Other revolutionary characters dimly float before the reader’s vision, who whisper unintelligible words. Those from among the higher classes are treated even more harshly than in “Smoke.” They have the same self-sufficiency, and are equally absurd without a single merit; and you feel that they are presented in a false light. Hence the work is abounding in caricatures, and shows a want of balance as a whole.
On the other hand, the apostles of the new faith are surrounded with a halo of generosity and devotion. Between extreme egotism on one side, and stern faith and utter self-abnegation on the other, the idealist’s choice must fall. Naturally, the poet’s warm heart draws him to the most disinterested party of the two. He invests these rude natures with delicate sentiments, which clothe them with poetry; concealing from us, and even from himself, the revolting contrasts they present, and their brutal instincts. The wolfish, energetic Bazarof was of a type more true to nature.
I think that Turgenef’s sensibility led him astray in his conception of the nihilists; while his good-sense did justice to their ideas, exhibited the puerility of their discourses and the uselessness of their blind hopes. The most valuable part of the book is where the writer demonstrates by facts the utter impossibility of uniting the propagandists and the people. Abstract arguments make no impression upon the peasant’s dull brain. Neshdanof attempts an harangue in an ale-house; the peasants force him to drink. The second glass of vodka intoxicates him completely, and he staggers away amid jeers and shouts. Another man, who tries to stir a village to revolt, is bound and given over to justice.
At times Turgenef strikes exactly at the root of the evil, shows up the glaring faults of the revolutionary spirit, and exposes its weakness. Assuming too much responsibility, the nihilists wish to raise an ignorant populace at once to the intellectual heights they have themselves reached; forgetting that time alone can accomplish such a miracle. They have recourse to cabalistic formulas, but their efforts are fruitless. The poet sees and explains all this; but, being a poet, he allows himself to be seduced by the sentimental beauty of the sacrifice, losing sight of the object; while the proved uselessness of the sacrifice only redoubles his indulgence towards the victims.
This brings me to a point where I am obliged to touch upon a delicate subject. Certain political claims, discussed over the author’s tomb, have caused much anxiety in Russia; and bitter resentment threatened to mingle with the national grief. The Moscow papers published several severe articles about him before his death, in consequence of the appearance of his “Memoirs of a Nihilist” in a French paper. This autobiographical sketch is not a work of the imagination, for he obtained the story from the lips of a fellow-countryman who had escaped from a prison in Russia.
This curious essay has the ring of truth about it, and no attempt at recrimination; giving an example of that strange psychological peculiarity of the Russian, who studies so attentively the moral effect of suffering upon his soul that he forgets to accuse the authors of his suffering. The sketch recalls vividly certain pages of Dostoyevski’s. But Turgenef’s ideas were not, at this time, well received by the Russians. They resented the too indulgent tone of his writings, and accused him of complicity with the enemies of the Empire. The radicals wished to claim him for their own; and it was hinted that he subscribed to support a seditious journal. This is, however, entirely improbable. Turgenef was open-hearted and generous to a fault. He gave freely and indiscriminately to any one that was suffering. His door and his purse were open to any fellow-countryman without reserve, and kind words were ever ready to flow from his lips. But, though always ready to help others, he certainly never gave his aid to any political intriguer. Was it natural that a man of his refinement and high culture should have aided the schemes of wild and fruitless political conspiracies? With the liberal ideas he adopted during his university life in Germany, in early youth, he was more inclined to cherish political dreams than to put his liberalism into practice. In fact, it is only necessary to read “Virgin Soil” attentively, to understand the position he proposed to maintain.
But I am dwelling too long upon the political standing of a poet. This man, who was honest and true in the highest degree in all relations of life, must have been the same as to his politics. Those who questioned the colors he bore could ill afford to criticise him.
About this time, Turgenef wrote five or six tales; one of which (“A Lear of the Steppe”), for its intensity of feeling, recalls the most beautiful parts of “The Annals of a Sportsman.” But I must not dwell upon these, but give a little attention to the productions of our author as a whole.
V.
Ivan Sergievitch (Turgenef) has given us a most complete picture of Russian society. The same general types are always brought forward; and, as later writers have presented exactly similar ones, with but few modifications, we are forced to believe them true to life. First, the peasant; meek, resigned, dull, pathetic in suffering, like a child who does not know why he suffers; naturally sharp and tricky when not stupefied by liquor; occasionally roused to violent passion. Then, the intelligent middle class; the small landed proprietors of two generations. The old proprietor is ignorant and good-natured, of respectable family, but with coarse habits; hard, from long experience of serfdom, servile himself, but admirable in all other relations of life.