This hero of Turgenef’s has many traits in common with the Indian heroes of Fenimore Cooper, who are armed with a tomahawk, instead of a surgeon’s knife. Bazarof’s sons seem, at first sight, much like our revolutionists; but examine them more closely, and you will discover the distinction between the wild and the tamed beast. Our worst revolutionists are savage dogs, but the Russian nihilist is a wolf; and we now know that the wolf’s rage is the more dangerous of the two.
See how Bazarof dies! He has contracted blood-poison by dissecting the body of a typhoid subject. He knows that he is lost. He endures his agony in mute, haughty, stolid silence; it is the agony of the wild beast with a ball in his body. The nihilist surpasses the stoic; he does not try to complete his task before death; there is nothing that is worth doing.
The novelist has exhausted his art to create a deplorable character, which, however, is not really odious to us, excepting as regards his inhumanity, his scorn for everything we venerate. These seem intolerable to us. With the tamed animal, this would indicate perversion, disregard of all rules; but in the wild beast it is instinct, a resistance wholly natural. Our moral sense is ingeniously disarmed by the author, before this victim of fate.
Turgenef’s creative power and minute observation of details in this work have never been excelled by him at any period of his literary career. It is very difficult, however, to quote passages of his, because he never writes single pages or paragraphs for their individual effect; but every detail is of value to the ensemble of the work. I will merely quote a passing sketch of a character, which seems to me remarkably true to life; that of a man of his own country and his own time; a high functionary of St. Petersburg; a future statesman, who had gone into one of the provinces to examine the petty government officials.
“Matthew Ilitch belonged to what were called the younger politicians. Although hardly over forty years of age, he was already aiming to obtain a high position in the Government, and wore two orders on his breast. One of them, however, was a foreign, and quite an ordinary one. He passed for one of the progressive party, as well as the official whom he came to examine. He had a high opinion of himself; his personal vanity was boundless, although he affected an air of studied simplicity, gave you a look of encouragement, listened with an indulgent patience. He laughed so good-naturedly that, at first, you would take him for a ‘good sort of fellow.’ But, on certain occasions, he knew how to throw dust in your eyes. ‘It is necessary to be energetic,’ he used to say; ‘energy is the first quality of the statesman.’ In spite of all, he was often duped; for any petty official with a little experience could lead him by the nose at will.
“Matthew Ilitch often spoke of Guizot with admiration; he tried to have every one understand that he did not belong to the category of those who followed one routine; but that he was attentive to every phase and possible requirement of social life. He kept himself familiar with all contemporary literature, as he was accustomed to say, in an off-hand way. He was a tricky and adroit courtier, nothing more; he really knew nothing of public affairs, and his views were of no value whatever; but he understood managing his own affairs admirably well; on this point he could not be duped. Is not that, after all, the principal thing?”
In the intervals of these important works, Turgenef often wrote little simple sketches, in the style of his “Annals of a Sportsman.” There are more than twenty of these exquisitely delicate compositions. One of them, entitled “Assia,”[H] of about sixty pages, is a perfect gem in its way, and is a souvenir of his student-life in Germany, and of a love-passage experienced there.
The young student loves a young Russian girl without being quite conscious of his passion. His love being evidently reciprocated, the young girl, wounded by his hesitation, suddenly disappears, and he knows too late what he has lost. I will quote at hazard a few lines of this poem in prose, which is only the prelude of this unconscious passion.
The two young people are walking, one summer evening, on the banks of the Rhine.
“I stood and looked upon her, bathed as she was in the bright rays of the setting sun. Her face was calm and sweet. Everything around us was beaming with intensity of light; earth, air, and water.