The young man of this class is of quite a different type. His intellectual growth having been too rapid, he sometimes plunges into Nihilism. He is often well educated, melancholy, rich in ideas but poor in executive ability; always preparing and expecting to accomplish something of importance, filled with vague and generous projects for the public good. This is the chosen type of hero in all Russian novels. Gogol introduced it, and Tolstoï prefers it above all others.
The favorite hero of young girls and romantic women is neither the brilliant officer, the artist, nor rich lord, but almost universally this provincial Hamlet, conscientious, cultivated, intelligent, but of feeble will, who, returning from his studies in foreign lands, is full of scientific theories about the improvement of mankind and the good of the lower classes, and eager to apply these theories on his own estate. It is quite necessary that he should have an estate of his own. He will have the hearty sympathy of the reader in his efforts to improve the condition of his dependents.
The Russians well understand the conditions of the future prosperity of their country; but, as they themselves acknowledge, they know not how to go to work to accomplish it.
In regard to the women of this class, Turgenef, strange to say, has little to say of the mothers. This probably reveals the existence of some old wound, some bitter experience of his own. Without a single exception, all the mothers in his novels are either wicked or grotesque. He reserves the treasures of his poetic fancy for the young girls of his creation. To him the young girl of the country province is the corner-stone of the fabric of society. Reared in the freedom of country life, placed in the most healthy social conditions, she is conscientious, frank, affectionate, without being romantic; less intelligent than man, but more resolute. In each of his romances an irresolute man is invariably guided by a woman of strong will.
Such are, generally speaking, the characters the author describes, which bear so unmistakably the stamp of nature that one cannot refrain from saying as he closes the book, “These must be portraits from life!” which criticism is always the highest praise, the best sanction of works of the imagination.
But something is wanting to fully complete the picture of Russian life. Turgenef never has written of the highest class in society except incidentally and in his later works, and then in his bitterest vein. He was never drawn to this class, and was, besides, prejudiced against it. The charming young girl, suddenly raised to a position in this circle, becomes entirely perverted—is changed into a frivolous woman, with most disagreeable peculiarities of mind and temperament. The man, elevated to the new dignities of a high public position, adds to his native irresolution ostentatious pride and folly. We are forced to question these hasty and extreme statements. We must wait for Leo Tolstoï before forming our opinions. He will give us precisely the same types of the lower and middle classes as his predecessor; but he will also give a most complete analysis of the statesman, the courtier, and the noble dames of the court. He will finish the edifice, the foundations of which Turgenef has so admirably laid. Not that we expect of our author the complicated intrigues and extraordinary adventures of the old French romances. He shows us life as it is, not through a magic lantern. Facts interest him but little, for he only regards them as to their influence on the human soul. He loved to study character and sentiment, to seek the simplest personages of every-day life; and the great secret of his power lies in his having felt such deep interest in his models that his characters are never prosaic, while absolutely true to life. He says of Neshdanof, in “Virgin Soil”: “He makes realism poetic.” These, his own words, may be justly applied to himself. In exquisite and good taste he has, in fact, no rival. On every page we find a tender grace like the ineffable freshness of morning dew. A phrase of George Eliot’s, in “Adam Bede,” may well apply to him: “Words came to me as tears come when the heart is full and we cannot prevent them.”
No writer ever had more sentiment or a greater horror of sentimentality; none could better express in a single phrase such crises, such remarkable situations. This reserve power makes his work unique in Russian literature, which is always diffuse and elaborate. In his most unimportant productions there is an artistic conciseness equal to that of the great masters of the ancient classics. Such qualities, made still more effective by a perfection of style and a diction always correct and sometimes most exquisite, give to Turgenef a very high position in contemporary literature. Taine considered him one of the most perfect artists the world has produced since the classic period. English criticism, generally considered somewhat cold, and not given to exaggeration, places him among writers of the very first rank.
I subscribe to this opinion whenever I take up any of his works to read once again; then I hesitate when I think of that marvellous Tolstoï, who captivates my imagination and makes me suspend my judgment. We must leave these questions of precedence for the future to decide.
After the appearance of “Virgin Soil,” although Turgenef’s talent suffered no change, and his intelligence was as keen as ever, his mind seemed to need repose, and to be groping for some hidden path, as is often the case with young authors at the beginning of their career. There were good reasons for this condition of discouragement. Turgenef reaped many advantages, and some disadvantages, from his prolonged sojourn in our midst. At first, the study of new masters and the friendships and advice of Mérimée, were of great use to him. To this literary intercourse may be attributed the rare culture, clearness, and precision of his works, as distinguished from any other prose writer of his country. Later on he became an enthusiastic admirer of Flaubert, and made some excellent translations of his works. Then, next to the pioneers of the “School of Nature,” he adhered to their successors, fondly imagining himself to be one of them, giving ear to their doctrines, and making frantic efforts to conciliate these with his old ideals. Moreover, he felt himself more and more widely separated from his native land, the true source of all his ideas. He was sometimes reproached as a deserter. The tendencies of his last novels had aroused recrimination and scandal. Whenever he occasionally visited St. Petersburg or Moscow, he was received with ovations by the young men, but with extreme coldness in some circles. He was destined to live to see a part of his former adherents leave him and run to worship new idols. On his last appearance in Russia for the fêtes in honor of Pushkin, the Moscow students rushed to take him from his carriage, and bear him in their arms; but I remember that one day at St. Petersburg, returning from a visit to one of the nobility, Ivan Sergievitch (Turgenef) said to us, in a jesting tone, not quite free from bitterness: “Some one called me Ivan Nikolaievitch.”[I] This little inadvertency would to us seem quite pardonable, for here we are, fortunately, not obliged to know every one’s father’s name. But, considering Russian customs, this oversight in the case of a national celebrity was an offence, and showed that he was already beginning to be forgotten.
About this time I had the good-fortune to pass an evening with Turgenef and Skobelef. The young general spoke with his habitual eloquence and warmth of his hopes for the future, and expressed many great thoughts. The old author listened in silence, studying him meanwhile with that pensive, concentrated expression of the artist when he wishes to reproduce an image in form and color. The model was posing for the painter, who meant to engraft this remarkable character into one of his books; but Death did not permit the hero to live out his romance, nor the poet to write it.