Chapter IV: Part 4

A pessimist is one who looks upon the unequal struggle of life and can discern no hand to succor the deserving weak from the rapacious strong. Sitting while a lad in a Russian garden, Turgenev beheld a fight-to-a-finish between a serpent and a toad. Then and there began his doubts of a beneficent Providence, which culminated in his quiet, and never aggressive, spiritual pessimism. In this he is only one with most great Russian literary artists. And, singularly enough, he too passed into a final era of mysticism, though not so completely as did his compeer Tolstoi, as witness that fine symbolical sketch, “The Song of Triumphant Love.”

An interesting contrast presents itself in the characters of Tolstoi and Turgenev. The one, aggressively Christian, harsh in the judgment of his opponents, and intolerant of what he adjudged to be error; the other, meek, gentle, considerate, largely tolerant, and quietly forceful. Tolstoi was the lion aroused and warring even when preaching non-resistance; Turgenev, the lion resting with dignified forbearance because of a great serenity within. Both were men of might, yet ethically and artistically at variance. It is pleasant to record, however, that the quarrel which separated them for sixteen years did not prevent Turgenev from responding at once when in later life Tolstoi sought a reconciliation. The interview was charged with amity, but, naturally, Turgenev could not adopt his old-time friend’s extreme religious views. So when they had parted, Tolstoi’s praise was modified--Turgenev was “an unpleasant man”--while the latter had only warm words for the religionist. In a later essay in this series it is recorded how Turgenev from his death-bed besought Tolstoi to return to the field of Romance, in which “thou hast no rival amongst us.”

* * * * *

Turgenev was one of the greatest novelists of all time--the greatest, as it seems to me, of all impressionistic novelists. Except in the one quality of unity--for his work was on its surface fragmentary in structure--this preëminent Russian met perfectly Poe’s ideal of impressionism: he felt an impression of character or of nature and then reproduced in his reader just what he himself felt. And this impression was oftenest elevated above the merely physical. Brutalities, gaucheries, physicalities, were to him expressions of the man in whose inner life the novelist was more deeply interested than in the outer. Thus his realism is neither so physical as Zola’s nor so materialistic in philosophy as Maupassant’s. Turgenev’s pessimism is social, and not primarily moral; hence character is always the big element in his novels and shorter fictional pieces.

As with Tolstoi, so with Turgenev, plot is a negligible quantity. Yet in a way that quite defies any explanation but one, the final impression is fairly unified, and certainly tremendously effective. That one explanation is that all the scattered pictures of traits, appearances, oddities, mannerisms of bearing and speech, and, above all, the marvellous reproduction of _characteristically_ personal language, result in an individual presentment of character unequalled for vividness in all fiction. Turgenev lets no significant detail escape. The units may be trivial, the entire effect is almost always big. The little thing he seizes upon shows us with the infallibility of a master diagnostician the trends of character. The sum of it all is wizardry.

All this is true primarily of his great novels. Here I have space only for mention, at the same time venturing to place them in the order of their importance: “A House of Gentlefolk” (“A Nest of Nobles”), a masterpiece of depiction; “Fathers and Children,” a severe castigation of the old and the new in Russia; “On the Eve,” a pessimistic inquiry as to whether there is hope of better things for his fatherland; “Rudin,” a character study of unusual penetration; “Torrents of Spring,” in which a devilish woman ruins the hero; “Smoke,” a brilliant but bitter satire on things Russian; and “Virgin Soil,” whose “villain,” as in all of the author’s novels, is a woman!

* * * * *

In discussing Turgenev’s shorter fictions, we must remember that most of them were written from seventy to forty years ago, and all show that fine disregard of form which only a master may entertain without inviting failure. Here, as in his novels, character is all. Other story-tellers often make the story preëminent--Turgenev never. His favorite method is to hold up many facets of a character, letting the light--here a gleam, there a full radiance--fall on each. He is a master of monologue and of dialogue. Even the jerky pauses are eloquent. The vagueness of a mind is never asserted; it is shown indubitably. The inept man, the supernumerary of society, the man who is engrossed in self, the despairing peasant bound to the wheel, the reflective but weak-willed dreamer--speech, physical habits, and physical traits reveal them all as relentlessly as a scalpel uncovers diseased tissue. This is the wonder of Turgenev’s fictional power. He has brought suggestive description to the _n_^{th} power. No fictionist has even approached him in this respect.

One further quality deserves special mention, for I have already referred to his hatred of serfdom and his scorn for the superfluous social orders it built up. It is that of nature description. Turgenev was an Englishman in his love of gunning (although in later life he disapproved of the needless slaughter of innocents). Consequently, many of his tales--particularly his notable “A Sportsman’s Sketches”--abound in fine nature passages. Here is one from “Yermolaï and the Miller’s Wife.”

A quarter of an hour before sunset in springtime you go out
into the woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek
out a spot for yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a
look round, examine your caps, and glance at your companion.
A quarter of an hour passes; the sun has set, but it is still
light in the forest; the sky is clear and transparent; the
birds are chattering and twittering; the young grass shines
with the brilliance of emerald.... You wait. Gradually the
recesses of the forest grow dark; the blood-red glow of the
evening sky creeps slowly on to the roots and the trunks of
the trees, and keeps rising higher and higher, passes from
the lower, still almost leafless branches, to the motionless,
slumbering tree-tops.... And now even the topmost branches
are darkened; the purple sky fades to dark-blue. The forest
fragrance grows stronger; there is a scent of warmth and damp
earth; the fluttering breeze dies away at your side. The birds
go to sleep--not all at once--but after their kinds; first the
finches are hushed, a few minutes later the warblers, and after
them the yellow buntings. In the forest it grows darker and
darker. The trees melt together into great masses of blackness;
in the dark-blue sky the first stars come timidly out. All
the birds are asleep. Only the red starts and the nuthatches
are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are still.
The last echoing call of the peewit rings over our heads;
the oriole’s melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance;
then the nightingale’s first note. Your heart is weary with
suspense, when suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand
me--suddenly in the deep hush there is a peculiar croaking and
whirring sound, the measured sweep of swift wings is heard, and
the snipe, gracefully bending its long beak, sails smoothly
down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.

It is illuminating to observe Turgenev’s well-nigh invariable method of story-telling. First he will draw in a setting with much attention to detail and introducing characters who add nothing to the story proper but do add immeasurably to the atmosphere--and atmosphere is miraculously handled by this master. Then he will begin to show phases of the leading character. And when at last we have formed a perfect picture of the person in his surroundings, a dramatic, a pathetic, a deep-revealing flash comes forth in the form of an anecdote or an incident--and the story is done. Character pictures, mostly _in statu quo_--these are the master’s offerings. Plot, in the modern sense, is almost unknown to Turgenev--as character-drawing, alas, is almost a lost art to the short-story writer of today! But it must be said that only an artist of the first order could carry his method to success.

A list of Turgenev’s short fictional pieces--technical short-stories they are not--would number more than fifty, many of them almost novelettes in length. Some of the best are “Assia,” “The Jew,” “A Lear of the Steppes,” “Mumu,” “First Love,” “The Brigadier,” and “The Song of Triumphant Love.”

In the following outline and translated passages taken from M. de Vogüé’s distinguished discussion of “Russian Novelists,” we may gain a good view of Turgenev’s method and style.

In “A Living Relic,”[2] Turgenev as the narrator strongly wakes a human chord. On a hunting expedition, he enters by chance an abandoned shed, where he finds a wretched human being, a woman, deformed, and unable to move. He recognizes in her a former serving-maid of his mother’s, once a gay, laughing girl, now paralyzed, stricken by some strange and terrible disease. This poor creature, reduced to a skeleton, lying forgotten in this miserable shed, has no longer any relations with the outside world. No one takes care of her; kind people sometimes replenish her jar with fresh water. She requires nothing else. The only sign of life, if life it can be called, is in her eyes and her faint respiration. But this hideous wreck of a body contains an immortal soul, purified by suffering, utterly resigned, lifted above itself, this simple peasant nature, into the realms of perfect self-renunciation.

Lukerya relates her misfortune: how she was seized with this illness after a fall in the dark; how she had gone out one dark evening to listen to the songs of the nightingales; how gradually every faculty and every joy of life had forsaken her.

Her betrothed was so sorry; but, then, afterwards he married; what else could he do? She hopes he is happy. For years her only diversion has been to listen to the church-bells, and the drowsy hum of the bees in the hives of the apiary near-by. Sometimes a swallow comes and flutters about in the shed, which is a great event, and gives her something to think about for several weeks. The people that bring water to her are so kind, she is so grateful to them! And gradually, almost cheerfully, she goes back with the young master to the memories of old days, and reminds him how vain she was of being the leader in all the songs and dances; at last, she even tries to hum one of those songs.

“I really dreaded to have this half-dead creature try to sing. Before I could speak, she uttered a sound very faintly, but the note was correct; then another, and she began to sing ‘In the Fields.’... As she sang there was no change of expression in her paralyzed face or in her fixed eyes. This poor little forced voice sounded so pathetic, and she made such an effort to express her whole soul, that my heart was pierced with the deepest pity.”

Lukerya relates her terrible dreams, how Death has appeared before her; not that she dreads his coming, but he always goes away and will not deliver her. She refuses all offers of assistance from her young master; she desires nothing, needs nothing, is perfectly content. As her visitor is about to leave her, she calls him back for a last word. She seems to be conscious (how feminine is this!) of the terrible impression she must have made upon him, and says:

“Do you remember, master, what beautiful hair I had? You know it reached to my knees.... I hesitated a long time about cutting it off, but what could I do with it as I am? So--I cut it off.... Adieu, master!”

* * * * *

In “The District Doctor,” which is appended in a new translation, we find a fuller and even more characteristic specimen of Turgenev’s story-telling. Both reveal the warm heart of the great man, and his unfailing sympathy, which his own painful despair was never allowed to suppress.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From “A Sportman’s Sketches.”

THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
_By Ivan Turgenev_

Returning from a distant field one autumn day, I fell ill with a bad cold. Luckily for me, the fever caught me in the district town, in a hotel. I sent for the doctor. After a half-hour, the district physician appeared--a dark, meagre little man. He prescribed the customary sudorific and a mustard-plaster; and dexterously inserting into his cuff my five-ruble note--coughing dryly and glancing sideways as he did so--he was about to depart, but somehow began to talk and remained. The fever made me restless; anticipating a sleepless night, I was glad to have some one to chat with. Tea was brought in. The doctor was in a conversational mood. He was not a bad fellow, and expressed himself well and divertingly. How strange it is with men! You have known one for a long time and are intimate with him, yet not once have you ventured to talk with him frankly, from your very soul; another you have hardly become acquainted with, and yet--either you tell him or else he tells you, as if in confessional, his very inmost thoughts. I do not know how I earned the confidence of my new acquaintance; but he somehow or other “got started,” as they say, and told me a really remarkable tale, which I present here to the sympathetic reader. I shall try to express the story in the doctor’s own words.

“You don’t know,” he began in a faltering, trembling voice (such is the effect of the unmixed Berezovsk snuff)--“you don’t know the judge of this place, Pavel Luikich Muilov?... No?... Well, it doesn’t matter.” The doctor coughed and wiped his eyes. “Any way, to be exact, it happened during Lent, in the thaw season. I was sitting in the judge’s house, playing ‘preference.’ Our judge is a good fellow, and loves to play the game. Suddenly”--the doctor employed the word _suddenly_ often--“I was informed that some one came for me. ‘What does he want?’ I asked. ‘It’s some one with a note; it must be from a sick person.’ I read the note, and, sure enough, it was from some one ill.... Well, all right--that, you see, is my bread.... The note was from a widow, and here was the case as she put it:

“My daughter is dying; come at once, for God’s sake! I am
sending the horses to fetch you.”

“But that was not all.... Her house was some twenty versts from town; a black night outdoors, and the roads simply mean! She was as poor as a mouse, too. ‘Lucky,’ I thought, ‘if I get two rubles.’ Still, duty before everything--you can’t let a person die! Suddenly I handed over my cards to Councillor Kalliopin, and started for home. To be sure, there was a coach waiting for me near the porch; and a couple of working horses, very big-bellied, and with hides like felt; the driver, out of respect, was sitting with his hat off. ‘Well,’ said I to myself, ‘it’s plain to be seen your masters haven’t got much gold.’... You may laugh, but here is a fact worth considering.... When the driver sits like a prince, and keeps his cap on his head, and even laughs under his beard, and flourishes his whip--you may count on a couple of bank-notes! But this, you could see, was an altogether different matter. Still, there was no way out of it; duty before everything. Quickly I collected my most indispensable medicines, and off I went.

“Believe me, I don’t see how I got there. A wretched road, puddles, snow, mud, ruts, suddenly a dam burst somewhere--misery, in short! Any way, I got there. It was a small, thatched-roofed house. There was a light in the windows. It meant they were awaiting me. I was met by a little old lady, very dignified-looking, in a cap. ‘Save her!’ she cried. ‘She is dying!’ ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ I told her, and asked to be shown the patient.... ‘This way, please!’

“I was led into a small but clean room, in one corner of which hung an ikon-lamp. On the bed lay a twenty-year-old maiden, unconscious; in a high fever. Here also were her two sisters, frightened and in tears. ‘Only yesterday,’ they said, ‘she was altogether well, and ate with appetite; but this morning she complained of pains in her head, and tonight suddenly she is like this.’... ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ I once more reassured them--as you know, it’s one of the doctor’s obligations--and proceeded to my task. I bled her, applied mustard-plasters, and prescribed a mixture. And all the time I couldn’t take my eyes from her--upon my word, I never saw such a face ... a beauty, in fact! I was torn by compassion. Such a lovely face, and eyes!... There, thank God, she had grown quieter; perspiration had set in. She was coming to herself; she glanced around her, smiled, moved her hand across her face.... Her sisters bent over her, they asked her, ‘What is the matter with you?’ ‘Nothing,’ she answered, and turned away.... When I looked again she was asleep. I advised quiet; and so we all, on our tiptoes, made our way out, and the maid alone remained in the room, in case of an emergency.

“In the drawing-room the samovar was steaming. They gave me tea, and I was invited to stay overnight.... I agreed; it was late, where else could I go? The little old lady continued to sigh. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said to her. ‘Your daughter shall live. And you too need some rest--it is two o’clock.’... ‘And you’ll see that I’m awakened if anything should happen?’ ... I promised.

“The old lady and the girls went to their rooms; my own bed was made in the drawing-room. I lay down, but could not sleep, which was unusual for me. I could not get my patient out of my mind. Finally, I could stand it no longer, and arose. I thought to myself I’d take a peep at her and see how she was coming along. Her bedroom was right next to the drawing-room. I opened the door quietly--and my heart beat violently. There was the maid asleep, her mouth agape; and snoring, mind you, the wretch! As for the patient, she lay with her face turned in my direction, her arms stretched out, poor girl! I approached closer. Suddenly she opened her eyes and fixed them on me!... ‘Who are you? Who are you?’... I became confused. ‘Don’t be frightened, miss. I’m the doctor come to attend to you.’ ‘You are the doctor?’ ‘Yes, the doctor.... Your mother sent to town for me; and in a day or two, with God’s help, we’ll put you on your feet.’ ‘Yes, yes, Doctor, please don’t let me die ... please.’ ‘Miss, what are you saying!’ ‘She’s feverish again,’ I thought to myself. I felt her pulse; sure enough, high fever. She looked at me ... and suddenly she took my hand.... ‘I will tell you,’ she went on, ‘why I do not wish to die. I will tell you, I will tell you ... now we are alone; only to you, to no one else.... Listen.’... I bent over her; she placed her lips to my very ear, brushing my cheek with her hair--I must confess, it made my head swim--and began to whisper.... I understood nothing.... Delirious.... She continued to whisper very rapidly; it didn’t at all sound like Russian. When she ceased she trembled, let her head drop on the pillow, and shook a warning finger at me. ‘Remember, Doctor, tell no one!’... Somehow, I managed to quiet her; I then gave her a drink, awakened the maid, and left her.”

At this juncture the doctor again, with a movement of exasperation, took a pinch of snuff, and for an instant seemed affected.

“However,” he continued, “the next day, contrary to my expectation, my patient did not improve. After some deliberation on my part, I suddenly made up my mind to remain, despite the fact that other patients were awaiting me.... As you know, one can’t afford to neglect these--the practice suffers. Well, in the first place, my patient was really in desperate straits; and then again, to confess the truth to you, I felt strongly attracted towards her; besides, I took a liking to the entire family. Though poor people, they were highly educated.... The father of the family was a learned man, an author; I need not add that he died poor. He managed, however, to give his children an excellent bringing-up. He also left quite a number of books. Whether it was because of this that I attended the patient so assiduously or for other reasons, there is no question that those in the house grew to love me like one of their own kin....

“In the meantime the thaw made the roads very bad; all communication, one might say, was cut off. The medicine was obtained from town with considerable difficulty.... The patient did not improve.... Days came, and days went.... Just then something ... something----” The doctor paused. “Upon my word, I don’t know how to express myself.”... Once more he helped himself to the snuff; he laughed, and swallowed his tea in a gulp. “Well, not to beat about the bush, my patient ... how should one put it? ... she fell in love with me.... Or rather, you see, it was not exactly that ... but ... upon my word, how should one----” The doctor grew embarrassed and blushed.

“No,” he went on with some animation; “how could she fall in love with me? One must know one’s own value. She was an educated, clever, and well-read girl; while I had almost entirely forgotten even the little Latin that I once knew. As for my looks”--the doctor surveyed himself with a smiling glance--“it seems to me I also have nothing to boast of. Still, God did not make me a fool; I will not call black that which is white. I know a thing or two. For instance, I understood perfectly that Alexandra Andreyevna--that was her name--did not actually love me, but rather felt a sort of friendliness towards me, or perhaps it was just respect. Though it is possible she herself misunderstood this feeling, yet she was in such a state that--well, you may judge for yourself.... However,” the doctor added, as he continued his broken speeches, which he uttered without stopping to take breath, and with evident confusion, “it seems I have gotten off the track somewhat.... You simply will not understand what I am saying.... Well, I will try to tell everything in its order.”

He finished his glass of tea, and, speaking more calmly, resumed his story.

“That’s the way it happened. My patient grew worse and worse. You, my friend, are not a physician; therefore, it is hard for you to understand just what the young doctor experiences in his soul when he begins to suspect that the disease is mastering him. Where is his self-confidence then? Your courage simply oozes out of you; words can’t describe it. A notion takes possession of you that you have forgotten all you ever knew, that the patient has lost faith in you, and that the others are beginning to notice your bewilderment and to report new symptoms to you reluctantly; they glance at you from under their eyebrows, they whisper among themselves.... How mortifying! There should be some medicine, you permit yourself to think, to counteract this disease--if you only knew which one! Perhaps that’s the one. You try it--no, that’s not it! You haven’t given the mixture sufficient time to work ... and you try another. Or you turn the pages of your pharmacopœia ... thinking you might hit upon something.... In the meantime a person is dying; another doctor might have saved him. A consultation is necessary, you argue to yourself; you don’t feel like taking the entire responsibility. What a fool you are made to look, under the circumstances! After a time, of course, you get used to it. A person dies--well, it isn’t your fault, you have done everything according to rules. It is even more painful when the relatives show blind faith in you, while in your own heart you know you are unable to help.

“It was such a faith that the family of Alexandra Andreyevna exhibited towards me, forgetting that the daughter was in danger. I too, on my part, reassured them that it was nothing; and all the time my heart was in my mouth. To add to my misfortunes, the roads grew so bad from the thaw that it took the driver a whole day sometimes to fetch the medicines.

“As for me, I remained in the room of the patient, couldn’t tear myself away. I used to tell her amusing anecdotes and to play cards with her. I sat through whole nights with her. Her mother used to thank me with tears in her eyes; but I thought to myself, ‘I’m not worthy of your thanks.’ To be candid with you--nothing is to be gained now by concealing the truth--I fell in love with my patient. And Alexandra Andreyevna too became attached to me; there were times indeed when she wouldn’t permit any one but me in her room. She loved to chat with me--she’d ask me where I had studied, how I lived, who were my kin, whom did I know? I felt that she had no right to talk; and yet I couldn’t think of forbidding her. I’d sometimes put my hands to my head, and I’d reproach myself: ‘What are you doing, murderer?’... And she’d take my hand and hold it, and continue to look at me long, very long; at times she would turn away, utter a sigh, and then she would mutter, ‘How good you are!’ Meanwhile her hands were burning; her eyes grew large and dark. ‘Yes,’ she would say; ‘you are a good, kind man, not at all like our neighbors ... not in the least.’... How my poor heart would go a-fluttering! And all the time ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, be quiet,’ I’d say to her.... ‘Believe me, I am grateful, I don’t know how I have earned it ... only, please be quiet, for God’s sake, be quiet.... Everything shall come out all right, and you shall get well.’ I should tell you, however,” added the doctor, bending forward and raising his eyebrows, “that they had had little to do with the neighbors, because the poorer folk weren’t up to them, while pride stood between them and the rich. I tell you, they were a highly-educated family--which was flattering to me, to be sure.

“From my hands alone she would take her medicine.... She’d raise herself, poor girl, with my help, swallow it, and then glance at me.... How my poor heart would go a-fluttering! And all the time she was growing worse and worse. ‘She will die,’ was my thought, ‘she will certainly die.’ Believe me, I would as lief have descended into the grave myself; and there was her mother standing about; her sisters too were anxious, as they looked into my eyes.... Surely their faith couldn’t last much longer. ‘Well, what today?’ they’d ask. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ I’d reply; but, in truth, my mind was in a whirl.

“One night I sat as usual at the bedside of my patient. The maid too was sitting in the room, and snoring for all she was worth.... She too, poor girl, was exhausted. Alexandra Andreyevna had been feeling badly all that evening; the fever tormented her. Until midnight she tossed about, and finally fell asleep; at least, she lay motionless. In a corner, before the ikon, a lamp was burning. I sat there, my head in my hands, dozing.

“Suddenly--it was as if some one gave me a thrust in the side--I raised my head.... Good God! Alexandra Andreyevna, with her eyes wide open, was gazing at me.... Her lips were parted, her cheeks burning. ‘What is the matter?’ ‘Doctor, am I going to die?’ ‘God forbid!’ ‘No, Doctor, no, please don’t tell me that I shall live ... don’t tell me.... If you only knew ... listen to me, for God’s sake, don’t conceal from me my true state!’ She said this with panting breath. ‘If I were only sure that I shall die ... I’d tell you all, all!’ ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, I entreat you!’ ‘Listen to me,’ she said: ‘I haven’t slept at all; I have been looking at you a long time.... For God’s sake! ... I believe you; you are a good man and an honest man; I conjure you by all that is holy upon earth--to tell me the truth! If you only knew how important it is that I should know!... Doctor, for God’s sake, tell me, am I in danger?’ ‘What am I to tell you, Alexandra Andreyevna, I beg of you?’ ‘I entreat you, for God’s sake!’ ‘I can’t conceal it from you, Alexandra Andreyevna, you are really in danger, but the Lord is merciful.’... ‘I shall die, I shall die!’... And she actually seemed overjoyed; her face lit up with radiance; I became alarmed. ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; death does not terrify me.’ Suddenly she raised herself, and propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Well, now I can tell you that I am grateful to you from my very soul, that you are a good, honest man, and that I love you.’... I gazed on her as on one mad; it was painful to me, as you may well understand.... ‘Do you hear? I love you!’... ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, how have I earned your love?’ ‘No, no, you don’t understand me ... thou dost not understand me.’[3] ... And suddenly she stretched out her arms, seized my head between her hands, and kissed me.... Believe me, I nearly cried out.... I threw myself on my knees and hid my head in the pillows. She was silent; her fingers trembled in my hair; I could hear her weeping. I tried to quiet her, to reassure her.... I really don’t know what I said to her. ‘You’ll awaken the maid, Alexandra Andreyevna,’ I said to her.... ‘Indeed, I am grateful ... believe me ... calm yourself.’ ‘Enough, enough,’ she repeated. ‘God be with them all; let them awaken, let them come--it is all the same; since I shall die.... But why do you tremble, why are you afraid? Lift your head.... Or perhaps you don’t love me, perhaps I have been deceived.... If so, please forgive me.’ ‘Alexandra Andreyevna, what are you saying? ... I love you, Alexandra Andreyevna.’ She looked straight into my eyes, and opened her arms. ‘Then embrace me.’...

“To speak candidly, I can’t quite comprehend how it was that I didn’t lose my mind that night. There was the feeling that she was consuming herself, also that she was not in her senses; and that were it not for the fact that she considered herself as dying, she wouldn’t have thought of me. Say what you will, it’s a hideous thought to be dying at twenty years of age without having loved some one; that is what tortured her, that is why in her desperation she clung to me--do you grasp the idea? She held me there in her embrace. ‘Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreyevna, and have pity on thyself,’ I said to her. ‘Why, should I?’ was her reply. ‘What is there to pity, since I must die?’... She repeated this incessantly. ‘If I only knew that I’d remain alive and go among respectable young ladies, I’d feel ashamed, dreadfully ashamed ... but what does it matter to me now?’ ‘Who told you you’re going to die?’ ‘Oh, no, enough of this, you shan’t fool me, you don’t know how to lie, look at yourself.’ ‘You shall live, Alexandra Andreyevna, I shall save you; then we will ask your mother for her blessing.... We will marry, we will be happy.’ ‘No, no, I have your word for it, I must die.... You had promised me.... You told me so.’...

“I felt bitter at heart, and for many reasons. And judge for yourself; often small things happen, trifling in themselves, yet they are painful. It occurred to her to ask me my Christian name. As ill luck will have it, I am called Trifon; yes, Trifon, Trifon Ivanich. In the house I was simply called Doctor. There was no help for it. ‘Trifon, miss,’ I replied. She looked amused, and she shook her head; then she whispered something in French--something that didn’t sound quite nice; then she laughed; it was unpleasant to me, I assure you. In such a manner I passed almost the entire night with her. In the morning I left her, almost not in my own senses. I reëntered her room later in the morning, after tea. Good God! she was hardly recognizable; a corpse couldn’t have looked worse. I swear to you, upon my honor, I really can’t understand how I endured the torture. Three days and three nights more my patient lingered ... and what nights they were! And the things she said to me!... Then the final night--imagine to yourself; I was sitting beside her, and there was in my heart but one prayer to God: ‘Take her as soon as possible, and me also.’... Suddenly, unexpectedly, her mother entered the room.... I had already told her the day before that there was but little hope, and that it would be well to have a priest. The sick girl, seeing her mother, blurted out, ‘I’m glad you came.... Look at us, we love each other, we have promised ourselves to each other!’ ‘What is she saying, Doctor, what is she saying?’ I grew deathly pale. ‘She’s delirious, it’s the fever.’... But she went on: ‘Enough, enough, only a little while ago you spoke differently to me, and even accepted a ring from me ... why do you dissemble? My mother is good-hearted, she will forgive. She will understand; but I’m dying--there’s no reason why I should lie; give me your hand.’... I sprang up and ran out of the room. The old mother, of course, guessed the true state of affairs.

“I’ll not go on, however, tiring you with any further details. As it is, I find it painful to recall it all. The girl died the next day. May the Holy Kingdom be hers!” added the doctor quickly and with a sigh. “Before she died she requested her kin to go out of the room and to leave me alone with her. ‘Forgive me,’ she said to me. ‘I perhaps am guilty before you ... my illness ... but, believe me, I never loved any one so much ... don’t forget me ... take care of my ring.’”

The doctor turned away his face; I took his hand.

“Eh!” he sighed, “let’s chat about something else, or perhaps you’d rather have a game of ‘preference,’ for a trifle? It’s not for our kind to give way to elevated feelings. There’s but one thing left for us--to manage that our children don’t squall, and our wives don’t scold. Since those days, you see, I have entered, as one might say, into the legal bonds of matrimony.... Well.... I married a merchant’s daughter, who brought me a _dot_ of seven thousand rubles. Her name is Akulina; it goes just right with Trifon. She is an ill-tempered dame, but fortunately she sleeps all day long.... Did you say ‘preference’?”

We began to play preference, at a copeck. Trifon Ivanich succeeded in winning from me two rubles and a half, and left late, much gratified with his victory.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The change from _you_ to _thou_ is significant here, because among the Russians _thou_ is employed only in familiar or intimate sense.

TOLSTOI, ARTIST AND PREACHER

As a man of letters, Lyoff Nikolaievitch, Count Tolstoi, holds undisputed place in the first rank; as a philosophical preacher of reform, his position is much less secure. And it is sadly ironical that one who was so ready to lay aside those fictional laurels which all men yielded to him readily, has not been accorded the preëminence among moralists which he held to be of so much greater worth.

The last twenty years of his abundant life disclosed in this greatest of all Russians that which was always really present--the single eye, with its gaze constantly set upon ethical ideals. Even a swift survey of his life and its so closely interpenetrating work will bear out this estimate--perhaps surprisingly.

In 1828, on September 9--August 28, old style--Tolstoi was born at Yasnaia Polyana, in the government of Tula, Russia. For several centuries his wealthy and noble family was distinguished in military and state affairs as well as in literature, one of his ancestors, Peter Tolstoi, having been the intimate of Peter the Great. Lyoff’s father, Nikolai, and his mother, the Princess Volkhonsky, died while he was yet a lad, leaving him in charge of an aunt. He inherited a rich estate which his father had succeeded in thriftily disencumbering from the debts of extravagance contracted by his own father.

The future author was educated at home, spent some time (1843-44) at the University of Kazan, did further private work at home, for a while studied law in St. Petersburg, alternated between his estates and the social life of the great cities, and eventually entered the army in 1851. It was during this period that he gathered much of the material for his early stories, notably “The Cossacks,” a short novel of unmistakable power and insight; and the rambling autobiographical stories, “Childhood,” “Boyhood,” and “Youth,” generally combined under the first title. When the Crimean War broke out, in 1853, Tolstoi was transferred to the army of the Danube, and distinguished himself for bravery before Sevastopol--as well as by his three notable sketches which bear the name of this great siege, “Sevastopol in December,” “Sevastopol in May,” and “Sevastopol in August.”

Tolstoi’s life as a soldier was that of a rake--in which he differed not at all from the young noblemen of the period. But this wild career does not seem to have interfered with his fondness for moralizing, nor with his conviction that he was the spiritual Moses, divinely commissioned to lead the Russian people out of the wilderness. His youthful diary confesses that the three passions to which he yielded, gambling, sensuality, and vanity, were moral stumbling-blocks; and with naïve premonition he wrote: “There is something in me which makes me think that I was not born to be just like everybody else.” But the most remarkable youthful forecast is found in the words which Professor Phelps quotes from Tolstoi’s journal of this period: “The man who has no other goal than his own happiness is a bad man. He whose goal is the good opinion of others is a weak man. He whose goal is the happiness of others is a virtuous man. He whose goal is God is a great man.” In these cumulative epigrams we have a summary of Tolstoi’s creed. However far afield he wandered in middle years, distressed by doubts and confused by jangling voices, the sturdy seeking-soul of him followed this great light with the single eye of an honest man, and this altruistic doctrine he preached with increasing loftiness, through excommunication and charges of insanity, down to the very end. That so extreme a theory should lead him often into blind avenues, and that the phantoms of many inconsistencies should challenge his way, was inevitable; yet Tolstoi stands before the world today as a good man and an earnest one, who never lay upon a couch of down while he preached abnegation for others.

An insatiable psychological curiosity possessed the Russian master from youth to the close of his fiction-writing years. In the exercise of this minute observing power, he is as amazing a realist as was Balzac, and when he confines his examinations to humans he is quite as profoundly interesting, but rather tiresome when he records the numberless details of inanimate nature.

A character so given to scrutiny would naturally be introspective, so that his novels are markedly autobiographical. And it is always the struggling, set-upon, brooding character which the novelist chooses through which to depict his own nature. How different from the romantic self-exploitation of Byron! In “Childhood,” _Nikolenka_ is Tolstoi himself, as _Olénine_ is in “The Cossacks.” So too in _Levine_ of “Anna Karenina,” _Pozdnichev_, of “The Kreutzer Sonata,” and _Nekhlioudov_, of “Resurrection” (his final creed-summary), we have pictures of the self-recognized characteristics and beliefs of the author.

Each of these distinguished novels exhibits the same loosely-knit, diffuse, and digressive literary method, and the same marvellous perfection of character analysis and description. Each, also, advances a step toward that morbid idealism which was always seeking a new expression for a philosophy which was never finally set, but remained a shifting formulary to the last.

“War and Peace” is a huge study of the times of Napoleon and Alexander, brilliant and tedious by turns, and requiring leisure for its reading--in the last analysis, a really great novel. “Anna Karenina” treats with great frankness and high moral purpose contemporaneous Russian society. Both these remarkable books abound in striking comparisons, witty comments, well differentiated character work, and convincing pictures of their times.

Shortly after finishing these works, Tolstoi emerged from his groping, pessimistic, skeptical, nihilistic philosophy and “discovered” the Sermon on the Mount. Thenceforward he was the Preacher. It is true that, as his devoted wife playfully said, he changed his views every two years, yet his devotion to his altruistic creed--the creed of his youth, as we have seen--was so firm that neither the dying adjurations of his friend Turgenev nor the clamors of the forty-five peoples into whose separate languages his writings have been translated could induce him to return to fiction--he felt that the mantle of a new spiritual leadership was upon his shoulders, and thenceforward the story-teller’s art, when exercised at all, was to be merely a means to the ulterior end of teaching.

A great number of didactic essays wearing the transparent gauze of fiction came from Tolstoi’s pen in this period, as well as many religious and ethical treatises, besides one astounding, ideal-smashing discussion, “What is Art?” Radicalism is the native air of reform, and our author was fond of drastic measures in practice and in theory. The communism of his middle period found new emphasis in the later long essay, “What, Then, Must be Done?” Yet his was a directly contrary individualism of personal philosophy. Contradictory again was his abandonment of the city and adoption of the peasant life on his own estates. Indeed, one looks in vain for consistency in the working-out of his whole career; and yet, while the general course swerved startlingly time and again, no one could doubt the naïve sincerity of this sophisticated, simple mind, this nobleman peasant, this iconoclastic gentle man, this nihilistic Christian, this pessimistic idealist, this contradictory soul of single purpose, this incarnation of selfish unselfishness. For there can be no doubt that Tolstoi’s character was greater than his confused system of ethics, just as his intellect was greater than his philosophy. Think of the supreme selfless egoism that could permit a wife with whom he lived as with a sister for years--probably ever since he propounded his extreme marital theories in “The Kreutzer Sonata”--to copy as often as ten times the myriad pages of his works, all laboriously by hand! And yet, because his followers demanded that he should exemplify his doctrines, and partly also because this eighty-two-year-old father of ten children could not live peacefully under stress of the divided beliefs of the home, he broke the heart of this devoted woman by leaving home secretly by night, and died thus in retreat shortly after, November 20 (O. S. Nov. 7), 1910. For four days the Countess Sophia was beneath the roof where her husband lay ill, yet only at the last did she venture to come into his room, drop on her knees by his bedside, and kiss the hand that for conscience’ sake had smitten her! Strange contradiction of human life when this idealizer of family love, this apostle of gentleness, this generous soul who could withhold nothing from the needy, make over his estate to his family years before he died, refuse to receive royalties from his books, beg the public to forget his masterpieces of fiction and read only his tractates, labor in the fields and eat peasant bread--when this great soul could love-starve the aged helpmeet who had been his strength for three-score years!

* * * * *

In the midst of so many vague and divergent expressions throughout his whole literary career, and especially in “My Religion” and “Resurrection,” it is difficult to crystallize what Tolstoi taught. But this seems to me to be the gist:

We have two natures: the animal nature, which decays and dies, and the spiritual, which lives forever. Life consists in doing those things which gratify our desires, and thus bring happiness. But when we attempt to live and gain happiness by the gratification of our animal natures we meet only disappointment, for animal desires can never be really satisfied. Therefore we need to be regenerated, which is nothing more than the enthronement of our spiritual natures and the denying or casting-out of our animal natures. The gratification of our spiritual selves is found in Love, the only good, and the essence of love consists not in self-pleasing but in seeking our happiness in the happiness and well-being of others. Thus do we obey the law of God and become one with Him. In the exercise of our desires for the well-being of others we will not only deny ourselves all carnal desires, but never oppose force by force--love will be sufficient to overcome all enemies. We must not even flee from suffering, danger, or death, but accept each as good, whereupon it will cease to have power to harm us. This life of love is opposed to all selfish acquisition of property. To be truly happy, we must get back to the soil, abandon the artificialities of city life, labor for our food, and give to others.

Though Tolstoi turned so often, and finally without backsliding, to the peasant class, he did not so much champion their cause as he gemmed a crown for the obscure life as such. He could not pity those whose ways were laborious, because to him no other career than bodily toil could bring the highest good. The outbursting, fiercely passionate soul of all his later years was for the pitiable masses who still chose swords rather than plowshares, who preferred a lawsuit to a loss, who loved the city more than the country, who saw joy in the factory and none in the farm.

Those who have only a shivering admiration for the terrors of Russian fiction in general will find in Tolstoi’s short-stories much that is sweet and gentle; yet, being the most Russian of all Russian fiction-writers, he could but cry aloud with the pity of his people. But greater than his pity was his passion for preaching.

Sermons big and little lurk in every corner of his stories to fix you with their relentless eyes. Even when the tale is not clearly didactic, a swift vision of moral relations is sure to come to him who reads. For an instance, take “My Dream,” the story of a Russian prince whose daughter runs away with a married man and bears him a child. At length the sister-in-law of the prince pleads with him to forgive his daughter. Here is his severe reply:

“I have suffered enough. I have now but one desire, and that
is to put her in such a position that she will be independent
of others, and that she shall have no further need of
communicating with me. Then she can live her own life, and my
family and I need know nothing more about her. That is all I
can do.”

But the woman-heart crystallizes the teaching of the story when she replies:

“Michael, you say nothing but ‘I.’ She too is ‘I.’”

There is a fine, high spirit, too, in “Where Love is, There God is Also.”

Martin Andyeeich was an honest Russian cobbler whose wife and children had died, leaving him with but one child, a small boy, upon whom he had set his heart. But that child also died, and Martin reproached God. At length a pilgrim monk directed him to the gospels, and the cobbler became a devout follower of their teachings.

One day he heard a Voice which bade him look tomorrow into the street, for Christ would come to him. The Lord did not appear, however, and for a long while the only one with whom Martin conversed was a chilled old snow-sweeper, to whom the cobbler gave hot tea to drink, as he explained to him the gospel; after which the grateful old man left. Martin continued to look for Christ, but He did not come--though he did see a poorly clad woman with a little child. These he fed and warmed, hearing her story and bestowing an old jacket to cover her thin summer garments. He next acted as mediator between an old woman and a mischievous boy who had stolen her apples; and to her also he expounded the new truth which had possessed him--the doctrine of love. Thus all day long he had looked for the Christ and had not seen him. But now as he returned to his cellar a Presence declared itself as He who had said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” “And Martin then understood that his dream had not deceived him, and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had really received Him.”

One of the stories in Tolstoi’s earlier style is “A Prisoner in the Caucasus.”

Zhilin was an officer in the Caucasus in wartime. His aged mother persuaded him to come home once more to see her, and to marry the girl she had chosen to be his bride. The roads were impassable. The Tartars killed or carried into the mountains all Russians they captured. For this reason a military escort passed twice a week from fortress to fortress. Travelling thus, Zhilin became impatient at delays and decided to ride on alone. Kostuilin, another mounted officer, decided to go with him. They had not gone far when they were taken by the Tartars, bound, and held in a Tartar village for ransom. After many weeks, they escaped, only to be retaken and brought back to the village. And now the hut in which they were thrown and their food were worse than before. Again, after many weeks, Zhilin, with the aid of a Tartar maid, escaped, and finally reached the fortress. “You see,” he told his comrades, “I was going home to be married. But no; that is evidently not to be my fate.” Eventually he and his comrades ransomed Kostuilin for five thousand rubles.

I relate this perfectly plotless tale to show how on a slender thread of actual incident Tolstoi could hang a tremendous weight, for this story, with its naked truth-telling as to conditions, forced the government to act, by the sheer force of public opinion, and this is a miracle in Russia.

Another plotless story whose ten thousand words pile up a tremendous impression of character is “An Old Acquaintance.” The narrative, told in the first person by Prince Nelshiludof, is of how, during an expedition in the Caucasus, he met an acquaintance from Moscow. The splendor of the night in the open and the recreations of the officers are given in gems of description.

During a game of skittles, Guskof, a cashiered officer who now lives with the adjutant, comes to the prince, who seems faintly to recollect having met him before. After some general conversation, the officers retire for either sleep or gambling, leaving the prince and Guskof alone. Upon being asked if they had not met before, Guskof reminds the prince of their having met at the home of Guskof’s sister in Moscow, and this leads to further reminiscences.

During a long walk that night, Guskof, who constantly by his own story exhibits his weakness of character, tells how he once was of the highest society of St. Petersburg, but had been--through a liaison and a resulting duel--put under arrest and later cashiered. But this weakness is further shown when he goes on to lament his treatment at the hands of other officers with whom he comes in contact. He expresses a feeling of great disgust at their mode of spending their leisure hours. He admits that he is a moral coward--which is proven later. At length, after further conversation, which inspires a mixed feeling of disgust and pity in the prince, Guskof borrows from him some money. Suddenly, the bursting of a shell causes Guskof to cringe in abject terror, and in the confusion he disappears, but later is seen by the prince in a tent offering in a maudlin voice the money which he had borrowed, and boasting of how “his friend the prince” was rich, and how he had just gotten ten rubles from him.