The radical critic Antonovich condemned the book in the following terms:--
"From an artistic standpoint the novel is entirely unsatisfactory, not to say anything more out of respect for the talent of Turgenev, for his former merits, and for his numerous admirers. There is no common thread, no common action which would have tied together all the parts of the novel; all of it is in some way just separate rhapsodies. . . .
This novel is didactic, a real learned treatise written in dialectic form, and each character as he appears serves as an expression and representative of a certain opinion and direction. . . . All the attention of the author is turned on the princ.i.p.al hero and the other acting characters, however, not on their personality, not on the emotions of their souls, their feelings and pa.s.sions, but rather almost exclusively on their talks and reasonings. This is the reason why the novel, with the exception of one nice old woman, does not contain a single living character, a single living soul, but only some sort of abstract ideas, and various movements which are personified and called by proper names. Turgenev"s novel is not a creation purely objective; in it the personality of the author steps out too clearly, his sympathies, his inspiration, even his personal bitterness and irritation. From this we get the opportunity to find in the novel the personal opinions of the author himself, and in this we have one point to start from--that we should accept as the opinions of the author the views expressed in the novel, at least those views which have been expressed with a noticeable feeling for them on the part of the author and put into the mouths of those characters whom he apparently favours. Had the author had at least a spark of sympathy for the "children," for the young generation, had he had at least a spark of true and clear understanding of their views and inclinations, it would have necessarily flashed out somewhere in the run of the novel.
"The "fathers" as opposed to the "children" are permeated with love and poetry; they are men, modestly and quietly doing good deeds; they would not for the world change their age. Even such an empty nothing as Pavel Petrovich, even he is raised on stilts and made a nice man.
Turgenev could not solve his problem; instead of sketching the relations between the "fathers" and the "children" he wrote a panegyric to the "fathers" and a decrial against the "children"; but he did not even understand the children; instead of a decrial it was nothing but a libel. The spreaders of healthy ideas among the young generation he wanted to show up as corrupters of youth, the sowers of discord and evil, haters of good, and in a word, very devils. In various places of the novel we see that his princ.i.p.al hero is no fool; on the contrary, a very able and gifted man, who is eager to learn and works diligently and knows much, but notwithstanding all this, he gets quite lost in disputes, utters absurdities, and preaches ridiculous things, which should not be pardoned even in a most narrow and limited mind. . . . In general the novel is nothing else but a merciless and destructive criticism on the young generation. In all the contemporaneous questions, intellectual movements, debates and ideals with which the young generation is occupied, Turgenev finds not the least common sense and gives us to understand that they lead only to demoralisation, emptiness, prosaic shallowness, and cynicism. Turgenev finds his ideal in quite a different place, namely in the "fathers,"
in the more or less old generation. Consequently, he draws a parallel and contrast between the "fathers" and the "children," and we cannot formulate the sense of the novel in this way; among a number of good children there are also bad ones who are the ones that are ridiculed in the novel; this is not its aim, its purpose is quite different and may be formulated thus: the children are bad and thus are they represented in the novel in all their ugliness; but the "fathers" are good, which is also proven in the novel."
One of the very few criticisms from a truly artistic standpoint appeared in the "Russian Herald" during the year 1862, from which a brief quotation must suffice:--
"Everything in this work bears witness to the ripened power of Turgenev"s wonderful talent; the clearness of ideas, the masterly skill in sketching types, the simplicity of plot and of movement of the action, and moderation and evenness of the work as a whole; the dramatic element which comes up naturally from the most ordinary situations; there is nothing superfluous, nothing r.e.t.a.r.ding, nothing extraneous. But in addition to these general merits, we are also interested in Turgenev"s novel because in it is caught and held a current, fleeting moment of a pa.s.sing phenomenon, and in which a momentary phase of our life is typically drawn and arrested not only for the time being but forever."
These prophetically true words const.i.tute a great exception to the prevailing contemporary criticism, which, as has been seen, was pa.s.sionately unjust. Twenty years later, a Russian writer, Boorenin, was able to view the novel as we see it to-day:--
"We can say with a.s.surance that since the time of "Dead Souls" not a single Russian novel made such an impression as "Fathers and Children"
has made. A deep mind, a no less deep observation, an incomparable ability for a bold and true a.n.a.lysis of the phenomena of life, and for their broadest relations to each other,--all these have shown themselves in the fundamental thought of this positively historical creation. Turgenev has explained with lifelike images of "fathers" and "children" the essence of that life struggle between the dying period of the n.o.bility which found its strength in the possession of peasants and the new period of reforms whose essence made up the princ.i.p.al element of our "resurrection" and for which, however, none had found a real, true (BRIGHT) definition. Turgenev not only gave such a definition, not only illumined the inner sense of the new movement in the life of that time, but he also has pointed out its princ.i.p.al characteristic sign--negation in the name of realism, as the opposition to the old ideally liberal conservatism. It is known that he found not only an unusually appropriate nickname for this negation, but a nickname which later became attached to a certain group of phenomena and types and as such was accepted not only by Russia alone but by the whole of Europe. The artist created in the image of Bazarov an exceedingly characteristic representative of the new formation of life, of the new movement, and christened it with a wonderfully fitting word, which made so much noise, which called forth so much condemnation and praise, sympathy and hatred, timid alarm and bold raving. We can point out but few instances in the history of literature of such a deep and lively stir called forth in our literary midst by an artistic creation and by a type of almost political significance. This novel even after twenty years appears the same deep, bright, and truthful reflection of life, as it was at the moment of its first appearance. Now its depth and truthfulness seem even more clear and arouse even more wonder and respect for the creative thought of the artist who wrote it. In our days, when the period of development pointed at by Turgenev in his celebrated novel is almost entirely lived through, we can only wonder at that deep insight with which the author had guessed the fundamental characteristic in that life movement which had celebrated that period. The struggle of two social streams, the anti-reform and post-reform stream, the struggle of two generations; the old brought up on aesthetical idealism for which the leisure of the n.o.bility, made possible by their rights over the peasants, afforded such a fertile soil; and the young generation which was carried away by realism and negation,--this is what made up the essence of the movement of the epoch in the sixties. Turgenev with the instinct of genius saw through this fundamental movement in life and imaged it in living bright pictures with all its positive and negative, pathetic and humorous sides.
"In his novel Turgenev did not at all side with the "fathers" as the unsympathetic progressive critics of that time insisted, he did not wish to in the least extol them above the "children" in order to degrade the latter. Just so he had no intention of showing up in the character of the representative of the "children" some kind of model of a "thinking realist" to whom the young generation should have bowed and imitated, as the progressive critics who received the work sympathetically imagined. Such a one-sided view was foreign to the author; he sketched both the "fathers" and the "children" as far as possible impartially and a.n.a.lytically. He spared neither the "fathers"
nor the "children" and p.r.o.nounced a cold and severe judgment both on the ones and the others. He positively sings a requiem to the "fathers" in the person of the Kirsanovs, and especially Paul Kirsanov, having shown up their aristocratic idealism, their sentimental aestheticism, almost in a comical light, ay almost in caricature, as he himself has justly pointed out. In the prominent representative of the "children," Bazarov, he recognized a certain moral force, the energy of character, which favourably contrasts this strong type of realist with the puny, characterless, weak-willed type of the former generation; but having recognised the positive side of the young type, he could not but show up their shortcomings to life and before the people, and thus take their laurels from them. And he did so. And now when time has sufficiently exposed the shortcomings of the type of the generation of that time, we see how right the author was, how deep and far he saw into life, how clearly he perceived the beginning and the end of its development. Turgenev in "Fathers and Children" gave us a sample of a real universal novel, notwithstanding the fact that its plot centres on the usual intimate relations of the princ.i.p.al characters. And with what wonderful skill the author solves this puzzling problem--to place in narrow, limited frames the broadest and newest themes (CONTENT). Hardly one of the novelists of our age, beginning with d.i.c.kens and ending with George Sand and Spielhagen, has succeeded in doing it so compactly and tersely, with such an absence of the DIDATIC element which is almost always present in the works of the above-mentioned authors, the now kings of western literatures, with such a full insight into the very heart of the life movement which is reflected in the novel. I repeat again, "Fathers and Children" is thought of highly by European critics, but years will pa.s.s and it will be thought of even more highly. It will be placed in a line with those weighty literary creations in which is reflected the basic movement of the time which created it."
It would have been well for Turgenev if he could have preserved an absolute silence under the terrific storm of abuse that his most powerful novel brought down on his head; it would have been well to let the book speak for itself, and trust to time to make the strong wine sweet. But this was asking almost too much of human nature. Stung by the outrageous attacks of the Radicals, and suffering as only a great artist can suffer under what he regards as a complete misrepresentation of his purpose, Turgenev wrote letters of explanation, confession, irony, letters that gained him no affection, that only increased the perplexity of the public, and which are much harder to understand than the work itself. The prime difficulty was that in this book Turgenev had told a number of profound truths about life; and n.o.body wanted the truth. The eternal quarrel between the old and the young generation, the eternal quarrel between conservative and liberal, was at that time in Russia in an acute stage; and everybody read "Fathers and Children" with a view to increasing their ammunition, not with the object of ascertaining the justice of their cause. The "fathers" were of course angry at Turgenev"s diagnosis of their weakness; the "sons" went into a veritable froth of rage at what they regarded as a ridiculous burlesque of their ideas. But that is the penalty that a wise man suffers at a time of strife; for if every one saw the truth clearly, we should never fight each other at all.
Turgenev"s subsequent statement, that so far from Bazarov being a burlesque, he was his "favourite child," is hard to understand even to-day. The novelist said that with the exception of Bazarov"s views on art, he himself was in agreement with practically all of the ideas expressed by the great iconoclast. Turgenev probably thought he was, but really he was not. Authors are poor judges of their own works, and their statements about their characters are seldom to be trusted. Many writers have confessed that when they start to write a book, with a clear notion in their heads as to how the characters shall develop, the characters often insist on developing quite otherwise, and guide the pen of the author in a manner that constantly awakens his surprise at his own work. Turgenev surely intended originally that we should love Bazarov; as a matter of fact, n.o.body really loves him,* and no other character in the book loves him for long except his parents. We have a wholesome respect for him, as we respect any ruthless, terrible force; but the word "love" does not express our feeling toward him. It is possible that Turgenev, who keenly realised the need in Russia of men of strong will, and who always despised himself because he could not have steadily strong convictions, tried to incarnate in Bazarov all the uncompromising strength of character that he lacked himself; just as men who themselves lack self-a.s.sertion and cannot even look another man in the eye, secretly idolise the men of masterful qualities. It is like the sick man Stevenson writing stories of rugged out-door activity. I heard a student say once that he was sure Marlowe was a little, frail, weak man physically, and that he poured out all his longing for virility and power in heroes like Tamburlaine.
*I cannot believe that even Mr. Edward Garnett loves him, though in his Introduction to Constance Garnett"s translation, he says, "we love him."
Bazarov, as every one knows, was drawn from life. Turgenev had once met a Russian provincial doctor,* whose straightforward talk made a profound impression upon him. This man died soon after and had a glorious resurrection in Bazarov, speaking to thousands and thousands of people from his obscure and forgotten grave. It is rather interesting that Turgenev, who drew so many irresolute Russian characters, should have attained his widest fame by the depiction of a man who is simply Incarnate Will. If every other person in all Turgenev"s stories should be forgotten, it is safe to say that Bazarov will always dwell in the minds of those who have once made his acquaintance.
* 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 long before 1860, and that the idea of the novel first came to him in August, 1860, while he was bathing on the Isle of Wight. Almost every writer on Russian literature has his own set of dates and incidents.
And yet, Turgenev, with all his secret admiration for the Frankenstein he had created, did not hesitate at the last to crush him both in soul and body. The one real conviction of Turgenev"s life was pessimism,--the belief that the man of the n.o.blest aspiration and the man of the most brutish character are treated by Nature with equal indifference. Bazarov is the strongest individual that the novelist could conceive; and it is safe to say that most of us live all our lives through without meeting his equal. But his powerful mind, in its colossal egotism and with its gigantic ambitions, is an easy prey to the one thing he despised most of all--sentiment; and his rugged body goes to the grave through a chance scratch on the finger. Thus the irony of this book--and I know of no novel in the world that displays such irony--is not the irony of intentional partisan burlesque. There is no attempt in the destruction of this proud character to prove that the "children" were wrong or mistaken; it is the far deeper irony of life itself, showing the absolute insignificance of the ego in the presence of eternal and unconscious nature. Thus Bazarov, who seems intended for a great hero of tragedy, is not permitted to fight for his cause, nor even to die for it. He is simply obliterated by chance, as an insect perishes under the foot of a pa.s.sing traveller, who is entirely unaware that he has taken an individual life.
Nature herself could hardly be colder or more pa.s.sive than the woman with whom it was Bazarov"s bad luck to fall in love. The gradual change wrought in his temperament by Madame Odintsov is shown in the most subtle manner. To Bazarov, women were all alike, and valuable for only one thing; he had told this very woman that people were like trees in a forest; no botanist would think of studying an individual birch tree. Why, then, should this entirely unimportant individual woman change his whole nature, paralyse all his ambitions, ruin all the cheerful energy of his active mind? He fights against this obsession like a nervous patient struggling with a dreadful depression that comes over him like a flood. He fights like a man fighting with an enemy in the dark, whom he cannot see, but whose terrible blows rain on his face. When he first meets her, he remarks to the shocked Arkady, "What a magnificent body! Shouldn"t I like to see it on the dissecting table!" But he is unable long to admire her with such scientific aloofness. "His blood was on fire directly if he merely thought of her; he could easily have mastered his blood, but something else was taking root in him, something he had never admitted, at which he had always jeered, at which all his pride revolted." It is this bewilderment at meeting the two things that are stronger than life--love and death--that both stupefy and torture this superman. It is 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 writhing still. And, you see I thought too: I"d break down so many things, I wouldn"t die, why should I! there were problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently, though that makes no difference to any one either. . . . I was needed by Russia. . . . No, it"s clear, I wasn"t needed."
Madame Odintsov"s profound and subtle remark about happiness is the key to her character, and shows why she never could have been happy with Bazarov, or have given him any happiness.
"We were talking of happiness, I believe. . . . Tell me why it is that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a fine evening, or a conversation with sympathetic people, it all seems an intimation of some measureless happiness existing apart somewhere rather than actual happiness such, I mean, as we ourselves are in possession of? Why is it? Or perhaps you have no feeling like that?"
Many of us certainly have feelings like that; but while these two intellectuals are endeavouring to a.n.a.lyse happiness, and losing it in the process of a.n.a.lysis, the two young lovers, Arkady and Katya, whose brows are never furrowed by cerebration, are finding happiness in the familiar human way. In answer to his declaration of love, she smiled at him through her tears. "No one who has not seen those tears in the eyes of the beloved, knows yet to what a point, faint with shame and grat.i.tude, a man may be happy on earth."
Although the character of Bazarov dominates the whole novel, Turgenev has, I think, displayed genius of a still higher order in the creation of that simple-minded pair of peasants, the father and mother of the young nihilist. These two are old-fashioned, absolutely pious, dwelling in a mental world millions of miles removed from that of their son; they have not even a remote idea of what is pa.s.sing in his mind, but they look on him with adoration, and believe him to be the greatest man in all Russia. At the end of a wonderful sketch of the mother, Turgenev says: "Such women are not common nowadays. G.o.d knows whether 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 as that seems indeed too great for earth, too great for time, and to belong only to eternity. The unutterable pathos of this love consists in the fact that it is made up so largely of fear. They fear their son as only ignorant parents can fear their educated offspring; it is something 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 longing for more congenial companionship elsewhere; that the very solicitude of his parents for his health, for his physical comfort, will irritate and annoy rather than please him. There is no heart-hunger on earth so cruel and so terrible as the hunger of father and mother for the complete sympathy and affection of their growing children. This is why the pride of so many parents in the development of their children is mingled with such mute but piercing terror. It is the fear that the son will grow away from them; that their caresses will deaden rather than quicken his love for them. They watch him as one watches some infinitely precious thing that may at any moment disappear forever.
The fear of a mother toward the son she loves is among the deepest tragedies of earth. She knows he is necessary to her happiness, and that she is not to his.
Even the cold-hearted Bazarov is shaken by the joy of his mother"s greeting when he returns home, and by her agony at his early departure. He hates himself for not being able to respond to her demonstrations of affection. Unlike most sons, he is clever enough to understand the slavish adoration of his parents; but he realises that he cannot, especially in the presence of his college friend, relieve their starving hearts. At the very end, he says "My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing. . . . That"s nonsense, but don"t contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort the child . . . you know. And be kind to mother. People like them aren"t to be found in your great world if you look by daylight with a candle."
The bewildered, helpless anguish of the parents, who cannot understand why the G.o.d they worship takes their son away from them, reaches the greatest climax of tragedy that I know of anywhere in the whole history of fiction. Not even the figure of Lear holding the dead body of Cordelia surpa.s.ses in tragic intensity this old pair whose whole life has for so long revolved about their son. And the novel closes with the scene in the little village churchyard, where the aged couple, supporting each other, visit the tomb, and wipe away the dust from the stone. Even the abiding pessimism of the novelist lifts for a moment its heavy gloom at this spectacle. "Can it be that their prayers, their tears, are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred, devoted love, is not all-powerful? Oh, no! However pa.s.sionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of indifferent nature; they tell us too of eternal reconciliation and of life without end."
This is where the novel "Fathers and Children" rises above a picture of Russian politics in the sixties, and remains forever an immortal work of art. For the greatness of this book lies not in the use of the word Nihilist, nor in the reproduction of ephemeral political movements; its greatness consists in the fact that it faithfully portrays not merely the Russian character, nor the nineteenth century, but the very depths of the human heart as it has manifested itself in all ages and among all nations.
The next novel, "Smoke," despite its extraordinary brilliancy, is in many ways unworthy of Turgenev"s genius. It was written at Baden, while he was living with the Viardots, and I suspect that the influence of Madame Viardot is stronger in this work than in anything else Turgenev produced. Of course he had discussed again and again with her the abuse that young Russia had poured on his head for "Fathers and Children;" and I suspect she incited him to strike and spare not. The smoke in this novel is meant to represent the idle vapour of Russian political jargon; all the heated discussions on both sides are smoke, purposeless, obscure, and transitory as a cloud. But the 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 for once 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 most bitter and purely satirical of all the works of Turgenev; the Slavophils, with their ignorance of the real culture of western Europe, and their unwillingness to learn from good teachers, are hit hard; but still harder hit are the Petersburg aristocrats, the "idle rich" (legitimate conventional target for all novelists), who are here represented as little better in intelligence than grinning apes, and much worse in morals. No one ever seems to love his compatriots when he observes them in foreign lands; if Americans complain that Henry James has satirised them in his international novels, they ought to read "Smoke," and see how Turgenev has treated his travelling countrymen. They talk bad German, hum airs out of tune, insist on speaking French instead of their own tongue, attract everybody"s attention at restaurants and railway-stations,--in short, behave exactly as each American insists other Americans behave in Europe.
The book is filled with little portraits, made "peradventure with a pen corroded." First comes the typical Russian gasbag, who talks and then talks some more.
"He was no longer young, he had a flabby nose and soft cheeks, that looked as if they had been boiled, dishevelled greasy locks, and a fat squat person. Everlastingly short of cash, and everlastingly in raptures over something, Rostislav Bambaev wandered, aimless but exclamatory, over the face of our long-suffering mother-earth."
Dostoevski was so angry when he read this book that he said it ought to be burnt by the common hangman. But he must have approved of the picture of the Petersburg group, who under a thin veneer of polished manners are utterly inane and cynically vicious. One of them had "an expression of constant irritability on his face, as though he could not forgive himself for his own appearance."
The portrait of the Pecksniffian Pishtchalkin: "In exterior, too, he had begun to resemble a sage of antiquity; his hair had fallen off the crown of his head, and his full face had completely set in a sort of solemn jelly of positively blatant virtue."
None but a great master could have drawn such pictures; but it is not certain that the master was employing his skill to good advantage. And while representing his hatred of all the Russian bores who had made his life weary, he selected an old, ruined man, Potugin, to express his own sentiments--disgust with the present condition of Russia, and admiration for the culture of Europe and the practical inventive power of America. Potugin says that he had just visited the exposition at the Crystal Palace in London, and that he reflected that "our dear mother, Holy Russia, could go and hide herself in the lower regions, without disarranging a single nail in the place." Not a single thing in the whole vast exhibition had been invented by a Russian. Even the Sandwich Islanders had contributed something to the show. At another place in the story he declares that his father bought a Russian threshing machine, which remained five years useless in the barn, until replaced by an American one.
Such remarks enraged the Slavophils beyond measure, for they were determined to keep out of Russia foreign inventions and foreign ideas.
But that Turgenev was right is shown in the twentieth century by an acute German observer, Baron Von der Bruggen. In his interesting book, "Russia of To-day," he says: "All civilisation is derived from the West. . . . People are now beginning to understand this in Russia after having lost considerable time with futile phantasies upon original Slavonic civilisation. If Russia wishes to progress, her Western doors must be opened wide in order to facilitate the influx of European culture." The author of these words was not thinking of Turgenev: but his language is a faithful echo of Potugin. They sound like 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 he successfully attacked those who had attacked him. If this were all that 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 young Russian, thoroughly commonplace, but thoroughly practical and sincere, the type of man whom Russia needed the most, and has placed him between two women, who represent the eternal contrast between sacred and profane love. This situation has all the elements of true drama, as every one knows who has read or heard "Carmen;" it is needless to say that Turgenev has developed it with consummate skill. Turgenev regarded brilliantly wicked women with hatred and loathing, but also with a kind of terror; and he has never failed to make them sinister and terrible. Irina as a young girl nearly ruined the life of Litvinov; and now we find him at Baden, his former pa.s.sion apparently conquered, and he himself engaged to Turgenev"s ideal woman, Tanya, not clever, but modest, sensible, and true-hearted, another Lisa. The contrast between these two women, who instinctively understand each other immediately and the struggle of each for the soul of the hero, shows Turgenev at his best. It is remarkable, too, how clearly the reader sees the heart of the man, so obscure to himself; and how evident it is that in the very midst of his pa.s.sion for Irina, his love for Tanya remains. Irina is a firework, Tanya a star; and even the biggest skyrockets, that illuminate all the firmament, do not for long conceal the stars.
Turgenev thoroughly relieved his mind in "Smoke;" and in the novel that followed it, "Torrents of Spring," he omitted politics and "movements" altogether, and confined himself to human nature in its eternal aspect. For this very reason the book attracted little attention in Russia, and is usually dismissed in one sentence by the critics. But it is a work of great power; it sings the requiem of lost youth, a minor melody often played by Turgenev; it gives us a curious picture of an Italian family living in Germany, and it contains the portrait of an absolutely devilish but unforgettable woman. We have a sincere and highly interesting a.n.a.lysis of the Russian, the German, and the Italian temperament; not shown in their respective political prejudices, but in the very heart of their emotional life. Once more the Russian hero is placed between G.o.d and Satan; and this time Satan conquers. Love, however, survives the burnt-out fires of pa.s.sion; but it survives only as a vain regret--it survives as youth survives, only as an unspeakably precious memory. . . . The three most sinister women that Turgenev has ever drawn are Varvara Pavlovna, in "A House of Gentlefolk;" Irina, in "Smoke;" and Maria Nikolaevna, in "Torrents of Spring." All three are wealthy and love luxury; all three are professional wreckers of the lives of men. The evil that they do rises from absolute selfishness, rather than from deliberate sensuality. Not one of them could have been saved by any environment, or by any husband. Varvara is frivolous, Irina is cold-hearted, and Maria is a super-woman; she makes a bet with her husband that she can seduce any man he brings to the house. To each of her lovers she gives an iron ring, symbol of their slavery; and like Circe, she transforms men into swine. After she has hypnotised Sanin, and taken away his allegiance to the pure girl whom he loves, "her eyes, wide and clear, almost white, expressed nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of conquest. The hawk, as it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like that." Turgenev, whose ideal woman is all gentleness, modesty, and calmness, must have seen many thoroughly corrupt ones, to have been so deeply impressed with a woman"s capacity for evil. In "Virgin Soil,"
when he introduces Mashurina to the reader, he says: "She was a single woman . . . 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 is significant that in not one of Turgenev"s seven novels is the villain of the story a man. Women simply must play the leading role in his books, for to them he has given the power of will; they lead men upward, or they drag them downward, but they are always in front.
The virtuous heroine of "Torrents of Spring," Gemma, is unlike any other girl that Turgenev has created. In fact, all of his good women are individualised--the closest similarity is perhaps seen in Lisa and Tanya, but even there the image of each girl is absolutely distinct in the reader"s mind. But Gemma falls into no group, nor is there any other woman in Turgenev with whom one instinctively cla.s.sifies or compares her. Perhaps this is because she is Italian. It is a long time before the reader can make up his mind whether he likes her or not--a rare thing in Turgenev, for most of his good women capture us in five minutes. Indeed, one does not know for some chapters whether Gemma is sincere or not, and one is angry with Sanin for his moth-like flitting about her radiance. She at once puzzles and charms the reader, as she did the young Russian. Her family circle are sketched with extraordinary skill, and her young brother is unique in Turgenev"s books. He has, as a rule, not paid much attention to growing boys; but the sympathy and tenderness shown in the depiction of this impulsive, affectionate, chivalrous, clean-hearted boy prove that the novelist"s powers of a.n.a.lysis were equal to every phase of human nature. No complete estimate of Turgenev can be made without reading "Torrents of Spring;" for the Italian menage, the character of Gemma and her young brother, and the absurd duelling punctilio are not to be found elsewhere. And Maria is the very Principle of Evil; one feels that if Satan had spoken to her in the Garden of Eden, she could easily have tempted him; at all events, he would not have been the most subtle beast in the field.
In 1876 Turgenev wrote "Virgin Soil." Of the seven novels, this is the last, the longest, and the least. But it did not deserve then, and does not deserve now, the merciless condemnation of the critics; though they still take up stones to stone it. Never was a book about a revolutionary movement, written by one in sympathy with it, so lukewarm. Naturally the public could not swallow it, for even G.o.d cannot digest a Laodicean. But the lukewarmness in this instance arose, not from lack of conviction, but rather from the conviction that things can really happen only in the fulness of time. Everything in the story from first to last emphasises this fact and might be considered a discourse on the text add to knowledge, temperance: and to temperance, patience. But these virtues have never been in high favour with revolutionists, which explains why so many revolutions are abortive, and so many ephemeral. It is commonly said that the leading character in "Virgin Soil," Solomin, is a failure because he is not exactly true to life, he is not typically Russian. That criticism seems to me to miss the main point of the work. Of course he is not true to life, of course he is not typically Russian. The typical Russian in the book is Nezhdanov, who is entirely true to life in his uncertainty and in his futility; he does not know whether or not he is in 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 to understand Solomin, and he fails to understand himself. So he finally does what so many Russian dreamers have done--he places against his own breast the pistol he had intended for a less dangerous enemy. But he 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 to triumph. He seems unreal because he is unreal; he is the ideal. He is the man of practical worth, the man who is not pa.s.sion"s slave, and Turgenev loved him for the same reason that Hamlet loved Horatio. Amid all the vain babble of the other characters, Solomin stands out salient, 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 does little; Solomin lives a life of cheerful, reticent activity. As the revolution is not at hand, the best thing to do in the interim is to accomplish something useful. He has learned how to labour and to wait.
"This calm, heavy, not to say clumsy man was not only incapable of lying or bragging; one might rely on him, like a stone wall." In every scene, whether among the affected aristocrats or among the futile revolutionists, Solomin appears to advantage. There is no worse indictment of human intelligence than the great compliment we pay certain persons when we call them sane. Solomin is sane, and seems therefore untrue to life.
It is seldom that Turgenev reminds us of d.i.c.kens; but Sipyagin and his wife might belong to the great d.i.c.kens gallery, though drawn with a restraint unknown to the Englishman. Sipyagin himself is a miniature Pecksniff, unctuous, polished, and hollow. The dinner-table scenes at his house are pictured with a subdued but implacable irony. How the natural-born aristocrat Turgenev hated the Russian aristocracy! When Solomin appears in this household, he seems like a giant among manikins, so truly do the simple human virtues tower above the arrogance 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 an angel, but of a n.o.ble woman. She has that quiet, steadfast resolution so characteristic of Russian heroines. As for Mariusha, she is a specimen of Turgenev"s extraordinary power of characterisation. She appears only two or three times in the entire novel, and remains one of its most vivid personages This is ever the final mystery of Turgenev"s art--the power of absolutely complete representation in a few hundred words. In economy of material there has never been his equal. The whole novel is worth reading, apart from its revolutionary interest, apart from the proclamation of the Gospel according to Solomin, for the picture of that anachronistic pair of old lovers, Fomushka and Finushka.* "There are ponds in the steppes which never get putrid, though there"s no stream through them, because they are fed by springs from the bottom. And my old dears have such springs too in the bottom of their hearts, and pure as can be." Only one short chapter is devoted to this aged couple, at whom we smile but never laugh At first sight they may seem to be an unimportant episode in the story, and a blemish on its constructive lines but a little reflection reveals not only the humorous tenderness that inspired the novelist"s pen in their creation, but contrasts them in their absurd indifference to time, with the turbulent and meaningless whirlpool where the modern revolutionists revolve. For just as tranquillity may not signify stagnation, so revolution is not necessarily progression. This old-fashioned pair have learned nothing from nineteenth century thought, least of all its unrest. They have, however, in their own lives attained the positive end of all progress--happiness. They are indeed a symbol of eternal peace, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Turgenev, most cultivated of novelists, never fails to rank simplicity of heart above the accomplishments of the mind.
* I cannot doubt that Turgenev got the hint for this chapter from Gogol"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, his intimate knowledge of various languages, and his bachelor life gave to his innate genius the most perfect equipment that perhaps any author has ever enjoyed. Here was a man entirely without the ordinary restraints and prejudices, whose mind was always hospitable to new ideas, who knew life at first hand, and to whose width of experience was united the unusual faculty of accurately minute observation. He knew people much better than they knew themselves. He was at various times claimed and hated by all parties, and belonged to none. His mind was too s.p.a.cious to be dominated by one idea. When we reflect that he had at his command the finest medium of expression that the world has ever possessed, and that his skill in the use of it has never been equalled by a single one of his countrymen, it is not surprising that his novels approach perfection.
His own standpoint was that of the Artist, and each man must be judged by his main purpose. Here is where he differs most sharply from Tolstoi, Dostoevski, and Andreev, and explains why the Russians admire him more than they love him. To him the truth about life was always the main thing. His novels were never tracts, he wrote them with the most painstaking care, and in his whole career he never produced a pot-boiler. His work is invariably marked by that high seriousness which 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 novels tell more about human nature in less s.p.a.ce than any other novels in the world. Small as they are, they are inexhaustible, and always reveal beauty unsuspected on the previous reading.
His stories are not stories of incident, but stories of character. The extraordinary interest that they arouse is confined almost entirely to our interest in his men and women; the plot, the narrative, the events are always secondary; he imitated no other novelist, and no other can imitate him. For this very reason, he can never enjoy the popularity of Scott or Dumas; he will always be caviare to the general. Henry James said of him, that he was particularly a favourite with people of cultivated taste, and that nothing cultivates the taste better than reading him. It is a surprising proof of the large number of readers who have good taste, that his novels met with instant acclaim, and that he enjoyed an enormous reputation during his whole career. After the publication of his first book, "A Sportsman"s Sketches," he was generally regarded in Russia as her foremost writer, a position maintained until his death; his novels were translated into French and English very soon after their appearance, and a few days after his death, the London "Athenaeum" remarked, "Europe has been unanimous in according to Turgenev the first rank in contemporary literature." That a man whose books never on any page show a single touch of melodrama should have reached the hearts of so many readers, proves how interesting is the truthful portrayal of human nature.
George Brandes has well said that the relation of Turgenev to his own characters 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 partial explanation of it. Brandes shows that not even men of genius have invariably succeeded in making the reader take their own att.i.tude to the characters they have created. Thus, we are often bored by persons that Balzac intended to be tremendously interesting; and we often laugh at persons that d.i.c.kens intended to draw our tears. With the single exception of Bazarov, no such mistake is possible in Turgenev"s work; and the misunderstanding in that case was caused princ.i.p.ally by the fact that Bazarov, with all his powerful individuality, stood for a political principle. Turgenev"s characters are never vague, shadowy, or indistinct; they are always portraits, with every detail so subtly added, that each one becomes like a familiar acquaintance in real life. Perhaps his one fault lay in his fondness for dropping the story midway, and going back over the previous existence or career of a certain personage. This is the only notable blemish on his art. But even by this method, which would be exceedingly irritating in a writer of less skill, additional interest in the character is aroused. It is as though Turgenev personally introduced his men and women to the reader, accompanying each introduction with some biographical remarks that let us know why the introduction was made, and stir our curiosity to hear what the character will say. Then these introductions are themselves so wonderfully vivid, are given with such brilliancy of outline, that they are little works of art in themselves, like the matchless pen portraits of Carlyle.