Turgenef was born in 1818, on the family estate in Orel, and his early years were passed in this solitary place, in one of those “Nests of Nobles” which are so often the scene of his novels. According to the fashion of that time, he had both French and German tutors, which were considered a necessary appendage in every nobleman’s household. His mother-tongue was held in disrepute; so his first Russian verses were read in secret, with the help of an old servant. Fortunately for him, he acquired the best part of his education out on the heaths with the huntsmen, whose tales were destined to become masterpieces, transformed by the great author’s pen. Passing his time in the woods, and running over the marshes in pursuit of quail, the poet laid in a rich stock of imagery and picturesque scenes with which he afterwards clothed his ideas. In the imagination of some children, while thought is still sleeping, impressions accumulate, one by one, like the night-dew; but, in the awakening dawn, the first ray of the morning sun will reveal these glittering diamonds.
After going to school at Moscow, and through the University at St. Petersburg, he went, as others did, to conclude his course of study in Germany. In 1838, he was studying the philosophy of Kant and Hegel at Berlin. He said of himself later in regard to this: “The impulse which drew the young men of my time into a foreign land reminds me of the ancient Slavs going to seek for chiefs from beyond the seas. Every one felt that his native country, morally and intellectually considered, was great and rich, but ill regulated.[F] For myself, I fully realized that there were great disadvantages in being torn from one’s native soil, where one had been brought up; but there was nothing else to be done. This sort of life, especially in the sphere to which I belonged, of landed proprietors and serfdom, offered me nothing attractive. On the contrary, what I saw around me was revolting—in fact, disgusting—to me. I could not hesitate long. I must either make up my mind to submit, and walk on quietly in the beaten track; or tear myself away, root and branch, even at the risk of losing many things dear to my heart. This I decided to do. I became a cosmopolitan, which I have always remained. I could not live face to face with what I abhorred; perhaps I had not sufficient self-control or force of character for that. At any rate, it seemed as if I must, at all hazards, withdraw from my enemy, in order to be able to deal him surer blows from a distance. This mortal enemy was, in my eyes, the institution of serfdom, which I had resolved to combat to the last extremity, and with which I had sworn never to make peace. It was in order to fulfil this vow that I left my country….”
The writer will now become a European; he will uphold the method of Peter the Great, against those patriots who have entrenched themselves behind the great Chinese wall. Reason, good laws, and good literature have no fixed country. Every one must seize his treasure wherever he can find it, in the common soil of humanity, and develop it in his own way. In reading the strong words of his own confession we are led to a feeling of anxiety for the poet’s future. Will politics turn him from his true course? Fortunately they did not. Turgenef had too literary and contemplative a nature to throw himself into that vortex. But he kept his vow of taking his aim—and a terrible one it was—at the institution of serfdom. The contest was fierce, and the war was a holy one.
Returning to Russia, Turgenef published some poems and dramatic pieces; but he afterward excluded all these from the complete edition of his works; and, leaving Russia again, he sent his first prose work, “Annals of a Sportsman,” which was to contribute greatly to his fame as a novelist, to a St. Petersburg review. He continued to send various little bombshells, from 1847 to 1851, in the form of tales and sketches, hiding their meaning under a veil of poetry. The influence of Gogol was perceptible in his work at this time, especially in his comprehension of nature. His scenes were always Russian, but the artist’s interpretation was different from Gogol’s, having none of his rough humor and enthusiasm, but more delicacy and ideality. His language too is richer, more flowing, more picturesque and expressive than any Russian author had yet attained to; and it perfectly translates the most fugitive chords of the grand harmonious register of nature. The author carries us with him into the very heart of his native country.
The “Annals of a Sportsman” have charmed many French readers, much as they must lose through the double veil of translation and our ignorance of the country. Indeed we must have lived in the country described by Turgenef to fully appreciate the way in which he presents on every page the exact copy of one’s personal impressions; even bringing to the senses every delicate odor breathed from the earth. Some of his descriptions of nature have the harmonious perfection of a fantastic symphony written in a minor key.
In the “Living Relics,” he wakes a more human, more interior 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.
Lukeria 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 pathetically, and she made such an effort to express her whole soul, that my heart was pierced with the deepest pity.”
Lukeria relates her terrible dreams, how Death has appeared before her; not that she dreads his coming, but he always goes away and refuses to 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:—