Chapter IV: Turgenef (2)

In 1877, “Virgin Soil,” the last long important work, appeared: first in French, in a Paris journal, as if to feel its way; then the original could be risked in Russia with impunity, and had a free circulation. What a marked change the march of ideas had produced since the appearance of Turgenef’s article on Gogol! In this new work the author traversed a road which once would have led directly to Siberia. He had the ambition to describe the subterranean world which at that time was beginning to threaten the peace of the Empire. Having studied for twenty-five years every current of thought springing from Russian soil, the student thought to perfect his task by showing us the natural outgrowth of these currents. Since they disappeared under the earth, they must be investigated and attacked with a bold front.

Turgenef was incited to the work partly from the appearance of a rival, who had already preceded him in this line. We shall see that “Virgin Soil” was an indirect response to “Les Possédés” of Dostoyevski. The effort was not wholly successful; as Turgenef had been away from his native land for fifteen years, he had not been able to watch narrowly enough the incessant transformation of that hidden, almost inaccessible world. Without the closest study from nature the artist’s work cannot produce striking results. The novelist intended to present the still unsettled tendencies of the nihilists in a characteristic and fixed form; but he failed to give clearness and outline to the work; the image refused to reflect its true form. This is why there is something vague and indistinct about the first part of “Virgin Soil,” which contrasts unfavorably with the clear-cut models of his early works.

The author introduces us into the circle of conspirators at St. Petersburg. One of the young men, Neshdanof, has been engaged as a tutor in the house of a rich government official, in a distant province. He there meets a young girl of noble family, who is treated as a poor relation in the house. She is embittered by a long series of humiliations, and is struck with admiration for the ideas of the young apostle, more than for his personal attractions. They escape together, and form a Platonic union, working together among the common people, at the great cause of socialism. But Neshdanof is not fitted for the terrible work; he is a weak character, and a dreamer and poet. Distracted with doubts, and wholly discouraged, he soon discovers that all is chaos within his soul. He does not love the cause to which he is sacrificing himself, and he knows not how best to serve it. Neither does he love the woman who has sacrificed herself for him, and he feels that he has lowered himself in her esteem. Weary of life, too proud to withdraw, and generous enough to wish to save his devoted companion before her reputation is lost, Neshdanof takes his life. He has found out that one of his friends, with more character than himself, has a secret attachment for Marianne. Before dying he joins the hands of those two enthusiastic beings. The romance ends with a fruitless conspiracy, which shows the utter uselessness of attempting to stir the people to revolution.

Other revolutionary characters dimly float before the reader’s vision, who whisper unintelligible words. Those from among the higher classes are treated even more harshly than in “Smoke.” They have the same self-sufficiency, and are equally absurd without a single merit; and you feel that they are presented in a false light. Hence the work is abounding in caricatures, and shows a want of balance as a whole.

On the other hand, the apostles of the new faith are surrounded with a halo of generosity and devotion. Between extreme egotism on one side, and stern faith and utter self-abnegation on the other, the idealist’s choice must fall. Naturally, the poet’s warm heart draws him to the most disinterested party of the two. He invests these rude natures with delicate sentiments, which clothe them with poetry; concealing from us, and even from himself, the revolting contrasts they present, and their brutal instincts. The wolfish, energetic Bazarof was of a type more true to nature.

I think that Turgenef’s sensibility led him astray in his conception of the nihilists; while his good-sense did justice to their ideas, exhibited the puerility of their discourses and the uselessness of their blind hopes. The most valuable part of the book is where the writer demonstrates by facts the utter impossibility of uniting the propagandists and the people. Abstract arguments make no impression upon the peasant’s dull brain. Neshdanof attempts an harangue in an ale-house; the peasants force him to drink. The second glass of _vodka_ intoxicates him completely, and he staggers away amid jeers and shouts. Another man, who tries to stir a village to revolt, is bound and given over to justice.

At times Turgenef strikes exactly at the root of the evil, shows up the glaring faults of the revolutionary spirit, and exposes its weakness. Assuming too much responsibility, the nihilists wish to raise an ignorant populace at once to the intellectual heights they have themselves reached; forgetting that time alone can accomplish such a miracle. They have recourse to cabalistic formulas, but their efforts are fruitless. The poet sees and explains all this; but, being a poet, he allows himself to be seduced by the sentimental beauty of the sacrifice, losing sight of the object; while the proved uselessness of the sacrifice only redoubles his indulgence towards the victims.

This brings me to a point where I am obliged to touch upon a delicate subject. Certain political claims, discussed over the author’s tomb, have caused much anxiety in Russia; and bitter resentment threatened to mingle with the national grief. The Moscow papers published several severe articles about him before his death, in consequence of the appearance of his “Memoirs of a Nihilist” in a French paper. This autobiographical sketch is not a work of the imagination, for he obtained the story from the lips of a fellow-countryman who had escaped from a prison in Russia.

This curious essay has the ring of truth about it, and no attempt at recrimination; giving an example of that strange psychological peculiarity of the Russian, who studies so attentively the moral effect of suffering upon his soul that he forgets to accuse the authors of his suffering. The sketch recalls vividly certain pages of Dostoyevski’s. But Turgenef’s ideas were not, at this time, well received by the Russians. They resented the too indulgent tone of his writings, and accused him of complicity with the enemies of the Empire. The radicals wished to claim him for their own; and it was hinted that he subscribed to support a seditious journal. This is, however, entirely improbable. Turgenef was open-hearted and generous to a fault. He gave freely and indiscriminately to any one that was suffering. His door and his purse were open to any fellow-countryman without reserve, and kind words were ever ready to flow from his lips. But, though always ready to help others, he certainly never gave his aid to any political intriguer. Was it natural that a man of his refinement and high culture should have aided the schemes of wild and fruitless political conspiracies? With the liberal ideas he adopted during his university life in Germany, in early youth, he was more inclined to cherish political dreams than to put his liberalism into practice. In fact, it is only necessary to read “Virgin Soil” attentively, to understand the position he proposed to maintain.

But I am dwelling too long upon the political standing of a poet. This man, who was honest and true in the highest degree in all relations of life, must have been the same as to his politics. Those who questioned the colors he bore could ill afford to criticise him.

About this time, Turgenef wrote five or six tales; one of which (“A Lear of the Steppe”), for its intensity of feeling, recalls the most beautiful parts of “The Annals of a Sportsman.” But I must not dwell upon these, but give a little attention to the productions of our author as a whole.

V.

Ivan Sergievitch (Turgenef) has given us a most complete picture of Russian society. The same general types are always brought forward; and, as later writers have presented exactly similar ones, with but few modifications, we are forced to believe them true to life. First, the peasant; meek, resigned, dull, pathetic in suffering, like a child who does not know why he suffers; naturally sharp and tricky when not stupefied by liquor; occasionally roused to violent passion. Then, the intelligent middle class; the small landed proprietors of two generations. The old proprietor is ignorant and good-natured, of respectable family, but with coarse habits; hard, from long experience of serfdom, servile himself, but admirable in all other relations of life.

The young man of this class is of quite a different type. His intellectual growth having been too rapid, he sometimes plunges into Nihilism. He is often well educated, melancholy, rich in ideas but poor in executive ability; always preparing and expecting to accomplish something of importance, filled with vague and generous projects for the public good. This is the chosen type of hero in all Russian novels. Gogol introduced it, and Tolstoï prefers it above all others.

The favorite hero of young girls and romantic women is neither the brilliant officer, the artist, nor rich lord, but almost universally this provincial Hamlet, conscientious, cultivated, intelligent, but of feeble will, who, returning from his studies in foreign lands, is full of scientific theories about the improvement of mankind and the good of the lower classes, and eager to apply these theories on his own estate. It is quite necessary that he should have an estate of his own. He will have the hearty sympathy of the reader in his efforts to improve the condition of his dependents.

The Russians well understand the conditions of the future prosperity of their country; but, as they themselves acknowledge, they know not how to go to work to accomplish it.

In regard to the women of this class, Turgenef, strange to say, has little to say of the mothers. This probably reveals the existence of some old wound, some bitter experience of his own. Without a single exception, all the mothers in his novels are either wicked or grotesque. He reserves the treasures of his poetic fancy for the young girls of his creation. To him the young girl of the country province is the corner-stone of the fabric of society. Reared in the freedom of country life, placed in the most healthy social conditions, she is conscientious, frank, affectionate, without being romantic; less intelligent than man, but more resolute. In each of his romances an irresolute man is invariably guided by a woman of strong will.

Such are, generally speaking, the characters the author describes, which bear so unmistakably the stamp of nature that one cannot refrain from saying as he closes the book, “These must be portraits from life!” which criticism is always the highest praise, the best sanction of works of the imagination.

But something is wanting to fully complete the picture of Russian life. Turgenef never has written of the highest class in society except incidentally and in his later works, and then in his bitterest vein. He was never drawn to this class, and was, besides, prejudiced against it. The charming young girl, suddenly raised to a position in this circle, becomes entirely perverted―is changed into a frivolous woman, with most disagreeable peculiarities of mind and temperament. The man, elevated to the new dignities of a high public position, adds to his native irresolution ostentatious pride and folly. We are forced to question these hasty and extreme statements. We must wait for Leo Tolstoï before forming our opinions. He will give us precisely the same types of the lower and middle classes as his predecessor; but he will also give a most complete analysis of the statesman, the courtier, and the noble dames of the court. He will finish the edifice, the foundations of which Turgenef has so admirably laid. Not that we expect of our author the complicated intrigues and extraordinary adventures of the old French romances. He shows us life as it is, not through a magic lantern. Facts interest him but little, for he only regards them as to their influence on the human soul. He loved to study character and sentiment, to seek the simplest personages of every-day life; and the great secret of his power lies in his having felt such deep interest in his models that his characters are never prosaic, while absolutely true to life. He says of Neshdanof, in “Virgin Soil”: “He makes realism poetic.” These, his own words, may be justly applied to himself. In exquisite and good taste he has, in fact, no rival. On every page we find a tender grace like the ineffable freshness of morning dew. A phrase of George Eliot’s, in “Adam Bede,” may well apply to him: “Words came to me as tears come when the heart is full and we cannot prevent them.”

No writer ever had more sentiment or a greater horror of sentimentality; none could better express in a single phrase such crises, such remarkable situations. This reserve power makes his work unique in Russian literature, which is always diffuse and elaborate. In his most unimportant productions there is an artistic conciseness equal to that of the great masters of the ancient classics. Such qualities, made still more effective by a perfection of style and a diction always correct and sometimes most exquisite, give to Turgenef a very high position in contemporary literature. Taine considered him one of the most perfect artists the world has produced since the classic period. English criticism, generally considered somewhat cold, and not given to exaggeration, places him among writers of the very first rank.

I subscribe to this opinion whenever I take up any of his works to read once again; then I hesitate when I think of that marvellous Tolstoï, who captivates my imagination and makes me suspend my judgment. We must leave these questions of precedence for the future to decide.

After the appearance of “Virgin Soil,” although Turgenef’s talent suffered no change, and his intelligence was as keen as ever, his mind seemed to need repose, and to be groping for some hidden path, as is often the case with young authors at the beginning of their career. There were good reasons for this condition of discouragement. Turgenef reaped many advantages, and some disadvantages, from his prolonged sojourn in our midst. At first, the study of new masters and the friendships and advice of Mérimée, were of great use to him. To this literary intercourse may be attributed the rare culture, clearness, and precision of his works, as distinguished from any other prose writer of his country. Later on he became an enthusiastic admirer of Flaubert, and made some excellent translations of his works. Then, next to the pioneers of the “School of Nature,” he adhered to their successors, fondly imagining himself to be one of them, giving ear to their doctrines, and making frantic efforts to conciliate these with his old ideals. Moreover, he felt himself more and more widely separated from his native land, the true source of all his ideas. He was sometimes reproached as a deserter. The tendencies of his last novels had aroused recrimination and scandal. Whenever he occasionally visited St. Petersburg or Moscow, he was received with ovations by the young men, but with extreme coldness in some circles. He was destined to live to see a part of his former adherents leave him and run to worship new idols. On his last appearance in Russia for the fêtes in honor of Pushkin, the Moscow students rushed to take him from his carriage, and bear him in their arms; but I remember that one day at St. Petersburg, returning from a visit to one of the nobility, Ivan Sergievitch (Turgenef) said to us, in a jesting tone, not quite free from bitterness: “Some one called me Ivan Nikolaievitch.”[I] This little inadvertency would to us seem quite pardonable, for here we are, fortunately, not obliged to know every one’s father’s name. But, considering Russian customs, this oversight in the case of a national celebrity was an offence, and showed that he was already beginning to be forgotten.

About this time I had the good-fortune to pass an evening with Turgenef and Skobelef. The young general spoke with his habitual eloquence and warmth of his hopes for the future, and expressed many great thoughts. The old author listened in silence, studying him meanwhile with that pensive, concentrated expression of the artist when he wishes to reproduce an image in form and color. The model was posing for the painter, who meant to engraft this remarkable character into one of his books; but Death did not permit the hero to live out his romance, nor the poet to write it.

One day in the spring of 1883, the last time I had the honor of seeing Ivan Sergievitch, we spoke of Skobelef. He said: “I shall soon follow him.”

It was too true. He was suffering terribly from the mortal illness of which he died soon after―a cancer in the spinal marrow. His eyes rested upon a landscape of Rousseau, his favorite painter, which represented an ancient oak, torn by the storms of many winters, now shedding its last crimson leaves in a December gale. There was an affinity between the noble old man and this picture which he enjoyed looking upon, a secret and mutual understanding of the decrees of Nature.

He published three tales after being attacked with this fatal disease. It is an example of the irony of fate that the last of these was entitled “Despair.” This was his last analysis of the Russian character, which he had made his study for so many years, and reproduced in all his works.

A few days before his death he took up his pen to write a touching epistle to his friend, Leo Tolstoï. In this farewell the dying author bequeathed the care and honor of Russian literature to his friend and rival. I give the closing words of this letter:―

“My very dear Leo Nikolaievitch, I have not written to you for a long time, for I have long been upon my death-bed. There is no chance for recovery; it is not to be thought of. I write expressly to tell you how very happy I am to have been a contemporary of yours; and to express a last, urgent request.

“My friend, return to your literary labors. This gift has come to you from whence come all our gifts. Oh! how happy I should be could I feel that you will grant this request!…

“My dear friend, great author of our beloved Russia, let me entreat you to grant me this request! Reply if this reaches you. I press you and yours to my heart for the last time. I can write no more…. I am weary!…”

We can only hope that this exhortation will be obeyed by the only author worthy to take up the pen dropped by those valiant hands.

Turgenef has left behind a rich legacy; for every page he ever wrote, with but very few exceptions, breathes a noble spirit; and his works will continue to elevate and warm the hearts of thousands.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] “Grande et riche, mais désordonnée.” This historical
phrase has become proverbial in Russia. It was used by
the deputies of the Slavs when they demanded foreign
chiefs to govern them.

[G] Published in English under the name of “Liza.”

[H] An English translation was published in 1884 under the
title “_Annouchka_,” a tale.

[I] (V)itch added to the father’s name (meaning son of) is
the masculine termination of proper names.