“‘Is it you, Vasíli Ivanovitch?’ she asked.
“‘Yes, my dear.’
“‘You have just left Yeniushka? I am afraid that he is not comfortable sleeping on the sofa. Yet I told Anfisushka to give him your field-mattress and the two new cushions. I would have given him our feather-bed too, but I think I remember that he does not like to sleep too easy.’
“‘That’s no matter, my dear; don’t trouble yourself. He is comfortable.—Lord, have pity on us sinners,’ he added, continuing his prayer. Vasíli Ivanovitch did not talk long. He did not wish to announce the tidings that would have broken his poor wife’s rest.
“The two young men took their departure the next morning. Every thing in the house, from early that morning, assumed a sad aspect. Anfisushka let fall the plate that she was carrying; Fyedka himself was entirely upset, and finally left his boots. Vasíli Ivanovitch moved about more than ever. He tried hard to hide his disappointment; he spoke very loud, and walked noisily: but his face was hollow, and his eyes seemed always to avoid his son. Arina Vlasievna wept silently. She would have entirely lost her self-control if her husband had not given her a long lecture in the morning. When Bazarof, after having repeated again and again that he would come back before a month was over, finally tore himself from the arms that held him back, and sat down in the tarantás; when the horses started, and the jingling of the bells was mingled with the rumbling of the wheels; when it was no use to look any longer; when the dust was entirely settled, and Timoféitch, bent double, had gone staggering back to his lodging; when the two old people found themselves once more alone in their house, which seemed also to have become smaller and older, ... Vasíli Ivanovitch, who but a few moments before was waving his handkerchief so proudly from the steps, threw himself into a chair, and hung his head on his breast. ‘He has left us,’ he said with a trembling voice,—‘left us! He found it lonesome with us. Now I am alone, alone,’ he repeated again and again, lifting each time the forefinger of his right hand.[40] Arina Vlasievna drew near him, and, leaning her white head on the old man’s white head, she said, ‘What’s to be done about it, Vasíli? A son is like a shred torn off. He is a young hawk: it pleases him to come, and he comes; it pleases him to go, and he flies away. And you and I are like little mushrooms in the hollow of a tree: placed beside each other, we stay there always. I alone do not change for thee, just as thou dost not change for thy old wife.’
“Vasíli lifted his face, which he had hidden in his hands, and embraced his companion more tenderly than he had ever done, even in his youth. She had consoled him in his disappointment.”
Were we not right in speaking here of the pathetic, and was it not well that we drew the reader’s attention to this good old word? It expresses an old idea, which, with no offence to the lovers of the commonplace, is not yet ready to perish. It is the mistake of the French realists,[41] to take coolness for strength, and they claim to be considered very strong men. Turgénief’s great superiority consists in his having no pretension, not even to be trivial and common. He does not make it a matter of pride to stay on the hither side of the truth.
V.
In this study of Turgénief, I do not flatter myself that I have pointed out all the aspects of a character so varied,—that I have shown all the traits of a nature so complex. Yet it would be a serious lack if I did not explain Turgénief’s relationship to the writers of his country, or if I neglected the great number of criticisms which he has passed, in his letters to his friends, in regard to the literary movement of the last thirty years.
He characterizes the epoch to which he belongs. It is still, in his opinion, an epoch “of transition.” He deplores the lack of union, the want of solidarity, in the men who in Russia hold this weapon,—the pen; and who might, by concentrating their efforts, triumph over so many obstacles against which, in their isolation, they run a-muck and bruise themselves. “Each one sings his own song, and follows his lonely path.”