspossible impartially and analytically. He spared neither the 'fathers'nor the 'children' and pronounced a cold and severe judgment both onthe ones and the others. He positively sings a requiem to the'fathers' in the person of the Kirsanovs, and especially PaulKirsanov, having shown up their aristocratic idealism, theirsentimental aestheticism, almost in a comical light, ay almost incaricature, as he himself has justly pointed out. In the prominentrepresentative of the 'children,' Bazarov, he recognized a certainmoral force, the energy of character, which favourably contrasts thisstrong type of realist with the puny, characterless, weak-willed typeof the former generation; but having recognised the positive side ofthe young type, he could not but show up their shortcomings to lifeand before the people, and thus take their laurels from them. And hedid so. And now when time has sufficiently exposed the shortcomings ofthe type of the generation of that time, we see how right the authorwas, how deep and far he saw into life, how clearly he perceived thebeginning and the end of its development. Turgenev in "Fathers andChildren" gave us a sample of a real universal novel, notwithstandingthe fact that its plot centres on the usual intimate relations of theprincipal characters. And with what wonderful skill the author solvesthis puzzling problem--to place in narrow, limited frames the broadestand newest themes (CONTENT). Hardly one of the novelists of our age,beginning with Dickens and ending with George Sand and Spielhagen, hassucceeded in doing it so compactly and tersely, with such an absenceof the DIDATIC element which is almost always present in the works ofthe above-mentioned authors, the now kings of western literatures,with such a full insight into the very heart of the life movementwhich is reflected in the novel. I repeat again, "Fathers andChildren" is thought of highly by European critics, but years willpass and it will be thought of even more highly. It will be placed ina line with those weighty literary creations in which is reflected thebasic movement of the time which created it."
It would have been well for Turgenev if he could have preserved anabsolute silence under the terrific storm of abuse that his mostpowerful novel brought down on his head; it would have been well tolet the book speak for itself, and trust to time to make the strongwine sweet. But this was asking almost too much of human nature. Stungby the outrageous attacks of the Radicals, and suffering as only agreat artist can suffer under what he regards as a completemisrepresentation of his purpose, Turgenev wrote letters ofexplanation, confession, irony, letters that gained him no affection,that only increased the perplexity of the public, and which are muchharder to understand than the work itself. The prime difficulty wasthat in this book Turgenev had told a number of profound truths aboutlife; and nobody wanted the truth. The eternal quarrel between the oldand the young generation, the eternal quarrel between conservative andliberal, was at that time in Russia in an acute stage; and everybodyread "Fathers and Children" with a view to increasing theirammunition, not with the object of ascertaining the justice of theircause. The "fathers" were of course angry at Turgenev's diagnosis oftheir weakness; the "sons" went into a veritable froth of rage at whatthey regarded as a ridiculous burlesque of their ideas. But that isthe penalty that a wise man suffers at a time of strife; for if everyone saw the truth clearly, we should never fight each other at all.
Turgenev's subsequent statement, that so far from Bazarov being aburlesque, he was his "favourite child," is hard to understand evento-day. The novelist said that with the exception of Bazarov's viewson art, he himself was in agreement with practically all of the ideasexpressed by the great iconoclast. Turgenev probably thought he was,but really he was not. Authors are poor judges of their own works, andtheir statements about their characters are seldom to be trusted. Manywriters have confessed t
hat when they start to write a book, with aclear notion in their heads as to how the characters shall develop,the characters often insist on developing quite otherwise, and guidethe pen of the author in a manner that constantly awakens his surpriseat his own work. Turgenev surely intended originally that we shouldlove Bazarov; as a matter of fact, nobody really loves him,* and noother character in the book loves him for long except his parents. Wehave a wholesome respect for him, as we respect any ruthless, terribleforce; but the word "love" does not express our feeling toward him. Itis possible that Turgenev, who keenly realised the need in Russia ofmen of strong will, and who always despised himself because he couldnot have steadily strong convictions, tried to incarnate in Bazarovall the uncompromising strength of character that he lacked himself;just as men who themselves lack self-assertion and cannot even lookanother man in the eye, secretly idolise the men of masterfulqualities. It is like the sick man Stevenson writing stories of ruggedout-door activity. I heard a student say once that he was sure Marlowewas a little, frail, weak man physically, and that he poured out allhis longing for virility and power in heroes like Tamburlaine.
*I cannot believe that even Mr. Edward Garnett loves him, though inhis Introduction to Constance Garnett's translation, he says, "we lovehim."
Bazarov, as every one knows, was drawn from life. Turgenev had oncemet a Russian provincial doctor,* whose straightforward talk made aprofound impression upon him. This man died soon after and had aglorious resurrection in Bazarov, speaking to thousands and thousandsof people from his obscure and forgotten grave. It is ratherinteresting that Turgenev, who drew so many irresolute Russiancharacters, should have attained his widest fame by the depiction of aman who is simply Incarnate Will. If every other person in allTurgenev's stories should be forgotten, it is safe to say that Bazarovwill always dwell in the minds of those who have once made hisacquaintance.
* It is difficult to find out much about the original of Bazarov.Haumant says Turgenev met him while travelling by the Rhine in 1860;but Turgenev himself said that the young doctor had died not longbefore 1860, and that the idea of the novel first came to him inAugust, 1860, while he was bathing on the Isle of Wight. Almost everywriter on Russian literature has his own set of dates and incidents.
And yet, Turgenev, with all his secret admiration for the Frankensteinhe had created, did not hesitate at the last to crush him both in souland body. The one real conviction of Turgenev's life waspessimism,--the belief that the man of the noblest aspiration and theman of the most brutish character are treated by Nature with equalindifference. Bazarov is the strongest individual that the novelistcould conceive; and it is safe to say that most of us live all ourlives through without meeting his equal. But his powerful mind, in itscolossal egotism and with its gigantic ambitions, is an easy prey tothe one thing he despised most of all--sentiment; and his rugged bodygoes to the grave through a chance scratch on the finger. Thus theirony of this book--and I know of no novel in the world that displayssuch irony--is not the irony of intentional partisan burlesque. Thereis no attempt in the destruction of this proud character to prove thatthe "children" were wrong or mistaken; it is the far deeper irony oflife itself, showing the absolute insignificance of the ego in thepresence of eternal and unconscious nature. Thus Bazarov, who seemsintended for a great hero of tragedy, is not permitted to fight forhis cause, nor even to die for it. He is simply obliterated by chance,as an insect perishes under the foot of a passing traveller, who isentirely unaware that he has taken an individual life.
Nature herself could hardly be colder or more passive than the womanwith whom it was Bazarov's bad luck to fall in love. The gradualchange wrought in his temperament by Madame Odintsov is shown in themost subtle manner. To Bazarov, women were all alike, and valuable foronly one thing; he had told this very woman that people were liketrees in a forest; no botanist would think of studying an individualbirch tree. Why, then, should this entirely unimportant individualwoman change his whole nature, paralyse all his ambitions, ruin allthe cheerful energy of his active mind? He fights against thisobsession like a nervous patient struggling with a dreadful depressionthat comes over him like a flood. He fights like a man fighting withan enemy in the dark, whom he cannot see, but whose terrible blowsrain on his face. When he first meets her, he remarks to the shockedArkady, "What a magnificent body! Shouldn't I like to see it on thedissecting table!" But he is unable long to admire her with suchscientific aloofness. "His blood was on fire directly if he merelythought of her; he could easily have mastered his blood, but somethingelse was taking root in him, something he had never admitted, at whichhe had always jeered, at which all his pride revolted." It is thisbewilderment at meeting the two things that are stronger thanlife--love and death--that both stupefy and torture this superman. Itis the harsh amazement of one who, believing himself to be free,discovers that he is really a slave. Just before he dies, he murmurs:"You see what a hideous spectacle; the worm half-crushed, but writhingstill. And, you see I thought too: I'd break down so many things, Iwouldn't die, why should I! there were problems to solve, and I was agiant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently,though that makes no difference to any one either. . . . I was neededby Russia. . . . No, it's clear, I wasn't needed."
Madame Odintsov's profound and subtle remark about happiness is thekey to her character, and shows why she never could have been happywith Bazarov, or have given him any happiness.
"We were talking of happiness, I believe. . . . Tell me why it is thateven when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a fine evening, or aconversation with sympathetic people, it all seems an intimation ofsome measureless happiness existing apart somewhere rather than actualhappiness such, I mean, as we ourselves are in possession of? Why isit? Or perhaps you have no feeling like that?"
Many of us certainly have feelings like that; but while these twointellectuals are endeavouring to analyse happiness, and losing it inthe process of analysis, the two young lovers, Arkady and Katya, whosebrows are never furrowed by cerebration, are finding happiness in thefamiliar human way. In answer to his declaration of love, she smiledat him through her tears. "No one who has not seen those tears in theeyes of the beloved, knows yet to what a point, faint with shame andgratitude, a man may be happy on earth."
Although the character of Bazarov dominates the whole novel, Turgenevhas, I think, displayed genius of a still higher order in the creationof that simple-minded pair of peasants, the father and mother of theyoung nihilist. These two are old-fashioned, absolutely pious,dwelling in a mental world millions of miles removed from that oftheir son; they have not even a remote idea of what is passing in hismind, but they look on him with adoration, and believe him to be thegreatest man in all Russia. At the end of a wonderful sketch of themother, Turgenev says: "Such women are not common nowadays. God knowswhether we ought to rejoice!"
This humble pair, whom another novelist might have treated with scorn,are glorified here by their infinite love for their son. Such love asthat seems indeed too great for earth, too great for time, and tobelong only to eternity. The unutterable pathos of this love consistsin the fact that it is made up so largely of fear. They fear their sonas only ignorant parents can fear their educated offspring; it issomething that I have seen often, that every one must have observed,that arouses the most poignant sympathy in those that understand it.It is the fear that the boy will be bored at home; that he is longingfor more congenial companionship elsewhere; that the very solicitudeof his parents for his health, for his physical comfort, will irritateand annoy rather than please him. There is no heart-hunger on earth socruel and so terrible as the hunger of father and mother for thecomplete sympathy and affection of their growing children. This is whythe pride of so many parents in the development of their children ismingled with such mute but piercing terror. It is the fear that theson will grow away from them; that their caresses will deaden ratherthan quicken his love for them. They watch him as one watches someinfinitely precious thing that may at any moment di
sappear forever.The fear of a mother toward the son she loves is among the deepesttragedies of earth. She knows he is necessary to her happiness, andthat she is not to his.
Even the cold-hearted Bazarov is shaken by the joy of his mother'sgreeting when he returns home, and by her agony at his earlydeparture. He hates himself for not being able to respond to herdemonstrations of affection. Unlike most sons, he is clever enough tounderstand the slavish adoration of his parents; but he realises thathe cannot, especially in the presence of his college friend, relievetheir starving hearts. At the very end, he says "My father will tellyou what a man Russia is losing. . . . That's nonsense, but don'tcontradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort the child . . . youknow. And be kind to mother. People like them aren't to be found inyour great world if you look by daylight with a candle."
The bewildered, helpless anguish of the parents, who cannot understandwhy the God they worship takes their son away from them, reaches thegreatest climax of tragedy that I know of anywhere in the wholehistory of fiction. Not even the figure of Lear holding the dead bodyof Cordelia surpasses in tragic intensity this old pair whose wholelife has for so long revolved about their son. And the novel closeswith the scene in the little village churchyard, where the agedcouple, supporting each other, visit the tomb, and wipe away the dustfrom the stone. Even the abiding pessimism of the novelist lifts for amoment its heavy gloom at this spectacle. "Can it be that theirprayers, their tears, are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred,devoted love, is not all-powerful? Oh, no! However passionate,sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowersgrowing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; theytell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of indifferentnature; they tell us too of eternal reconciliation and of life withoutend."
This is where the novel "Fathers and Children" rises above a pictureof Russian politics in the sixties, and remains forever an immortalwork of art. For the greatness of this book lies not in the use of theword Nihilist, nor in the reproduction of ephemeral politicalmovements; its greatness consists in the fact that it faithfullyportrays not merely the Russian character, nor the nineteenth century,but the very depths of the human heart as it has manifested itself inall ages and among all nations.
The next novel, "Smoke," despite its extraordinary brilliancy, is inmany ways unworthy of Turgenev's genius. It was written at Baden,while he was living with the Viardots, and I suspect that theinfluence of Madame Viardot is stronger in this work than in anythingelse Turgenev produced. Of course he had discussed again and againwith her the abuse that young Russia had poured on his head for"Fathers and Children;" and I suspect she incited him to strike andspare not. The smoke in this novel is meant to represent the idlevapour of Russian political jargon; all the heated discussions on bothsides are smoke, purposeless, obscure, and transitory as a cloud. Butthe smoke really rose from the flames of anger in his own heart,fanned by a woman's breath, who delighted to see her mild giant foronce smite his enemies with all his force. If "Fathers and Children"had been received in Russia with more intelligence or more sympathy,it is certain that "Smoke" would never have appeared. This is the mostbitter and purely satirical of all the works of Turgenev; theSlavophils, with their ignorance of the real culture of westernEurope, and their unwillingness to learn from good teachers, are hithard; but still harder hit are the Petersburg aristocrats, the "idlerich" (legitimate conventional target for all novelists), who are hererepresented as little better in intelligence than grinning apes, andmuch worse in morals. No one ever seems to love his compatriots whenhe observes them in foreign lands; if Americans complain that HenryJames has satirised them in his international novels, they ought toread "Smoke," and see how Turgenev has treated his travellingcountrymen. They talk bad German, hum airs out of tune, insist onspeaking French instead of their own tongue, attract everybody'sattention at restaurants and railway-stations,--in short, behaveexactly as each American insists other Americans behave in Europe.
The book is filled with little portraits, made "peradventure with apen corroded." First comes the typical Russian gasbag, who talks andthen talks some more.
"He was no longer young, he had a flabby nose and soft cheeks, thatlooked as if they had been boiled, dishevelled greasy locks, and a fatsquat person. Everlastingly short of cash, and everlastingly inraptures over something, Rostislav Bambaev wandered, aimless butexclamatory, over the face of our long-suffering mother-earth."
Dostoevski was so angry when he read this book that he said it oughtto be burnt by the common hangman. But he must have approved of thepicture of the Petersburg group, who under a thin veneer of polishedmanners are utterly inane and cynically vicious. One of them had "anexpression of constant irritability on his face, as though he couldnot forgive himself for his own appearance."
The portrait of the Pecksniffian Pishtchalkin: "In exterior, too, hehad begun to resemble a sage of antiquity; his hair had fallen off thecrown of his head, and his full face had completely set in a sort ofsolemn jelly of positively blatant virtue."
None but a great master could have drawn such pictures; but it is notcertain that the master was employing his skill to good advantage. Andwhile representing his hatred of all the Russian bores who had madehis life weary, he selected an old, ruined man, Potugin, to expresshis own sentiments--disgust with the present condition of Russia, andadmiration for the culture of Europe and the practical inventive powerof America. Potugin says that he had just visited the exposition atthe Crystal Palace in London, and that he reflected that "our dearmother, Holy Russia, could go and hide herself in the lower regions,without disarranging a single nail in the place." Not a single thingin the whole vast exhibition had been invented by a Russian. Even theSandwich Islanders had contributed something to the show. At anotherplace in the story he declares that his father bought a Russianthreshing machine, which remained five years useless in the barn,until replaced by an American one.
Such remarks enraged the Slavophils beyond measure, for they weredetermined to keep out of Russia foreign inventions and foreign ideas.But that Turgenev was right is shown in the twentieth century by anacute German observer, Baron Von der Bruggen. In his interesting book,"Russia of To-day," he says: "All civilisation is derived from theWest. . . . People are now beginning to understand this in Russiaafter having lost considerable time with futile phantasies uponoriginal Slavonic civilisation. If Russia wishes to progress, herWestern doors must be opened wide in order to facilitate the influx ofEuropean culture." The author of these words was not thinking ofTurgenev: but his language is a faithful echo of Potugin. They soundlike a part of his discourse. Still, the literary value of "Smoke"does not lie in the fact that Turgenev was a true prophet, or that hesuccessfully attacked those who had attacked him. If this were allthat the book contained, it would certainly rank low as a work of art.
But this is not all. Turgenev has taken for his hero Litvinov, a youngRussian, thoroughly commonplace, but thoroughly practical and sincere,the type of man whom Russia needed the most, and has placed himbetween two women, who represent the eternal contrast between sacredand profane love. This situation has all the elements of true drama,as every one knows who has read or heard "Carmen;" it is needless tosay that Turgenev has developed it with consummate skill. Turgenevregarded brilliantly wicked women with hatred and loathing, but alsowith a kind of terror; and he has never failed to make them sinisterand terrible. Irina as a young girl nearly ruined the life ofLitvinov; and now we find him at Baden, his former passion apparentlyconquered, and he himself engaged to Turgenev's ideal woman, Tanya,not clever, but modest, sensible, and true-hearted, another Lisa. Thecontrast between these two women, who instinctively understand eachother immediately and the struggle of each for the soul of the hero,shows Turgenev at his best. It is remarkable, too, how clearly thereader sees the heart of the man, so obscure to himself; and howevident it is that in the very midst of his passion for Irina, hislove for Tanya remains. Irina is a firework, Tanya a star; and eventhe biggest skyrockets,
that illuminate all the firmament, do not forlong conceal the stars.
Turgenev thoroughly relieved his mind in "Smoke;" and in the novelthat followed it, "Torrents of Spring," he omitted politics and"movements" altogether, and confined himself to human nature in itseternal aspect. For this very reason the book attracted littleattention in Russia, and is usually dismissed in one sentence by thecritics. But it is a work of great power; it sings the requiem of lostyouth, a minor melody often played by Turgenev; it gives us a curiouspicture of an Italian family living in Germany, and it contains theportrait of an absolutely devilish but unforgettable woman. We have asincere and highly interesting analysis of the Russian, the German,and the Italian temperament; not shown in their respective politicalprejudices, but in the very heart of their emotional life. Once morethe Russian hero is placed between God and Satan; and this time Satanconquers. Love, however, survives the burnt-out fires of passion; butit survives only as a vain regret--it survives as youth survives, onlyas an unspeakably precious memory. . . . The three most sinister womenthat Turgenev has ever drawn are Varvara Pavlovna, in "A House ofGentlefolk;" Irina, in "Smoke;" and Maria Nikolaevna, in "Torrents ofSpring." All three are wealthy and love luxury; all three areprofessional wreckers of the lives of men. The evil that they do risesfrom absolute selfishness, rather than from deliberate sensuality. Notone of them could have been saved by any environment, or by anyhusband. Varvara is frivolous, Irina is cold-hearted, and Maria is asuper-woman; she makes a bet with her husband that she can seduce anyman he brings to the house. To each of her lovers she gives an ironring, symbol of their slavery; and like Circe, she transforms men intoswine. After she has hypnotised Sanin, and taken away his allegianceto the pure girl whom he loves, "her eyes, wide and clear, almostwhite, expressed nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy ofconquest. The hawk, as it clutches a captured bird, has eyes likethat." Turgenev, whose ideal woman is all gentleness, modesty, andcalmness, must have seen many thoroughly corrupt ones, to have been sodeeply impressed with a woman's capacity for evil. In "Virgin Soil,"when he introduces Mashurina to the reader, he says: "She was a singlewoman . . . and a very chaste single woman. Nothing wonderful in that,some sceptic will say, remembering what has been said of her exterior.Something wonderful and rare, let us be permitted to say." It issignificant that in not one of Turgenev's seven novels is the villainof the story a man. Women simply must play the leading role in hisbooks, for to them he has given the power of will; they lead menupward, or they drag them downward, but they are always in front.
The virtuous heroine of "Torrents of Spring," Gemma, is unlike anyother girl that Turgenev has created. In fact, all of his good womenare individualised--the closest similarity is perhaps seen in Lisa andTanya, but even there the image of each girl is absolutely distinct inthe reader's mind. But Gemma falls into no group, nor is there anyother woman in Turgenev with whom one instinctively classifies orcompares her. Perhaps this is because she is Italian. It is a longtime before the reader can make up his mind whether he likes her ornot--a rare thing in Turgenev, for most of his good women capture usin five minutes. Indeed, one does not know for some chapters whetherGemma is sincere or not, and one is angry with Sanin for his moth-likeflitting about her radiance. She at once puzzles and charms thereader, as she did the young Russian. Her family circle are sketchedwith extraordinary skill, and her young brother is unique inTurgenev's books. He has, as a rule, not paid much attention togrowing boys; but the sympathy and tenderness shown in the depictionof this impulsive, affectionate, chivalrous, clean-hearted boy provethat the novelist's powers of analysis were equal to every phase ofhuman nature. No complete estimate of Turgenev can be made withoutreading "Torrents of Spring;" for the Italian menage, the character ofGemma and her young brother, and the absurd duelling punctilio are notto be found elsewhere. And Maria is the very Principle of Evil; onefeels that if Satan had spoken to her in the Garden of Eden, she couldeasily have tempted him; at all events, he would not have been themost subtle beast in the field.
In 1876 Turgenev wrote "Virgin Soil." Of the seven novels, this is thelast, the longest, and the least. But it did not deserve then, anddoes not deserve now, the merciless condemnation of the critics;though they still take up stones to stone it. Never was a book about arevolutionary movement, written by one in sympathy with it, solukewarm. Naturally the public could not swallow it, for even Godcannot digest a Laodicean. But the lukewarmness in this instancearose, not from lack of conviction, but rather from the convictionthat things can really happen only in the fulness of time. Everythingin the story from first to last emphasises this fact and might beconsidered a discourse on the text add to knowledge, temperance: andto temperance, patience. But these virtues have never been in highfavour with revolutionists, which explains why so many revolutions areabortive, and so many ephemeral. It is commonly said that the leadingcharacter in "Virgin Soil," Solomin, is a failure because he is notexactly true to life, he is not typically Russian. That criticismseems to me to miss the main point of the work. Of course he is nottrue to life, of course he is not typically Russian. The typicalRussian in the book is Nezhdanov, who is entirely true to life in hisuncertainty and in his futility; he does not know whether or not he isin love, and he does not know at the last what the "cause" really is.He fails to understand the woman who accompanies him, he fails tounderstand Solomin, and he fails to understand himself. So he finallydoes what so many Russian dreamers have done--he places against hisown breast the pistol he had intended for a less dangerous enemy. Buthe is a dead man long before that. In sharp contrast with him,Turgenev has created the character Solomin, who is not at all"typically Russian," but who must be if the revolutionary cause is totriumph. He seems unreal because he is unreal; he is the ideal. He isthe man of practical worth, the man who is not passion's slave, andTurgenev loved him for the same reason that Hamlet loved Horatio. Amidall the vain babble of the other characters, Solomin stands outsalient, the man who will eventually save Russia without knowing it.His power of will is in inverse proportion to his fluency of speech.The typical Russian, as portrayed by Turgenev, says much, and doeslittle; Solomin lives a life of cheerful, reticent activity. As therevolution is not at hand, the best thing to do in the interim is toaccomplish something useful. He has learned how to labour and to wait."This calm, heavy, not to say clumsy man was not only incapable oflying or bragging; one might rely on him, like a stone wall." In everyscene, whether among the affected aristocrats or among the futilerevolutionists, Solomin appears to advantage. There is no worseindictment of human intelligence than the great compliment we paycertain persons when we call them sane. Solomin is sane, and seemstherefore untrue to life.
It is seldom that Turgenev reminds us of Dickens; but Sipyagin and hiswife might belong to the great Dickens gallery, though drawn with arestraint unknown to the Englishman. Sipyagin himself is a miniaturePecksniff, unctuous, polished, and hollow. The dinner-table scenes athis house are pictured with a subdued but implacable irony. How thenatural-born aristocrat Turgenev hated the Russian aristocracy! WhenSolomin appears in this household, he seems like a giant amongmanikins, so truly do the simple human virtues tower above thearrogance of affectation. The woman Marianna is a sister of Elena,whom we learned to know in "On the Eve;" she has the purity, not of anangel, but of a noble woman. She has that quiet, steadfast resolutionso characteristic of Russian heroines. As for Mariusha, she is aspecimen of Turgenev's extraordinary power of characterisation. Sheappears only two or three times in the entire novel, and remains oneof its most vivid personages This is ever the final mystery ofTurgenev's art--the power of absolutely complete representation in afew hundred words. In economy of material there has never been hisequal. The whole novel is worth reading, apart from its revolutionaryinterest, apart from the proclamation of the Gospel according toSolomin, for the picture of that anachronistic pair of old lovers,Fomushka and Finushka.* "There are ponds in the steppes which neverget putrid, though there's no stream through them, because they arefed by springs from the
bottom. And my old dears have such springs tooin the bottom of their hearts, and pure as can be." Only one shortchapter is devoted to this aged couple, at whom we smile but neverlaugh At first sight they may seem to be an unimportant episode in thestory, and a blemish on its constructive lines but a little reflectionreveals not only the humorous tenderness that inspired the novelist'spen in their creation, but contrasts them in their absurd indifferenceto time, with the turbulent and meaningless whirlpool where the modernrevolutionists revolve. For just as tranquillity may not signifystagnation, so revolution is not necessarily progression. Thisold-fashioned pair have learned nothing from nineteenth centurythought, least of all its unrest. They have, however, in their ownlives attained the positive end of all progress--happiness. They areindeed a symbol of eternal peace, the shadow of a great rock in aweary land. Turgenev, most cultivated of novelists, never fails torank simplicity of heart above the accomplishments of the mind.
* I cannot doubt that Turgenev got the hint for this chapter fromGogol's tale, "Old-fashioned Farmers."
Turgenev's splendid education, his wealth which made him independent,his protracted residence in Russia, in Germany, and in Paris, hisintimate knowledge of various languages, and his bachelor life gave tohis innate genius the most perfect equipment that perhaps any authorhas ever enjoyed. Here was a man entirely without the ordinaryrestraints and prejudices, whose mind was always hospitable to newideas, who knew life at first hand, and to whose width of experiencewas united the unusual faculty of accurately minute observation. Heknew people much better than they knew themselves. He was at varioustimes claimed and hated by all parties, and belonged to none. His mindwas too spacious to be dominated by one idea. When we reflect that hehad at his command the finest medium of expression that the world hasever possessed, and that his skill in the use of it has never beenequalled by a single one of his countrymen, it is not surprising thathis novels approach perfection.
His own standpoint was that of the Artist, and each man must be judgedby his main purpose. Here is where he differs most sharply fromTolstoi, Dostoevski, and Andreev, and explains why the Russians admirehim more than they love him. To him the truth about life was alwaysthe main thing. His novels were never tracts, he wrote them with themost painstaking care, and in his whole career he never produced apot-boiler. His work is invariably marked by that high seriousnesswhich Arnold worshipped, and love of his art was his main inspiration.He had a gift for condensation, and a willingness to cultivate it,such as no other novelist has shown. It is safe to say that his novelstell more about human nature in less space than any other novels inthe world. Small as they are, they are inexhaustible, and alwaysreveal beauty unsuspected on the previous reading.
His stories are not stories of incident, but stories of character. Theextraordinary interest that they arouse is confined almost entirely toour interest in his men and women; the plot, the narrative, the eventsare always secondary; he imitated no other novelist, and no other canimitate him. For this very reason, he can never enjoy the popularityof Scott or Dumas; he will always be caviare to the general. HenryJames said of him, that he was particularly a favourite with people ofcultivated taste, and that nothing cultivates the taste better thanreading him. It is a surprising proof of the large number of readerswho have good taste, that his novels met with instant acclaim, andthat he enjoyed an enormous reputation during his whole career. Afterthe publication of his first book, "A Sportsman's Sketches," he wasgenerally regarded in Russia as her foremost writer, a positionmaintained until his death; his novels were translated into French andEnglish very soon after their appearance, and a few days after hisdeath, the London "Athenaeum" remarked, "Europe has been unanimous inaccording to Turgenev the first rank in contemporary literature." Thata man whose books never on any page show a single touch of melodramashould have reached the hearts of so many readers, proves howinteresting is the truthful portrayal of human nature.
George Brandes has well said that the relation of Turgenev to his owncharacters is in general the same relation to them held by the reader.This may not be the secret of his power, but it is a partialexplanation of it. Brandes shows that not even men of genius haveinvariably succeeded in making the reader take their own attitude tothe characters they have created. Thus, we are often bored by personsthat Balzac intended to be tremendously interesting; and we oftenlaugh at persons that Dickens intended to draw our tears. With thesingle exception of Bazarov, no such mistake is possible in Turgenev'swork; and the misunderstanding in that case was caused principally bythe fact that Bazarov, with all his powerful individuality, stood fora political principle. Turgenev's characters are never vague, shadowy,or indistinct; they are always portraits, with every detail so subtlyadded, that each one becomes like a familiar acquaintance in reallife. Perhaps his one fault lay in his fondness for dropping the storymidway, and going back over the previous existence or career of acertain personage. This is the only notable blemish on his art. Buteven by this method, which would be exceedingly irritating in a writerof less skill, additional interest in the character is aroused. It isas though Turgenev personally introduced his men and women to thereader, accompanying each introduction with some biographical remarksthat let us know why the introduction was made, and stir our curiosityto hear what the character will say. Then these introductions arethemselves so wonderfully vivid, are given with such brilliancy ofoutline, that they are little works of art in themselves, like thematchless pen portraits of Carlyle.
Another reason why Turgenev's characters are so interesting, isbecause in each case he has given a remarkable combination ofindividual and type. Here is where he completely overshadowsSudermann, even Ibsen, for their most successful personages areabnormal. Panshin, for example, is a familiar type in any Continentalcity; he is merely the representative of the young society man. He isaccomplished, sings fairly well, sketches a little, rides horsebackfinely, is a ready conversationalist; while underneath all thesesuperficial adornments he is shallow and vulgar. Ordinaryacquaintances might not suspect his inherent vulgarity--all Lisa knowsis that she does not like him; but the experienced woman of the world,the wife of Lavretsky, understands him instantly, and has not theslightest difficulty in bringing his vulgarity to the surface.Familiar type as he is,--there are thousands of his ilk in all greatcentres of civilisation,--Panshin is individual, and we hate him asthough he had shadowed our own lives. Again, Varvara herself is thetype of society woman whom Turgenev knew well, and whom he both hatedand feared; yet she is as distinct an individual as any that he hasgiven us. He did not scruple to create abnormal figures when he chose;it is certainly to be hoped that Maria, in "Torrents of Spring," isabnormal even among her class; but she is an engine of sin rather thana real woman, and is not nearly so convincingly drawn as the simpleold mother of Bazarov.
Turgenev represents realism at its best, because he deals with soulsrather than with bodies. It is in this respect that his enormoussuperiority over Zola is most clearly shown. When "L'Assommoir" waspublished, George Moore asked Turgenev how he liked it, and hereplied: "What difference does it make to me whether a woman sweats inthe middle of her back or under her arm? I want to know how shethinks, not how she feels." In that concrete illustration, Turgenevdiagnosed the weakness of naturalism. No one has ever analysed thepassion of love more successfully than he; but he is interested in thegrowth of love in the mind, rather than in its carnal manifestations.
Finally, Turgenev, although an uncompromising realist, was at heartalways a poet. In reading him we feel that what he says is true, it islife indeed; but we also feel an inexpressible charm. It is themysterious charm of music, that makes our hearts swell and our eyesswim. He saw life, as every one must see it, through the medium of hisown soul. As Joseph Conrad has said, no novelist describes the world;he simply describes his own world. Turgenev had the temperament of apoet, just the opposite temperament from such men of genius asFlaubert and Guy de Maupassant. Their books receive our mental homage,and deserve it; but they are without charm. On clos
ing their novels,we never feel that wonderful afterglow that lingers after the readingof Turgenev. To read him is not only to be mentally stimulated, it isto be purified and ennobled; for though he never wrote a sermon indisguise, or attempted the didactic, the ethical element in histragedies is so pervasive that one cannot read him without hating sinand loving virtue. Thus the works of the man who is perhaps thegreatest novelist in history are in harmony with what we recognise asthe deepest and most eternal truth, both in life and in our ownhearts.
The silver tones and subtle music of Turgenev's clavichord werefollowed by the crashing force of Tolstoi's organ harmonies, and bythe thrilling, heart-piercing discords struck by Dostoevski. Stillmore sensational sounds come from the younger Russian men of to-day,and all this bewildering audacity of composition has in certain placesdrowned for a time the less pretentious beauty of Turgenev's method.During the early years of the twentieth century, there has been avisible reaction against him, an attempt to persuade the world thatafter all he was a subordinate and secondary man. This attitude isshown plainly in Mr. Baring's "Landmarks in Russian Literature," whosebook is chiefly valuable for its sympathetic understanding of thegenius of Dostoevski. How far this reaction has gone may be seen inthe remark of Professor Bruckner, in his "Literary History of Russia":"The great, healthy artist Turgenev always moves along levelled paths,in the fair avenues of an ancient landowner's park. Aesthetic pleasureis in his well-balanced narrative of how Jack and Jill did NOT cometogether: deeper ideas he in no wise stirs in us." If "A House ofGentlefolk" and "Fathers and Children" stir no deeper ideas than thatin the mind of Professor Bruckner, whose fault is it? One can onlypity him. But there are still left some humble individuals, at leastone, who, caring little for politics and the ephemeral nature ofpolitical watchwords and party strife, and still less for faddishfashions in art, persist in giving their highest homage to the greatartists whose work shows the most perfect union of Truth and Beauty.
IV
DOSTOEVSKI
Essays on Russian Novelists Page 3
