“Do you remember, master, what beautiful hair I had? you know it reached to my knees…. I hesitated a long time about cutting it off; but what could I do with it as I am? So—I cut it off…. Adieu, master!”
All this cannot be analyzed any more than the down on a butterfly’s wing; and yet it is such a simple tale, but how suggestive! There is no exaggeration; it is only one of the accidents of life. The poor woman feels that if one believes in God, there are things of more importance than her little misfortune. The point which is most strongly brought forward, however, in this tale, and in nearly all the others, is the almost stoical resignation, peculiar to the Russian peasant, who seems prepared to endure anything. This author’s talent lies in his keeping the exquisite balance between the real and the ideal; every detail is strikingly and painfully real, while the ideal shines through and within every thought and fact. He has given us innumerable pictures of master, overseer, and serf; clothing every repulsive fact with a grace and charm, seemingly almost against his will, but which are born of his own poetical nature.
It is not wholly correct to say that Turgenef attacked slavery. The Russian writers never attack openly; they neither argue nor declaim. They describe, drawing no conclusions; but they appeal to our pity more than to our anger. Fifteen years later Dostoyevski published his “Recollections of a Dead-House.” He took the same method—without expressing a word of indignation, without one drop of gall; he seems to think what he describes quite natural, only somewhat pathetic. This is a national trait.
Once I stopped for one night at an inn in Orel, our author’s native place. Early in the morning, I was awakened by the beating of drums. I looked down into the market-place, which was full of soldiers drawn up in a square, and a crowd of people stood looking on. A pillory had been erected in the square, a large, black, wooden pillar, with a scaffolding underneath. Three poor fellows were tied to the pillar, and had parchments on their backs, giving an account of their misdeeds. These thieves seemed very docile, and almost unconscious of what was being done to them. They made a picturesque group, with their handsome Slavonic heads, and bound to this pillar. The exhibition lasted long; the priests came to bless them; and when the cart came to carry them back to prison, both soldiers and people rushed after them, loading them with eatables, small coins, and words of sympathy.
The Russian writer who aims to bring about reforms, in like manner displays his melancholy picture, with spasms of indulgent sympathy for the evils he unveils. The public needs but a hint. This time it understood. Russia looked upon serfdom in the mirror he showed her, and shuddered. The author became celebrated, and his cause was half gained. The censorship, always the last to become convinced, understood too, at last. Serfdom was already condemned in the heart of the Emperor Nicholas, but the censorship does not always agree with the Emperor; it is always procrastinating; sometimes it is left far behind, perhaps for a whole reign. It will not condemn the book, but keeps its eye upon the author.
Gogol died at this time, and Turgenef wrote a strong article in praise of the dead author. This article appears to-day entirely inoffensive, but the author himself thus speaks of it:—
“In regard to my article on Gogol, I remember one day at St. Petersburg, a lady in high position at court was criticizing the punishment inflicted upon me, as unjust and undeserved, or, at least, too severe. Some one replied: ‘Did you not know that he calls Gogol “a great man” in that article?’ ‘That is not possible.’ ‘I assure you he did.’ ‘Ah! in that case, I have no more to say; I am very sorry for him, but now I understand their severity.’”
This praise, justly accorded to a great author, procured for Turgenef a month of imprisonment and banishment to his own estates. But this tyranny was, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. Thirty years before, Pushkin had been torn from the dissipations of the gay capital, where his genius would have been lost, and was exiled to the Orient, where it developed into a rich bloom. If Turgenef had remained at this time in St. Petersburg, he might have been drawn, in his hot-headed youth, by compromising friendships, into some fruitless political broil; but, exiled to the solitude of his native woods, he spent several years there in literary work; studying the humble life around him, and collecting materials for his first great novels.
III.
Turgenef always declared himself as no admirer of Balzac. This was, no doubt, true; for they had no points of resemblance in common. Still I cannot but think that that sworn disciple of Gogol and of the “school of nature” must have received some suggestions from our great author. Turgenef, like Balzac, gave us the comedy of human life in his native country; but to this great work he gave more heart and faith, and less patience, system, and method, than the French writer. But he possessed the gift of style, and a racy eloquence, which are wanting in Balzac.