FOOTNOTES:
[25] This is a mistake. His father died in 1835; and his mother reached the age of seventy, dying in 1850.
[26] Turgénief says in his Recollections: “About Easter, 1843, in Petersburg, an event took place, in itself indeed of small importance, and long ere this swallowed up in perfect oblivion. It was this: A short poem entitled Parasha, by a certain T. L., was published. That T. L. was I. With this poem I began my literary career.” He says further that Biélinsky’s praise was so extravagant that he felt more confusion than pleasure. “I could not believe it,” he adds; “and when in Moscow the late I. V. Kiréyevski came to me with congratulations, I hastened to disown my child, declaring that I was not the author.”—N. H. D.
[27] Zapiski Okhotnika.
[28] Yet Biélinsky wrote him: “‘Khor’ gives promise that you will be a remarkable writer—in the future.”—N. H. D.
[29] Turgénief says in his Recollections: “I should certainly never have written The Annals of a Sportsman if I had staid in Russia. I was in a state of mind singularly analogous to Gogol’s, who just about this time wrote his best pages about Russia from ‘the beautiful distance.’” The article on Gogol’s death was not passed by the Petersburg censor, but was admitted by the Moscow censor, and appeared in the Vyédomosti in March, 1852. Nevertheless, the article was construed as a violation of the law: “I was put under partial arrest for a month, and then sent into domicile in the country, where I lived two years.... But all for the best.... My being under arrest, and in the country, proved to my undeniable advantage: it brought me close to those sides of Russian life which, in the ordinary course of things, would probably have escaped my observation.”—N. H. D.
[30] A misquotation, of course, of
“How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me all the uses of this world!”—N. H. D.
[31] Dvoryánskaye Gnyezdó, an untranslatable title. A Nest of Nobles or Courtiers or Gentlemen fairly expresses it.
[32] “In 1863 Ivan Sergéyevitch bought a plat of land at Baden Baden, built a house on it, and lived there until 1870.”—Polevoï.
[33] Nov, the Russian title, means merely new,—one of the words, by the way, showing the affinity of Russian with Latin, English, and the other Indo-European languages,—and is suggestive not only of new land, but of new people and new ideas.—N. H. D.
[34] His generosity was more than princely; not even the palpable impositions of his impecunious countrymen caused him to clasp his ever-open purse. It is related that a Russian family residing in Paris made frequent applications to this abundant fountain. Turgénief saw through their wiles, but let the stream still flow. The little daughter of the family showed some musical talent, and Turgénief undertook her education. It happened that there was a very exclusive school in Paris; and one fine day the ambitious mother came and besought their Mæcenas to use his influence to have the young girl admitted where no foreigner was allowed. Turgénief was at last a little nettled, and in epigrammatic Russian he said, “Make her either a candle for the Lord, or an ash-scraper for the Devil” (Bogu svyétchu ili Tchortu katchergu).—N. H. D.
[35] Tchto Dyélat, a translation of which is published by T. Y. Crowell & Co., under the title A Vital Question.
[36] Písemsky described this same generation in his great story, Liudi Sorokovuikh Godof (People of the Forties).—N. H. D.
[37] Also under the title Un Bulgare.—N. H. D.
[38] It was reported, and believed by some, that the Russian government paid Turgénief fifty thousand rubles for Virgin Soil.—N. H. D.
[39] Yuliana Betrishef in Dead Souls is not a portrait: she is a luminous apparition.—Author’s note.
[40] A Russian proverb says, “Alone as a finger.”—Translator’s note, quoted by author.
[41] It is only just to make exception in favor of Alfonse Daudet. His talent is largely made up of sentiment, and even of sentimentality.—Author’s note.
[42] Nikolai Alekseyévitch Nekrásof, born in December, 1821, editor of the Sovremennik from 1847 till 1866. Afterwards, when the Sovremennik was suppressed, he edited the Otetchestvennui Zapiski till his death, which took place in January, 1877. He was eminently Russia’s popular poet.—N. H. D.
[43] Mikhaïl Yuryevitch Lermontof, the author of the great poem Demon, and other verses inspired by the Caucasus, was born in 1814, and died in 1841.
[44] Feódor Mikhaïlovitch Dostoyevsky was born in 1822 in Moscow, and died in March, 1881. His life reads like a romance. For a short sketch of it, and also for the translation of the scene from his Zapiski iz Mertvava Doma, so praised by Turgénief, see appendix.—N. H. D.
[45] A brilliant Russian lady, now in this country, writes to the translator as follows: “I am glad indeed that you escaped the translation of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ You would never find any readers for such a book in this country. I could never read any of Dostoyevsky’s books through. It made me sick. My nerves could not bear the strain on them. I don’t believe in pathology in literature. And yet another of my American acquaintances, who is thoroughly versed in Russian, ... tried to translate ‘Crime and Punishment,’ but had not time to do it. He says he never read, in any language, any thing so powerful as Prestuplenie i Nakazanie. Generally speaking, your countrymen have too healthy a constitution to appreciate such a novel. Let it turn heads among the pessimists in France and Russia, the natives of effete Europe.”—N. H. D.
[46] This explains, perhaps, why he did not appreciate Nekrásof. Indeed, Turgénief, though his literary judgments are always interesting, must be taken with a grain of salt: like a true poet, he was not a critic. On the other hand, Tchernuishevsky, whose critical judgments Turgénief affected to despise, was a born critic, and his literary prognostications were greatly in advance of his time. See Appendix.—N. H. D.
LYOF N. TOLSTOÏ.