"
Vassily Ivanovitch stopped.
Vassily Ivanovitch stopped.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
And he must teach, whether he wish to teach or no.
How
shall he teach lessons of virtue, and at the same time make him-
self a delight to his readers? The novelist, if he have a con-
science, must preach his sermons with the same purpose as the
clergyman, and must have his own system of ethics. If he can
do this efficiently, if he can make virtue alluring and vice ugly,
while he charms his readers instead of wearying them, then I
think Mr. Carlyle need not call him distressed, nor talk of that
long ear of fiction, nor question whether he be or not the most
foolish of existing mortals.
·
•
## p. 15056 (#641) ##########################################
## p. 15056 (#642) ##########################################
ຈ
@nu
TURGÉNIEFF.
## p. 15056 (#643) ##########################################
## p. 15056 (#644) ##########################################
ringe
2
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15057
IVAN TURGENEFF
(1818-1883)
BY HENRY JAMES
HERE is perhaps no novelist of alien race who more naturally
than Ivan Turgeneff inherits a niche in a Library for Eng-
lish readers; and this not because of any advance or con-
cession that in his peculiar artistic independence he ever made, or
could dream of making, such readers, but because it was one of the
effects of his peculiar genius to give him, even in his lifetime, a
special place in the regard of foreign publics. His position is in this
respect singular; for it is his Russian savor that as much as any-
thing has helped generally to domesticate him.
Born in 1818, at Orel in the heart of Russia, and dying in 1883,
at Bougival near Paris, he had spent in Germany and France the
latter half of his life; and had incurred in his own country in some
degree the reprobation that is apt to attach to the absent, the pen-
alty they pay for such extension or such beguilement as they may
have happened to find over the border. He belonged to the class
of large rural proprietors of land and of serfs; and with his ample
patrimony, offered one of the few examples of literary labor achieved.
in high independence of the question of gain, a character that he
shares with his illustrious contemporary Tolstoy, who is of a type in
other respects so different. It may give us an idea of his primary
situation to imagine some large Virginian or Carolinian slaveholder,
during the first half of the century, inclining to "Northern" views;
and becoming (though not predominantly under pressure of these, but
rather by the operation of an exquisite genius) the great American
novelist - one of the great novelists of the world. Born under a social
and political order sternly repressive, all Turgeneff's deep instincts,
all his moral passion, placed him on the liberal side; with the conse-
quence that early in life, after a period spent at a German university,
he found himself, through the accident of a trifling public utterance,
under such suspicion in high places as to be sentenced to a term of
tempered exile,— confinement to his own estate. It was partly under
these circumstances perhaps that he gathered material for the work
from the appearance of which his reputation dates,-'A Sportsman's
Sketches,' published in two volumes in 1852. This admirable collec-
tion of impressions of homely country life, as the old state of servitude
had made it, is often spoken of as having borne to the great decree
XXV-942
―
## p. 15058 (#646) ##########################################
15058
IVAN TURGENEFF
of Alexander II. the relation borne by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's famous
novel to the emancipation of the Southern slaves. Incontestably,
at any rate, Turgeneff's rustic studies sounded, like 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin,' a particular hour: with the difference, however, of not having
at the time produced an agitation,- of having rather presented the
case with an art too insidious for instant recognition, an art that
stirred the depths more than the surface.
The author was designated promptly enough, at any rate, for
such influence as might best be exercised at a distance: he traveled,
he lived abroad; early in the sixties he was settled in Germany; he
acquired property at Baden-Baden, and spent there the last years of
the prosperous period-in the history of the place of which the
Franco-Prussian War was to mark the violent term. He cast in his
lot after that event mainly with the victims of the lost cause; setting
up a fresh home in Paris,-near which city he had, on the Seine, a
charming alternate residence,—and passing in it, and in the country,
save for brief revisitations, the remainder of his days. His friend-
ships, his attachments, in the world of art and of letters, were numer-
ous and distinguished; he never married; he produced, as the years
went on, without precipitation or frequency; and these were the
years during which his reputation gradually established itself as,
according to the phrase, European,- a phrase denoting in this case,
perhaps, a public more alert in the United States even than else-
where.
Tolstoy, his junior by ten years, had meanwhile come to fruition;
though, as in fact happened, it was not till after Turgeneff's death
that the greater fame of War and Peace' and of 'Anna Karénina'
began to be blown about the world. One of the last acts of the elder
writer, performed on his death-bed, was to address to the other
(from whom for a considerable term he had been estranged by cir-
cumstances needless to reproduce) an appeal to return to the exercise
of the genius that Tolstoy had already so lamentably, so monstrously
forsworn. "I am on my death-bed; there is no possibility of my
recovery. I write you expressly to tell you how happy I have been
to be your contemporary, and to utter my last, my urgent prayer.
Come back, my friend, to your literary labors. That gift came to
you from the source from which all comes to us. Ah, how happy
I should be could I think you would listen to my entreaty! My
friend, great writer of our Russian land, respond to it, obey it! "
These words, among the most touching surely ever addressed by
one great spirit to another, throw an indirect light — perhaps I may
even say a direct one-upon the nature and quality of Turgeneff's
artistic temperament; so much so that I regret being without oppor-
tunity, in this place, to gather such aid for a portrait of him as
might be supplied by following out the unlikeness between the pair.
## p. 15059 (#647) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15059
It would be too easy to say that Tolstoy was, from the Russian
point of view, for home consumption, and Turgeneff for foreign: War
and Peace' has probably had more readers in Europe and America
than 'A House of Gentle folk' or 'On the Eve' or 'Smoke,'.
a cir-
cumstance less detrimental than it may appear to my claim of our
having, in the Western world, supremely adopted the author of the
latter works. Turgeneff is in a peculiar degree what I may call
the novelists' novelist, - an artistic influence extraordinarily valuable
and ineradicably established. The perusal of Tolstoy a wonderful
mass of life is an immense event, a kind of splendid accident, for
each of us: his name represents nevertheless no such eternal spell of
method, no such quiet irresistibility of presentation, as shines, close
to us and lighting our possible steps, in that of his precursor. Tol-
stoy is a reflector as vast as a natural lake; a monster harnessed
to his great subject - all human life! - as an elephant might be har-
nessed, for purposes of traction, not to a carriage, but to a coach-
house. His own case is prodigious, but his example for others dire:
disciples not elephantine he can only mislead and betray.
One by one, for thirty years, with a firm, deliberate hand, with
intervals and patiences and waits, Turgeneff pricked in his sharp
outlines. His great external mark is probably his concision: an
ideal he never threw over,-it shines most perhaps even when he is
least brief, and that he often applied with a rare felicity. He has
masterpieces of a few pages; his perfect things are sometimes his
least prolonged. He abounds in short tales, episodes clipped as by
the scissors of Atropos; but for a direct translation of the whole we
have still to wait,- depending meanwhile upon the French and Ger-
man versions, which have been, instead of the original text (thanks to
the paucity among us of readers of Russian), the source of several
published in English. For the novels and 'A Sportsman's Sketches'
we depend upon the nine volumes (1897) of Mrs. Garnett. We touch
here upon the remarkable side, to our vision, of the writer's fortune,
-the anomaly of his having constrained to intimacy even those
who are shut out from the enjoyment of his medium, for whom
that question is positively prevented from existing. Putting aside
extrinsic intimations, it is impossible to read him without the convic-
tion of his being, in the vividness of his own tongue, of the strong
type of those made to bring home to us the happy truth of the
unity, in a generous talent, of material and form,- of their being
inevitable faces of the same medal; the type of those, in a word,
whose example deals death to the perpetual clumsy assumption that
subject and style are -æsthetically speaking, or in the living work-
different and separable things. We are conscious, reading him in a
language not his own, of not being reached by his personal tone, his
individual accent.
-
――
-
## p. 15060 (#648) ##########################################
15060
IVAN TURGENEFF
It is a testimony therefore to the intensity of his presence,
that so much of his particular charm does reach us; that the mask
turned to us has, even without his expression, still so much beauty.
It is the beauty (since we must try to formulate) of the finest pres-
entation of the familiar. His vision is of the world of character
and feeling, the world of the relations life throws up at every hour
and on every spot; he deals little, on the whole, in the miracles of
chance, the hours and spots over the edge of time and space; his
air is that of the great central region of passion and motive, of the
usual, the inevitable, the intimate the intimate for weal or woe.
No theme that he ever chooses but strikes us as full; yet with all
have we the sense that their animation comes from within, and is
not pinned to their backs like the pricking objects used of old in the
horse-races of the Roman carnival, to make the animals run. With-
out a patch of "plot" to draw blood, the story he mainly tells us, the
situation he mainly gives, runs as if for dear life. His first book
was practically full evidence of what, if we have to specify, is finest
in him, the effect, for the commonest truth, of an exquisite envelope
of poetry. In this medium of feeling,-full, as it were, of all the
echoes and shocks of the universal danger and need,-everything in
him goes on; the sense of fate and folly and pity and wonder and
beauty. The tenderness, the humor, the variety of 'A Sportsman's
Sketches' revealed on the spot an observer with a rare imagination.
These faculties had attached themselves, together, to small things
and to great: to the misery, the simplicity, the piety, the patience,
of the unemancipated peasant; to all the natural wonderful life of
earth and air and winter and summer and field and forest; to queer
apparitions of country neighbors, of strange local eccentrics; to old-
world practices and superstitions; to secrets gathered and types disin-
terred and impressions absorbed in the long, close contacts with man
and nature involved in the passionate pursuit of game. Magnificent
in stature and original vigor, Turgeneff, with his love of the chase,
or rather perhaps of the inspiration he found in it, would have been
the model of the mighty hunter, had not such an image been a little
at variance with his natural mildness, the softness that often accom-
panies the sense of an extraordinary reach of limb and play of mus-
cle. He was in person the model rather of the strong man at rest:
massive and towering, with the voice of innocence and the smile
almost of childhood. What seemed still more of a contradiction to so
much of him, however, was that his work was all delicacy and fancy,
penetration and compression.
If I add, in their order of succession, 'Rudin,' 'Fathers and Child-
ren,' 'Spring Floods,' and 'Virgin Soil,' to the three novels I have
(also in their relation of time) named above, I shall have indicated
the larger blocks of the compact monument, with a base resting
## p. 15061 (#649) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15061
deep and interstices well filled, into which that work disposes itself.
The list of his minor productions is too long to draw out: I can only
mention, as a few of the most striking-'A Correspondence,' 'The
Wayside Inn, The Brigadier,' 'The Dog,' 'The Jew,' 'Visions,'
'Mumu,' 'Three Meetings,' 'A First Love,' 'The Forsaken,' 'Assia,'
The Journal of a Superfluous Man,' The Story of Lieutenant Yer-
gunov,' 'A King Lear of the Steppe. ' The first place among his
novels would be difficult to assign: general opinion probably hesi-
tates between 'A House of Gentlefolk' and 'Fathers and Children. '
My own predilection is great for the exquisite 'On the Eve'; though
I admit that in such a company it draws no supremacy from being
exquisite. What is less contestable is that 'Virgin Soil'— published
shortly before his death, and the longest of his fictions-has, although
full of beauty, a minor perfection.
Character, character expressed and exposed, is in all these things
what we inveterately find. Turgeneff's sense of it was the great
light that artistically guided him; the simplest account of him is to
say that the mere play of it constitutes in every case his sufficient
drama. No one has had a closer vision, or a hand at once more
ironic and more tender, for the individual figure. He sees it with
its minutest signs and tricks,- all its heredity of idiosyncrasies, all
its particulars of weakness and strength, of ugliness and beauty, of
oddity and charm; and yet it is of his essence that he sees it in
the general flood of life, steeped in its relations and contacts, strug-
gling or submerged, a hurried particle in the stream. This gives
him, with his quiet method, his extraordinary breadth; dissociates
his rare power to particularize from dryness or hardness, from any
peril of caricature. He understands so much that we almost won-
der he can express anything; and his expression is indeed wholly in
absolute projection, in illustration, in giving of everything the un-
explained and irresponsible specimen. He is of a spirit so human
that we almost wonder at his control of his matter; of a pity so
deep and so general that we almost wonder at his curiosity. The ele-
ment of poetry in him is constant, and yet reality stares through it
without the loss of a wrinkle. No one has more of that sign of the
born novelist which resides in respect unconditioned for the freedom
and vitality, the absoluteness when summoned, of the creatures he
invokes; or is more superior to the strange and second-rate policy
of explaining or presenting them by reprobation or apology,- of tak-
ing the short cuts and anticipating the emotions and judgments about
them that should be left, at the best, to the perhaps not most intel-
ligent reader. And yet his system, as it may summarily be called,
of the mere particularized report, has a lucidity beyond the virtue of
the cruder moralist.
## p. 15062 (#650) ##########################################
15062
IVAN TURGENEFF
If character, as I say, is what he gives us at every turn, I should
speedily add that he offers it not in the least as a synonym, in our
Western sense, of resolution and prosperity. It wears the form of
the almost helpless detachment of the short-sighted individual soul;
and the perfection of his exhibition of it is in truth too often but
the intensity of what, for success, it just does not produce. What
works in him most is the question of the will; and the most constant
induction he suggests, bears upon the sad figure that principle seems
mainly to make among his countrymen. He had seen-he suggests
to us-its collapse in a thousand quarters; and the most general
tragedy, to his view, is that of its desperate adventures and disas-
ters, its inevitable abdication and defeat. But if the men, for the
most part, let it go, it takes refuge in the other sex; many of the
representatives of which, in his pages, are supremely strong-in
wonderful addition, in various cases, to being otherwise admirable.
This is true of such a number-the younger women, the girls, the
"heroines" in especial—that they form in themselves, on the ground
of moral beauty, of the finest distinction of soul, one of the most
striking groups the modern novel has given us. They are heroines
to the letter, and of a heroism obscure and undecorated: it is almost
they alone who have the energy to determine and to act. Elena,
Lisa, Tatyana, Gemma, Marianna — we can write their names and
call up their images, but I lack space to take them in turn. It is by
a succession of the finest and tenderest touches that they live; and
this, in all Turgeneff's work, is the process by which he persuades
and succeeds.
It was his own view of his main danger that he sacrificed too
much to detail; was wanting in composition, in the gift that con-
duces to unity of impression. But no novelist is closer and more
cumulative; in none does distinction spring from a quality of truth
more independent of everything but the subject, but the idea itself.
This idea, this subject, moreover, a spark kindled by the innermost
friction of things,-is always as interesting as an unopened tele-
gram. The genial freedom - with its exquisite delicacy-of his
approach to this "innermost " world, the world of our finer conscious-
ness, has in short a side that I can only describe and commemorate
as nobly disinterested; a side that makes too many of his rivals
appear to hold us in comparison by violent means, and introduce us
in comparison to vulgar things.
Huy James
-
## p. 15063 (#651) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15063
THE DEATH OF BAZAROV
From Fathers and Children'
B
AZAROV's old parents were all the more overjoyed by their
son's arrival, as it was quite unexpected. Arina Vlasyevna
was greatly excited, and kept running backwards and for-
wards in the house, so that Vassily Ivanovitch compared her
to a "hen partridge"; the short tail of her abbreviated jacket
did in fact, give her something of a bird-like appearance. He
himself merely growled, and gnawed the amber mouth-piece of
his pipe; or clutching his neck with his fingers, turned his head
round, as though he were trying whether it were properly
screwed on; then all at once he opened his wide mouth and
went off into a perfectly noiseless chuckle.
"I've come to you for six whole weeks, governor," Bazarov
said to him. "I want to work, so please don't hinder me now. "
"You shall forget my face completely, if you call that hinder-
ing you! " answered Vassily Ivanovitch.
He kept his promise. After installing his son as before in
his study, he almost hid himself away from him, and he kept
his wife from all superfluous demonstrations of tenderness. . "On
Enyusha's first visit, my dear soul," he said to her, "we both-
ered him a little; we must be wiser this time. " Arina Vlasyevna
agreed with her husband; but that was small compensation, since
she saw her son only at meals, and was now absolutely afraid
to address him. "Enyushenka" she would say sometimes; and
before he had time to look round, she was nervously fingering
the tassels of her reticule, and faltering, "Never mind, never
mind, I only" and afterwards she would go to Vassily Ivan-
ovitch, and, her cheek in her hand, would consult him: "If
you could only find out, darling, which Enyusha would like for
dinner to-day,— cabbage broth or beet-root soup? "-"But why
didn't you ask him yourself? "—"Oh, he will get sick of me! "
Bazarov, however, soon ceased to shut himself up: the fever of
work fell away, and was replaced by dreary boredom or vague
restlessness. A strange weariness began to show itself in all his
movements; even his walk, firm, bold, and strenuous, was changed.
He gave up walking in solitude, and began to seek society; he
drank tea in the drawing-room, strolled about the kitchen-garden
with Vassily Ivanovitch, and smoked with him in silence; once
even asked after Father Alexey. Vassily Ivanovitch at first re-
joiced at this change, but his joy was not long-lived. "Enyusha's
## p. 15064 (#652) ##########################################
15064
IVAN TURGENEFF
breaking my heart," he complained in secret to his wife: "it's
not that he's discontented or angry- that would be nothing; he's
sad, he's sorrowful- that's what's so terrible. He's always silent.
If he'd only abuse us! He's growing thin, he's lost his color. "
"Mercy on us, mercy on us! " whispered the old woman: “I
would put an amulet on his neck, but of course he won't allow it. "
Vassily Ivanovitch several times attempted in the most cir-
cumspect manner to question Bazarov about his work, about his
health, and about Arkady. But Bazarov's replies were reluctant
and casual; and once, noticing that his father was trying gradu-
ally to lead up to something in conversation, he said to him in a
tone of vexation, "Why do you always seem to be walking round
me on tiptoe? That way's worse than the old one. " « There,
there, I meant nothing! " poor Vassily Ivanovitch answered hur-
riedly. So his diplomatic hints remained fruitless.
He hoped
to awaken his son's sympathy one day by beginning, apropos of
the approaching emancipation of the peasantry, to talk about
progress; but the latter responded indifferently, "Yesterday I
was walking under the fence, and I heard the peasant boys here
bawling a street song instead of some old ballad. That's what
progress is. "
Sometimes Bazarov went into the village, and in his usual
bantering tone entered into conversation with some peasant.
"Come," he would say to him, "expound your views on life to
me, brother: you see, they say all the strength and future of
Russia lies in your hands; a new epoch in history will be started
by you you give us our real language and our laws. "
The peasant either made no reply, or articulated a few words
of this sort: "Well, we'll try—because, you see, to be sure—”
"You explain to me what your mir is," Bazarov interrupted;
"and is it the same mir that is said to rest on three fishes? "
"That, little father, is the earth that rests on three fishes,"
the peasant would declare soothingly, in a kind of patriarchal,
simple-hearted sing-song: "and over against ours-that is to say,
the mir- we know there's the master's will; wherefore you are
our fathers. And the stricter the master's rule, the better for the
peasant. "
After listening to such a reply one day, Bazarov shrugged his
shoulders contemptuously and turned away, while the peasant
sauntered slowly homewards.
"What was he talking about? " inquired another peasant of
middle age and surly aspect, who at a distance from the door
## p. 15065 (#653) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15065
of his hut had been following his conversation with Bazarov.
"Arrears, eh? "
"Arrears? no indeed, mate! " answered the first peasant, and
now there was no trace of patriarchal sing-song in his voice; on
the contrary, there was a certain scornful gruffness to be heard
in it: "oh, he clacked away about something or other: wanted
to stretch his tongue a bit. Of course, he's a gentleman: what
does he understand? "
«< What should he understand! " answered the other peasant,
and jerking back their caps and pushing down their belts, they
proceeded to deliberate upon their work and their wants. Alas!
Bazarov, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously,- Bazarov, who
knew how to talk to peasants (as he had boasted in his dispute
with Pavel Petrovitch),—did not in his self-confidence even sus-
pect that in their eyes he was all the while something of the
nature of a buffooning clown.
He found employment for himself at last, however. One day
Vassily Ivanovitch bound up a peasant's wounded leg before him,
but the old man's hands trembled, and he could not manage the
bandages; his son helped him, and from time to time began to
take a share in his practice,- though at the same time he was
constantly sneering both at the remedies he himself advised, and
at his father who hastened to make use of them. But Bazarov's
jeers did not in the least perturb Vassily Ivanovitch; they were
positively a comfort to him. Holding his greasy dressing-gown
across his stomach with two fingers, and smoking his pipe, he
used to listen with enjoyment to Bazarov; and the more malicious
his sallies, the more good-humoredly did his delighted father
chuckle, showing every one of his black teeth. He used even to
repeat these sometimes flat or pointless retorts; and would, for
instance, for several days constantly, without rhyme or reason,
reiterate, "Not a matter of the first importance! " simply because
his son, on hearing he was going to matins, had made use of that
expression. "Thank God! he has got over his melancholy! " he
whispered to his wife: "how he gave it to me to-day! It was
splendid! " Moreover, the idea of having such an assistant excited
him to ecstasy, filled him with pride. "Yes, yes," he would
say to some peasant woman, in a man's cloak and a cap shaped
like a horn, as he handed her a bottle of Goulard's extract or a
box of white ointment, "you ought to be thanking God, my
good woman, every minute that my son is staying with me: you
## p. 15066 (#654) ##########################################
15066
IVAN TURGENEFF
will be treated now by the most scientific, most modern method.
Do you know what that means? The Emperor of the French,
Napoleon, even, has no better doctor. " And the peasant woman,
who had come to complain that she felt so sort of queer all over
(the exact meaning of these words she was not able, however,
herself to explain), merely bowed low and rummaged in her
bosom, where four eggs lay tied up in the corner of a towel.
Bazarov once even pulled out a tooth for a passing peddler of
cloth; and though this tooth was an average specimen, Vassily
Ivanovitch preserved it as a curiosity, and incessantly repeated,
as he showed it to Father Alexey, "Just look, what a fang! The
force Yevgeny has! The peddler seemed to leap into the air. If
it had been an oak, he'd have rooted it up! "
"Most promising! " Father Alexey would comment at last;
not knowing what answer to make, and how to get rid of the
ecstatic old man.
One day a peasant from a neighboring village brought his
brother to Vassily Ivanovitch, ill with typhus. The unhappy
man, lying flat on a truss of straw, was dying: his body was
covered with dark patches; he had long ago lost consciousness.
Vassily Ivanovitch expressed his regret that no one had taken
steps to procure medical aid sooner, and declared there was no
hope. And in fact the peasant did not get his brother home
again: he died in the cart.
Three days later Bazarov came into his father's room and
asked him if he had any caustic.
"Yes: what do you want it for ? "
"I must have some-to burn a cut. "
"For whom? »
"For myself. "
«< What, yourself? Why is that? What sort of a cut? Where
is it? "
"Look here, on my finger. I went to-day to the village, you
know, where they brought that peasant with typhus fever. They
were just going to open the body, for some reason or other, and
I've had no practice of that sort for a long while. "
"Well ? »
"Well, so I asked the district doctor about it; and so I dis-
sected it. "
Vassily Ivanovitch all at once turned quite white; and, without
uttering a word, rushed to his study, from which he returned at
## p. 15067 (#655) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15067
once with a bit of caustic in his hand. Bazarov was about to
take it and go away.
"For mercy's sake," said Vassily Ivanovitch, "let me do it
myself. "
Bazarov smiled. "What a devoted practitioner! "
"Don't laugh, please. Show me your finger. The cut is not
a large one. Do I hurt? "
"Press harder; don't be afraid.
"
Vassily Ivanovitch stopped. "What do you think, Yevgeny; -
wouldn't it be better to burn it with hot iron? "
"That ought to have been done sooner: the caustic even is
useless, really, now. If I've taken the infection, it's too late
now. "
"How! too late-" Vassily Ivanovitch could scarcely articu-
late the words.
"I should think so! It's more than four hours ago. >>
Vassily Ivanovitch burnt the cut a little more.
district doctor no caustic ? »
"But had the
"No. "
"How was that? Good heavens! A doctor not have such an
indispensable thing as that! "
"You should have seen his lancets," observed Bazarov as he
walked away.
Up till late that evening, and all the following day, Vassily
Ivanovitch kept catching at every possible excuse to go into his
son's room; and though far from referring to the cut,- he even
tried to talk about the most irrelevant subjects,-he looked so
persistently into his face, and watched him in such trepidation,
that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to go away. Vassily
Ivanovitch gave him a promise not to bother him; the more
readily as Arina Vlasyevna, from whom of course he kept it all
secret, was beginning to worry him as to why he did not sleep,
and what had come over him. For two whole days he held him-
self in, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom
he kept watching stealthily; but on the third day, at dinner, he
could bear it no longer. Bazarov sat with downcast looks, and
had not touched a single dish.
"Why don't you eat, Yevgeny? " he inquired, putting on an
expression of the most perfect carelessness. "The food, I think,
is very nicely cooked. "
"I don't want anything, so I don't eat. "
## p. 15068 (#656) ##########################################
15068
IVAN TURGENEFF
"Have you no appetite? And your head-" he added tim-
idly does it ache? »
"Yes. Of course it aches. "
Arina Vlasyevna sat up and was all alert.
"Don't be angry, please, Yevgeny," continued Vassily Ivan-
ovitch: "won't you let me feel your pulse ? »
Bazarov got up.
"I can tell you without feeling my pulse:
I'm feverish. "
"Has there been any shivering? "
"Yes, there has been shivering too. I'll go and lie down,
and you can send me some lime-flower tea. I must have caught
cold. "
"To be sure, I heard you coughing last night," observed
Arina Vlasyevna.
"I've caught cold," repeated Bazarov; and he went away.
Arina Vlasyevna busied herself about the preparation of the
decoction of lime-flowers, while Vassily Ivanovitch went into the
next room and clutched at his hair in silent desperation.
Bazarov did not get up again that day, and passed the whole
night in heavy, half-unconscious torpor. At one o'clock in the
morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw by the light of
a lamp his father's pale face bending over him, and told him to
go away. The old man begged his pardon, but he quickly came
back on tiptoe; and half hidden by the cupboard door, he gazed
persistently at his son. Arina Vlasyevna did not go to bed either;
and leaving the study door just open a very little, she kept com-
ing up to it to listen "how Enyusha was breathing," and to look
at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing but his motionless
bent back, but even that afforded her some faint consolation. In
the morning Bazarov tried to get up: he was seized with giddi-
ness, his nose began to bleed; he lay down again. Vassily Ivan-
ovitch waited on him in silence; Arina Vlasyevna went in to him
and asked him how he was feeling. He answered, "Better," and
turned to the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch gesticulated at his wife
with both hands; she bit her lips so as not to cry, and went
away. The whole house seemed suddenly darkened; every one
looked gloomy; there was a strange hush; a shrill cock was
carried away from the yard to the village, unable to comprehend
why he should be treated so. Bazarov still lay turned to the
wall. Vassily Ivanovitch tried to address him with various ques-
tions; but they fatigued Bazarov, and the old man sank into his
## p. 15069 (#657) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15069
arm-chair, motionless, only cracking his finger-joints now and
then. He went for a few minutes into the garden; stood there
like a statue, as though overwhelmed with unutterable bewil-
derment (the expression of amazement never left his face all
through); and went back again to his son, trying to avoid his
wife's questions. She caught him by the arm at last, and pas-
sionately, almost menacingly,- said, "What is wrong with him? ”
Then he came to himself, and forced himself to smile at her in
reply; but to his own horror, instead of a smile, he found him-
self taken somehow by a fit of laughter. He had sent at day-
break for a doctor. He thought it necessary to inform his son
of this, for fear he should be angry. Bazarov suddenly turned
over on the sofa, bent a fixed dull look on his father, and asked
for drink.
Vassily Ivanovitch gave him some water, and as he did so
felt his forehead. It seemed on fire.
"Governor," began Bazarov, in a slow, drowsy voice, "I'm in
a bad way: I've got the infection, and in a few days you'll have
to bury me. "
Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back, as though some one had
aimed a blow at his legs.
"Yevgeny! " he faltered, "what do you mean? God have
mercy on you! You've caught cold! "
"Hush! " Bazarov interposed deliberately. "A doctor can't be
allowed to talk like that. There's every symptom of infection:
you know yourself. "
"Where are the symptoms-of infection, Yevgeny? Good
heavens! >>
"What's this? " said Bazarov; and pulling up his shirt-sleeve,
he showed his father the ominous red patches coming out on his
arm.
Vassily Ivanovitch was shaking and chill with terror.
«< Supposing," he said at last, "even supposing- if even there's
something like infection->
"Pyæmia," put in his son.
"Well, well — something of the epidemic — »
-
"Pyæmia," Bazarov repeated sharply and distinctly; "have
you forgotten your text-books? "
—
"Well, well-as you like. Anyway, we will cure you! "
"Come, that's humbug. But that's not the point. I didn't
expect to die so soon; it's a most unpleasant incident, to tell the
truth. You and mother ought to make the most of your strong
## p. 15070 (#658) ##########################################
15070
IVAN TURGENEFF
religious belief; now's the time to put it to the test. " He drank
off a little water. "I want to ask you about one thing-while
my head is still under my control. To-morrow or next day
my brain, you know, will send in its resignation. I'm not quite
certain even now whether I'm expressing myself clearly. While
I've been lying here, I've kept fancying red dogs were running
round me, while you were making them point at me, as if I
were a woodcock. Just as if I were drunk. Do you understand
me all right? "
"I assure you, Yevgeny, you are talking perfectly correctly. "
"All the better. You told me you'd sent for the doctor. You
did that to comfort yourself; - comfort me too: send a messen-
ger
— »
"To Arkady Nikolaitch? " put in the old man.
"Who's Arkady Nikolaitch? " said Bazarov, as though in
doubt. "Oh, yes! that chicken! No, let him alone: he's turned
jackdaw now. Don't be surprised: that's not delirium yet. You
send a messenger to Madame Odintsov, Anna Sergyevna; she's
a lady with an estate. Do you know? " (Vassily Ivanovitch
nodded. ) "Yevgeny Bazarov, say, sends his greetings, and sends
word he is dying. Will you do that? "
"Yes, I will do it. But is it a possible thing for you to die,
Yevgeny? Think only! Where would divine justice be after
that? "
"I know nothing about that; only you send the messenger. "
"I'll send this minute, and I'll write a letter myself. "
"No, why? Say I sent greetings; nothing more is necessary.
And now I'll go back to my dogs. Strange! I want to fix my
thoughts on death, and nothing comes of it. I see a kind of blur
and nothing more. "
-
He turned painfully back to the wall again; while Vassily
Ivanovitch went out of the study, and struggling as far as his
wife's bedroom, simply dropped down on to his knees before the
holy pictures.
«Pray, Arina, pray for us! " he moaned: "our son is dying. "
The doctor-the same district doctor who had had no caus-
tic-arrived; and after looking at the patient, advised them to
persevere with a cooling treatment, and at that point said a few
words of the chance of recovery.
"Have you ever chanced to see people in my state not set
off for Elysium? " asked Bazarov; and suddenly snatching the leg
of a heavy table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round,
## p. 15071 (#659) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15071
and pushed it away. "There's strength, there's strength," he
murmured; - "everything's here still, and I must die! An old
man at least has time to be weaned from life, but I- Well, go
and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that's
all! Who's crying there? " he added, after a short pause.
"Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her
exquisite beet-root soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering
too, I do believe! Why, if Christianity's no help to you, be a
philosopher, a Stoic, or what not! Why, didn't you boast you
were a philosopher? »
"Me a philosopher! " wailed Vassily Ivanovitch, while the
tears fairly streamed down his cheeks.
Bazarov got worse every hour; the progress of the disease
was rapid, as is usually the way in cases of surgical poisoning.
He still had not lost consciousness, and understood what was said
to him; he was still struggling. "I don't want to lose my wits,"
he muttered, clenching his fists: "what rot it all is! " And at
once he would say, "Come, take ten from eight, what remains ? »
Vassily Ivanovitch wandered about like one possessed; proposed
first one remedy, then another; and ended by doing nothing but
cover up his son's feet. "Try cold pack-emetic-mustard plas-
ters on the stomach - bleeding," he would murmur with an effort.
The doctor, whom he had entreated to remain, agreed with him;
ordered the patient lemonade to drink; and for himself asked for
a pipe, and something "warming and strengthening," — that is to
say, brandy. Arina Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door,
and only went out from time to time to pray. A few days
before, a looking-glass had slipped out of her hands and been
broken, and this she had always considered an omen of evil; even
Anfisushka could say nothing to her. Timofeitch had gone off
-
to Madame Odintsov's.
That night passed badly for Bazarov. He was in the agonies
of high fever. Towards morning he was a little easier. He
asked for Arina Vlasyevna to comb his hair, kissed her hand,
and swallowed two gulps of tea. Vassily Ivanovitch revived a
little.
"Thank God! " he kept declaring; "the crisis is coming, the
crisis is at hand! "
"There, to think now," murmured Bazarov, "what a word
can do! He's found it; he's said 'crisis,' and is comforted. It's
an astounding thing how man believes in words. If he's told
he's a fool, for instance, though he's not thrashed, he'll be
## p. 15072 (#660) ##########################################
15072
IVAN TURGENEFF
wretched; call him a clever fellow, and he'll be delighted if you
go off without paying him. ”
This little speech, of Bazarov's, recalling his old retorts, moved
Vassily Ivanovitch greatly.
"Bravo! well said, very good! " he cried, making as though
he were clapping his hands.
Bazarov smiled mournfully.
"So what do you think," he said: "is the crisis over, or com-
ing? "
You are better, that's what I see; that's what rejoices me,”
answered Vassily Ivanovitch.
"Well, that's good: rejoicings never come amiss.
do you remember? did you send? "
"To be sure I did. "
-
The change for the better did not last long. The disease
resumed its onslaughts. Vassily Ivanovitch was sitting by Baza-
rov. It seemed as though the old man were tormented by some
special anguish. He was several times on the point of speaking
and could not.
"Yevgeny! " he brought out at last; "my son, my one dear
And to her,
-
son! "
This unfamiliar mode of address produced an effect on Baza-
rov. He turned his head a little, and obviously trying to fight
against the load of oblivion weighing upon him, he articulated,
"What is it, father? "
"Yevgeny," Vassily Ivanovitch went on, and he fell on his
knees before Bazarov, though the latter had closed his eyes
and could not see him. "Yevgeny, you are better now: please
God, you will get well; but make use of this time,-comfort
your mother and me, perform the duty of a Christian! What
it means for me to say this to you-it's awful; but still more
awful for ever and ever, Yevgeny-think a little, what - "
The old man's voice broke; and a strange look passed over
his son's face, though he still lay with closed eyes.
"I won't refuse, if that can be any comfort to you," he
brought out at last; "but it seems to me there's no need to be
in a hurry. You say yourself I am better. "
"Oh, yes, Yevgeny, better certainly; but who knows? it is all
in God's hands, and in doing the duty-"
"No, I will wait a bit," broke in Bazarov. "I agree with you
that the crisis has come. And if we're mistaken, well! they give
the sacrament to men who're unconscious, you know. "
## p. 15073 (#661) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15073
"Yevgeny, I beg-»
"I'll wait a little. And now I want to go to sleep. Don't
disturb me. " And he laid his head back on the pillow.
The old man rose from his knees, sat down in the arm-chair,
and clutching his beard, began biting his own fingers.
The sound of a light carriage on springs-that sound which
is peculiarly impressive in the wilds of the country-suddenly
struck upon his hearing. Nearer and nearer rolled the light
wheels; now even the neighing of the horses could be heard.
Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up and ran to the little window. There
drove into the court-yard of his little house a carriage with seats
for two, with four horses harnessed abreast.
shall he teach lessons of virtue, and at the same time make him-
self a delight to his readers? The novelist, if he have a con-
science, must preach his sermons with the same purpose as the
clergyman, and must have his own system of ethics. If he can
do this efficiently, if he can make virtue alluring and vice ugly,
while he charms his readers instead of wearying them, then I
think Mr. Carlyle need not call him distressed, nor talk of that
long ear of fiction, nor question whether he be or not the most
foolish of existing mortals.
·
•
## p. 15056 (#641) ##########################################
## p. 15056 (#642) ##########################################
ຈ
@nu
TURGÉNIEFF.
## p. 15056 (#643) ##########################################
## p. 15056 (#644) ##########################################
ringe
2
## p. 15057 (#645) ##########################################
15057
IVAN TURGENEFF
(1818-1883)
BY HENRY JAMES
HERE is perhaps no novelist of alien race who more naturally
than Ivan Turgeneff inherits a niche in a Library for Eng-
lish readers; and this not because of any advance or con-
cession that in his peculiar artistic independence he ever made, or
could dream of making, such readers, but because it was one of the
effects of his peculiar genius to give him, even in his lifetime, a
special place in the regard of foreign publics. His position is in this
respect singular; for it is his Russian savor that as much as any-
thing has helped generally to domesticate him.
Born in 1818, at Orel in the heart of Russia, and dying in 1883,
at Bougival near Paris, he had spent in Germany and France the
latter half of his life; and had incurred in his own country in some
degree the reprobation that is apt to attach to the absent, the pen-
alty they pay for such extension or such beguilement as they may
have happened to find over the border. He belonged to the class
of large rural proprietors of land and of serfs; and with his ample
patrimony, offered one of the few examples of literary labor achieved.
in high independence of the question of gain, a character that he
shares with his illustrious contemporary Tolstoy, who is of a type in
other respects so different. It may give us an idea of his primary
situation to imagine some large Virginian or Carolinian slaveholder,
during the first half of the century, inclining to "Northern" views;
and becoming (though not predominantly under pressure of these, but
rather by the operation of an exquisite genius) the great American
novelist - one of the great novelists of the world. Born under a social
and political order sternly repressive, all Turgeneff's deep instincts,
all his moral passion, placed him on the liberal side; with the conse-
quence that early in life, after a period spent at a German university,
he found himself, through the accident of a trifling public utterance,
under such suspicion in high places as to be sentenced to a term of
tempered exile,— confinement to his own estate. It was partly under
these circumstances perhaps that he gathered material for the work
from the appearance of which his reputation dates,-'A Sportsman's
Sketches,' published in two volumes in 1852. This admirable collec-
tion of impressions of homely country life, as the old state of servitude
had made it, is often spoken of as having borne to the great decree
XXV-942
―
## p. 15058 (#646) ##########################################
15058
IVAN TURGENEFF
of Alexander II. the relation borne by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's famous
novel to the emancipation of the Southern slaves. Incontestably,
at any rate, Turgeneff's rustic studies sounded, like 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin,' a particular hour: with the difference, however, of not having
at the time produced an agitation,- of having rather presented the
case with an art too insidious for instant recognition, an art that
stirred the depths more than the surface.
The author was designated promptly enough, at any rate, for
such influence as might best be exercised at a distance: he traveled,
he lived abroad; early in the sixties he was settled in Germany; he
acquired property at Baden-Baden, and spent there the last years of
the prosperous period-in the history of the place of which the
Franco-Prussian War was to mark the violent term. He cast in his
lot after that event mainly with the victims of the lost cause; setting
up a fresh home in Paris,-near which city he had, on the Seine, a
charming alternate residence,—and passing in it, and in the country,
save for brief revisitations, the remainder of his days. His friend-
ships, his attachments, in the world of art and of letters, were numer-
ous and distinguished; he never married; he produced, as the years
went on, without precipitation or frequency; and these were the
years during which his reputation gradually established itself as,
according to the phrase, European,- a phrase denoting in this case,
perhaps, a public more alert in the United States even than else-
where.
Tolstoy, his junior by ten years, had meanwhile come to fruition;
though, as in fact happened, it was not till after Turgeneff's death
that the greater fame of War and Peace' and of 'Anna Karénina'
began to be blown about the world. One of the last acts of the elder
writer, performed on his death-bed, was to address to the other
(from whom for a considerable term he had been estranged by cir-
cumstances needless to reproduce) an appeal to return to the exercise
of the genius that Tolstoy had already so lamentably, so monstrously
forsworn. "I am on my death-bed; there is no possibility of my
recovery. I write you expressly to tell you how happy I have been
to be your contemporary, and to utter my last, my urgent prayer.
Come back, my friend, to your literary labors. That gift came to
you from the source from which all comes to us. Ah, how happy
I should be could I think you would listen to my entreaty! My
friend, great writer of our Russian land, respond to it, obey it! "
These words, among the most touching surely ever addressed by
one great spirit to another, throw an indirect light — perhaps I may
even say a direct one-upon the nature and quality of Turgeneff's
artistic temperament; so much so that I regret being without oppor-
tunity, in this place, to gather such aid for a portrait of him as
might be supplied by following out the unlikeness between the pair.
## p. 15059 (#647) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15059
It would be too easy to say that Tolstoy was, from the Russian
point of view, for home consumption, and Turgeneff for foreign: War
and Peace' has probably had more readers in Europe and America
than 'A House of Gentle folk' or 'On the Eve' or 'Smoke,'.
a cir-
cumstance less detrimental than it may appear to my claim of our
having, in the Western world, supremely adopted the author of the
latter works. Turgeneff is in a peculiar degree what I may call
the novelists' novelist, - an artistic influence extraordinarily valuable
and ineradicably established. The perusal of Tolstoy a wonderful
mass of life is an immense event, a kind of splendid accident, for
each of us: his name represents nevertheless no such eternal spell of
method, no such quiet irresistibility of presentation, as shines, close
to us and lighting our possible steps, in that of his precursor. Tol-
stoy is a reflector as vast as a natural lake; a monster harnessed
to his great subject - all human life! - as an elephant might be har-
nessed, for purposes of traction, not to a carriage, but to a coach-
house. His own case is prodigious, but his example for others dire:
disciples not elephantine he can only mislead and betray.
One by one, for thirty years, with a firm, deliberate hand, with
intervals and patiences and waits, Turgeneff pricked in his sharp
outlines. His great external mark is probably his concision: an
ideal he never threw over,-it shines most perhaps even when he is
least brief, and that he often applied with a rare felicity. He has
masterpieces of a few pages; his perfect things are sometimes his
least prolonged. He abounds in short tales, episodes clipped as by
the scissors of Atropos; but for a direct translation of the whole we
have still to wait,- depending meanwhile upon the French and Ger-
man versions, which have been, instead of the original text (thanks to
the paucity among us of readers of Russian), the source of several
published in English. For the novels and 'A Sportsman's Sketches'
we depend upon the nine volumes (1897) of Mrs. Garnett. We touch
here upon the remarkable side, to our vision, of the writer's fortune,
-the anomaly of his having constrained to intimacy even those
who are shut out from the enjoyment of his medium, for whom
that question is positively prevented from existing. Putting aside
extrinsic intimations, it is impossible to read him without the convic-
tion of his being, in the vividness of his own tongue, of the strong
type of those made to bring home to us the happy truth of the
unity, in a generous talent, of material and form,- of their being
inevitable faces of the same medal; the type of those, in a word,
whose example deals death to the perpetual clumsy assumption that
subject and style are -æsthetically speaking, or in the living work-
different and separable things. We are conscious, reading him in a
language not his own, of not being reached by his personal tone, his
individual accent.
-
――
-
## p. 15060 (#648) ##########################################
15060
IVAN TURGENEFF
It is a testimony therefore to the intensity of his presence,
that so much of his particular charm does reach us; that the mask
turned to us has, even without his expression, still so much beauty.
It is the beauty (since we must try to formulate) of the finest pres-
entation of the familiar. His vision is of the world of character
and feeling, the world of the relations life throws up at every hour
and on every spot; he deals little, on the whole, in the miracles of
chance, the hours and spots over the edge of time and space; his
air is that of the great central region of passion and motive, of the
usual, the inevitable, the intimate the intimate for weal or woe.
No theme that he ever chooses but strikes us as full; yet with all
have we the sense that their animation comes from within, and is
not pinned to their backs like the pricking objects used of old in the
horse-races of the Roman carnival, to make the animals run. With-
out a patch of "plot" to draw blood, the story he mainly tells us, the
situation he mainly gives, runs as if for dear life. His first book
was practically full evidence of what, if we have to specify, is finest
in him, the effect, for the commonest truth, of an exquisite envelope
of poetry. In this medium of feeling,-full, as it were, of all the
echoes and shocks of the universal danger and need,-everything in
him goes on; the sense of fate and folly and pity and wonder and
beauty. The tenderness, the humor, the variety of 'A Sportsman's
Sketches' revealed on the spot an observer with a rare imagination.
These faculties had attached themselves, together, to small things
and to great: to the misery, the simplicity, the piety, the patience,
of the unemancipated peasant; to all the natural wonderful life of
earth and air and winter and summer and field and forest; to queer
apparitions of country neighbors, of strange local eccentrics; to old-
world practices and superstitions; to secrets gathered and types disin-
terred and impressions absorbed in the long, close contacts with man
and nature involved in the passionate pursuit of game. Magnificent
in stature and original vigor, Turgeneff, with his love of the chase,
or rather perhaps of the inspiration he found in it, would have been
the model of the mighty hunter, had not such an image been a little
at variance with his natural mildness, the softness that often accom-
panies the sense of an extraordinary reach of limb and play of mus-
cle. He was in person the model rather of the strong man at rest:
massive and towering, with the voice of innocence and the smile
almost of childhood. What seemed still more of a contradiction to so
much of him, however, was that his work was all delicacy and fancy,
penetration and compression.
If I add, in their order of succession, 'Rudin,' 'Fathers and Child-
ren,' 'Spring Floods,' and 'Virgin Soil,' to the three novels I have
(also in their relation of time) named above, I shall have indicated
the larger blocks of the compact monument, with a base resting
## p. 15061 (#649) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15061
deep and interstices well filled, into which that work disposes itself.
The list of his minor productions is too long to draw out: I can only
mention, as a few of the most striking-'A Correspondence,' 'The
Wayside Inn, The Brigadier,' 'The Dog,' 'The Jew,' 'Visions,'
'Mumu,' 'Three Meetings,' 'A First Love,' 'The Forsaken,' 'Assia,'
The Journal of a Superfluous Man,' The Story of Lieutenant Yer-
gunov,' 'A King Lear of the Steppe. ' The first place among his
novels would be difficult to assign: general opinion probably hesi-
tates between 'A House of Gentlefolk' and 'Fathers and Children. '
My own predilection is great for the exquisite 'On the Eve'; though
I admit that in such a company it draws no supremacy from being
exquisite. What is less contestable is that 'Virgin Soil'— published
shortly before his death, and the longest of his fictions-has, although
full of beauty, a minor perfection.
Character, character expressed and exposed, is in all these things
what we inveterately find. Turgeneff's sense of it was the great
light that artistically guided him; the simplest account of him is to
say that the mere play of it constitutes in every case his sufficient
drama. No one has had a closer vision, or a hand at once more
ironic and more tender, for the individual figure. He sees it with
its minutest signs and tricks,- all its heredity of idiosyncrasies, all
its particulars of weakness and strength, of ugliness and beauty, of
oddity and charm; and yet it is of his essence that he sees it in
the general flood of life, steeped in its relations and contacts, strug-
gling or submerged, a hurried particle in the stream. This gives
him, with his quiet method, his extraordinary breadth; dissociates
his rare power to particularize from dryness or hardness, from any
peril of caricature. He understands so much that we almost won-
der he can express anything; and his expression is indeed wholly in
absolute projection, in illustration, in giving of everything the un-
explained and irresponsible specimen. He is of a spirit so human
that we almost wonder at his control of his matter; of a pity so
deep and so general that we almost wonder at his curiosity. The ele-
ment of poetry in him is constant, and yet reality stares through it
without the loss of a wrinkle. No one has more of that sign of the
born novelist which resides in respect unconditioned for the freedom
and vitality, the absoluteness when summoned, of the creatures he
invokes; or is more superior to the strange and second-rate policy
of explaining or presenting them by reprobation or apology,- of tak-
ing the short cuts and anticipating the emotions and judgments about
them that should be left, at the best, to the perhaps not most intel-
ligent reader. And yet his system, as it may summarily be called,
of the mere particularized report, has a lucidity beyond the virtue of
the cruder moralist.
## p. 15062 (#650) ##########################################
15062
IVAN TURGENEFF
If character, as I say, is what he gives us at every turn, I should
speedily add that he offers it not in the least as a synonym, in our
Western sense, of resolution and prosperity. It wears the form of
the almost helpless detachment of the short-sighted individual soul;
and the perfection of his exhibition of it is in truth too often but
the intensity of what, for success, it just does not produce. What
works in him most is the question of the will; and the most constant
induction he suggests, bears upon the sad figure that principle seems
mainly to make among his countrymen. He had seen-he suggests
to us-its collapse in a thousand quarters; and the most general
tragedy, to his view, is that of its desperate adventures and disas-
ters, its inevitable abdication and defeat. But if the men, for the
most part, let it go, it takes refuge in the other sex; many of the
representatives of which, in his pages, are supremely strong-in
wonderful addition, in various cases, to being otherwise admirable.
This is true of such a number-the younger women, the girls, the
"heroines" in especial—that they form in themselves, on the ground
of moral beauty, of the finest distinction of soul, one of the most
striking groups the modern novel has given us. They are heroines
to the letter, and of a heroism obscure and undecorated: it is almost
they alone who have the energy to determine and to act. Elena,
Lisa, Tatyana, Gemma, Marianna — we can write their names and
call up their images, but I lack space to take them in turn. It is by
a succession of the finest and tenderest touches that they live; and
this, in all Turgeneff's work, is the process by which he persuades
and succeeds.
It was his own view of his main danger that he sacrificed too
much to detail; was wanting in composition, in the gift that con-
duces to unity of impression. But no novelist is closer and more
cumulative; in none does distinction spring from a quality of truth
more independent of everything but the subject, but the idea itself.
This idea, this subject, moreover, a spark kindled by the innermost
friction of things,-is always as interesting as an unopened tele-
gram. The genial freedom - with its exquisite delicacy-of his
approach to this "innermost " world, the world of our finer conscious-
ness, has in short a side that I can only describe and commemorate
as nobly disinterested; a side that makes too many of his rivals
appear to hold us in comparison by violent means, and introduce us
in comparison to vulgar things.
Huy James
-
## p. 15063 (#651) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15063
THE DEATH OF BAZAROV
From Fathers and Children'
B
AZAROV's old parents were all the more overjoyed by their
son's arrival, as it was quite unexpected. Arina Vlasyevna
was greatly excited, and kept running backwards and for-
wards in the house, so that Vassily Ivanovitch compared her
to a "hen partridge"; the short tail of her abbreviated jacket
did in fact, give her something of a bird-like appearance. He
himself merely growled, and gnawed the amber mouth-piece of
his pipe; or clutching his neck with his fingers, turned his head
round, as though he were trying whether it were properly
screwed on; then all at once he opened his wide mouth and
went off into a perfectly noiseless chuckle.
"I've come to you for six whole weeks, governor," Bazarov
said to him. "I want to work, so please don't hinder me now. "
"You shall forget my face completely, if you call that hinder-
ing you! " answered Vassily Ivanovitch.
He kept his promise. After installing his son as before in
his study, he almost hid himself away from him, and he kept
his wife from all superfluous demonstrations of tenderness. . "On
Enyusha's first visit, my dear soul," he said to her, "we both-
ered him a little; we must be wiser this time. " Arina Vlasyevna
agreed with her husband; but that was small compensation, since
she saw her son only at meals, and was now absolutely afraid
to address him. "Enyushenka" she would say sometimes; and
before he had time to look round, she was nervously fingering
the tassels of her reticule, and faltering, "Never mind, never
mind, I only" and afterwards she would go to Vassily Ivan-
ovitch, and, her cheek in her hand, would consult him: "If
you could only find out, darling, which Enyusha would like for
dinner to-day,— cabbage broth or beet-root soup? "-"But why
didn't you ask him yourself? "—"Oh, he will get sick of me! "
Bazarov, however, soon ceased to shut himself up: the fever of
work fell away, and was replaced by dreary boredom or vague
restlessness. A strange weariness began to show itself in all his
movements; even his walk, firm, bold, and strenuous, was changed.
He gave up walking in solitude, and began to seek society; he
drank tea in the drawing-room, strolled about the kitchen-garden
with Vassily Ivanovitch, and smoked with him in silence; once
even asked after Father Alexey. Vassily Ivanovitch at first re-
joiced at this change, but his joy was not long-lived. "Enyusha's
## p. 15064 (#652) ##########################################
15064
IVAN TURGENEFF
breaking my heart," he complained in secret to his wife: "it's
not that he's discontented or angry- that would be nothing; he's
sad, he's sorrowful- that's what's so terrible. He's always silent.
If he'd only abuse us! He's growing thin, he's lost his color. "
"Mercy on us, mercy on us! " whispered the old woman: “I
would put an amulet on his neck, but of course he won't allow it. "
Vassily Ivanovitch several times attempted in the most cir-
cumspect manner to question Bazarov about his work, about his
health, and about Arkady. But Bazarov's replies were reluctant
and casual; and once, noticing that his father was trying gradu-
ally to lead up to something in conversation, he said to him in a
tone of vexation, "Why do you always seem to be walking round
me on tiptoe? That way's worse than the old one. " « There,
there, I meant nothing! " poor Vassily Ivanovitch answered hur-
riedly. So his diplomatic hints remained fruitless.
He hoped
to awaken his son's sympathy one day by beginning, apropos of
the approaching emancipation of the peasantry, to talk about
progress; but the latter responded indifferently, "Yesterday I
was walking under the fence, and I heard the peasant boys here
bawling a street song instead of some old ballad. That's what
progress is. "
Sometimes Bazarov went into the village, and in his usual
bantering tone entered into conversation with some peasant.
"Come," he would say to him, "expound your views on life to
me, brother: you see, they say all the strength and future of
Russia lies in your hands; a new epoch in history will be started
by you you give us our real language and our laws. "
The peasant either made no reply, or articulated a few words
of this sort: "Well, we'll try—because, you see, to be sure—”
"You explain to me what your mir is," Bazarov interrupted;
"and is it the same mir that is said to rest on three fishes? "
"That, little father, is the earth that rests on three fishes,"
the peasant would declare soothingly, in a kind of patriarchal,
simple-hearted sing-song: "and over against ours-that is to say,
the mir- we know there's the master's will; wherefore you are
our fathers. And the stricter the master's rule, the better for the
peasant. "
After listening to such a reply one day, Bazarov shrugged his
shoulders contemptuously and turned away, while the peasant
sauntered slowly homewards.
"What was he talking about? " inquired another peasant of
middle age and surly aspect, who at a distance from the door
## p. 15065 (#653) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15065
of his hut had been following his conversation with Bazarov.
"Arrears, eh? "
"Arrears? no indeed, mate! " answered the first peasant, and
now there was no trace of patriarchal sing-song in his voice; on
the contrary, there was a certain scornful gruffness to be heard
in it: "oh, he clacked away about something or other: wanted
to stretch his tongue a bit. Of course, he's a gentleman: what
does he understand? "
«< What should he understand! " answered the other peasant,
and jerking back their caps and pushing down their belts, they
proceeded to deliberate upon their work and their wants. Alas!
Bazarov, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously,- Bazarov, who
knew how to talk to peasants (as he had boasted in his dispute
with Pavel Petrovitch),—did not in his self-confidence even sus-
pect that in their eyes he was all the while something of the
nature of a buffooning clown.
He found employment for himself at last, however. One day
Vassily Ivanovitch bound up a peasant's wounded leg before him,
but the old man's hands trembled, and he could not manage the
bandages; his son helped him, and from time to time began to
take a share in his practice,- though at the same time he was
constantly sneering both at the remedies he himself advised, and
at his father who hastened to make use of them. But Bazarov's
jeers did not in the least perturb Vassily Ivanovitch; they were
positively a comfort to him. Holding his greasy dressing-gown
across his stomach with two fingers, and smoking his pipe, he
used to listen with enjoyment to Bazarov; and the more malicious
his sallies, the more good-humoredly did his delighted father
chuckle, showing every one of his black teeth. He used even to
repeat these sometimes flat or pointless retorts; and would, for
instance, for several days constantly, without rhyme or reason,
reiterate, "Not a matter of the first importance! " simply because
his son, on hearing he was going to matins, had made use of that
expression. "Thank God! he has got over his melancholy! " he
whispered to his wife: "how he gave it to me to-day! It was
splendid! " Moreover, the idea of having such an assistant excited
him to ecstasy, filled him with pride. "Yes, yes," he would
say to some peasant woman, in a man's cloak and a cap shaped
like a horn, as he handed her a bottle of Goulard's extract or a
box of white ointment, "you ought to be thanking God, my
good woman, every minute that my son is staying with me: you
## p. 15066 (#654) ##########################################
15066
IVAN TURGENEFF
will be treated now by the most scientific, most modern method.
Do you know what that means? The Emperor of the French,
Napoleon, even, has no better doctor. " And the peasant woman,
who had come to complain that she felt so sort of queer all over
(the exact meaning of these words she was not able, however,
herself to explain), merely bowed low and rummaged in her
bosom, where four eggs lay tied up in the corner of a towel.
Bazarov once even pulled out a tooth for a passing peddler of
cloth; and though this tooth was an average specimen, Vassily
Ivanovitch preserved it as a curiosity, and incessantly repeated,
as he showed it to Father Alexey, "Just look, what a fang! The
force Yevgeny has! The peddler seemed to leap into the air. If
it had been an oak, he'd have rooted it up! "
"Most promising! " Father Alexey would comment at last;
not knowing what answer to make, and how to get rid of the
ecstatic old man.
One day a peasant from a neighboring village brought his
brother to Vassily Ivanovitch, ill with typhus. The unhappy
man, lying flat on a truss of straw, was dying: his body was
covered with dark patches; he had long ago lost consciousness.
Vassily Ivanovitch expressed his regret that no one had taken
steps to procure medical aid sooner, and declared there was no
hope. And in fact the peasant did not get his brother home
again: he died in the cart.
Three days later Bazarov came into his father's room and
asked him if he had any caustic.
"Yes: what do you want it for ? "
"I must have some-to burn a cut. "
"For whom? »
"For myself. "
«< What, yourself? Why is that? What sort of a cut? Where
is it? "
"Look here, on my finger. I went to-day to the village, you
know, where they brought that peasant with typhus fever. They
were just going to open the body, for some reason or other, and
I've had no practice of that sort for a long while. "
"Well ? »
"Well, so I asked the district doctor about it; and so I dis-
sected it. "
Vassily Ivanovitch all at once turned quite white; and, without
uttering a word, rushed to his study, from which he returned at
## p. 15067 (#655) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15067
once with a bit of caustic in his hand. Bazarov was about to
take it and go away.
"For mercy's sake," said Vassily Ivanovitch, "let me do it
myself. "
Bazarov smiled. "What a devoted practitioner! "
"Don't laugh, please. Show me your finger. The cut is not
a large one. Do I hurt? "
"Press harder; don't be afraid.
"
Vassily Ivanovitch stopped. "What do you think, Yevgeny; -
wouldn't it be better to burn it with hot iron? "
"That ought to have been done sooner: the caustic even is
useless, really, now. If I've taken the infection, it's too late
now. "
"How! too late-" Vassily Ivanovitch could scarcely articu-
late the words.
"I should think so! It's more than four hours ago. >>
Vassily Ivanovitch burnt the cut a little more.
district doctor no caustic ? »
"But had the
"No. "
"How was that? Good heavens! A doctor not have such an
indispensable thing as that! "
"You should have seen his lancets," observed Bazarov as he
walked away.
Up till late that evening, and all the following day, Vassily
Ivanovitch kept catching at every possible excuse to go into his
son's room; and though far from referring to the cut,- he even
tried to talk about the most irrelevant subjects,-he looked so
persistently into his face, and watched him in such trepidation,
that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to go away. Vassily
Ivanovitch gave him a promise not to bother him; the more
readily as Arina Vlasyevna, from whom of course he kept it all
secret, was beginning to worry him as to why he did not sleep,
and what had come over him. For two whole days he held him-
self in, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom
he kept watching stealthily; but on the third day, at dinner, he
could bear it no longer. Bazarov sat with downcast looks, and
had not touched a single dish.
"Why don't you eat, Yevgeny? " he inquired, putting on an
expression of the most perfect carelessness. "The food, I think,
is very nicely cooked. "
"I don't want anything, so I don't eat. "
## p. 15068 (#656) ##########################################
15068
IVAN TURGENEFF
"Have you no appetite? And your head-" he added tim-
idly does it ache? »
"Yes. Of course it aches. "
Arina Vlasyevna sat up and was all alert.
"Don't be angry, please, Yevgeny," continued Vassily Ivan-
ovitch: "won't you let me feel your pulse ? »
Bazarov got up.
"I can tell you without feeling my pulse:
I'm feverish. "
"Has there been any shivering? "
"Yes, there has been shivering too. I'll go and lie down,
and you can send me some lime-flower tea. I must have caught
cold. "
"To be sure, I heard you coughing last night," observed
Arina Vlasyevna.
"I've caught cold," repeated Bazarov; and he went away.
Arina Vlasyevna busied herself about the preparation of the
decoction of lime-flowers, while Vassily Ivanovitch went into the
next room and clutched at his hair in silent desperation.
Bazarov did not get up again that day, and passed the whole
night in heavy, half-unconscious torpor. At one o'clock in the
morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw by the light of
a lamp his father's pale face bending over him, and told him to
go away. The old man begged his pardon, but he quickly came
back on tiptoe; and half hidden by the cupboard door, he gazed
persistently at his son. Arina Vlasyevna did not go to bed either;
and leaving the study door just open a very little, she kept com-
ing up to it to listen "how Enyusha was breathing," and to look
at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing but his motionless
bent back, but even that afforded her some faint consolation. In
the morning Bazarov tried to get up: he was seized with giddi-
ness, his nose began to bleed; he lay down again. Vassily Ivan-
ovitch waited on him in silence; Arina Vlasyevna went in to him
and asked him how he was feeling. He answered, "Better," and
turned to the wall. Vassily Ivanovitch gesticulated at his wife
with both hands; she bit her lips so as not to cry, and went
away. The whole house seemed suddenly darkened; every one
looked gloomy; there was a strange hush; a shrill cock was
carried away from the yard to the village, unable to comprehend
why he should be treated so. Bazarov still lay turned to the
wall. Vassily Ivanovitch tried to address him with various ques-
tions; but they fatigued Bazarov, and the old man sank into his
## p. 15069 (#657) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15069
arm-chair, motionless, only cracking his finger-joints now and
then. He went for a few minutes into the garden; stood there
like a statue, as though overwhelmed with unutterable bewil-
derment (the expression of amazement never left his face all
through); and went back again to his son, trying to avoid his
wife's questions. She caught him by the arm at last, and pas-
sionately, almost menacingly,- said, "What is wrong with him? ”
Then he came to himself, and forced himself to smile at her in
reply; but to his own horror, instead of a smile, he found him-
self taken somehow by a fit of laughter. He had sent at day-
break for a doctor. He thought it necessary to inform his son
of this, for fear he should be angry. Bazarov suddenly turned
over on the sofa, bent a fixed dull look on his father, and asked
for drink.
Vassily Ivanovitch gave him some water, and as he did so
felt his forehead. It seemed on fire.
"Governor," began Bazarov, in a slow, drowsy voice, "I'm in
a bad way: I've got the infection, and in a few days you'll have
to bury me. "
Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back, as though some one had
aimed a blow at his legs.
"Yevgeny! " he faltered, "what do you mean? God have
mercy on you! You've caught cold! "
"Hush! " Bazarov interposed deliberately. "A doctor can't be
allowed to talk like that. There's every symptom of infection:
you know yourself. "
"Where are the symptoms-of infection, Yevgeny? Good
heavens! >>
"What's this? " said Bazarov; and pulling up his shirt-sleeve,
he showed his father the ominous red patches coming out on his
arm.
Vassily Ivanovitch was shaking and chill with terror.
«< Supposing," he said at last, "even supposing- if even there's
something like infection->
"Pyæmia," put in his son.
"Well, well — something of the epidemic — »
-
"Pyæmia," Bazarov repeated sharply and distinctly; "have
you forgotten your text-books? "
—
"Well, well-as you like. Anyway, we will cure you! "
"Come, that's humbug. But that's not the point. I didn't
expect to die so soon; it's a most unpleasant incident, to tell the
truth. You and mother ought to make the most of your strong
## p. 15070 (#658) ##########################################
15070
IVAN TURGENEFF
religious belief; now's the time to put it to the test. " He drank
off a little water. "I want to ask you about one thing-while
my head is still under my control. To-morrow or next day
my brain, you know, will send in its resignation. I'm not quite
certain even now whether I'm expressing myself clearly. While
I've been lying here, I've kept fancying red dogs were running
round me, while you were making them point at me, as if I
were a woodcock. Just as if I were drunk. Do you understand
me all right? "
"I assure you, Yevgeny, you are talking perfectly correctly. "
"All the better. You told me you'd sent for the doctor. You
did that to comfort yourself; - comfort me too: send a messen-
ger
— »
"To Arkady Nikolaitch? " put in the old man.
"Who's Arkady Nikolaitch? " said Bazarov, as though in
doubt. "Oh, yes! that chicken! No, let him alone: he's turned
jackdaw now. Don't be surprised: that's not delirium yet. You
send a messenger to Madame Odintsov, Anna Sergyevna; she's
a lady with an estate. Do you know? " (Vassily Ivanovitch
nodded. ) "Yevgeny Bazarov, say, sends his greetings, and sends
word he is dying. Will you do that? "
"Yes, I will do it. But is it a possible thing for you to die,
Yevgeny? Think only! Where would divine justice be after
that? "
"I know nothing about that; only you send the messenger. "
"I'll send this minute, and I'll write a letter myself. "
"No, why? Say I sent greetings; nothing more is necessary.
And now I'll go back to my dogs. Strange! I want to fix my
thoughts on death, and nothing comes of it. I see a kind of blur
and nothing more. "
-
He turned painfully back to the wall again; while Vassily
Ivanovitch went out of the study, and struggling as far as his
wife's bedroom, simply dropped down on to his knees before the
holy pictures.
«Pray, Arina, pray for us! " he moaned: "our son is dying. "
The doctor-the same district doctor who had had no caus-
tic-arrived; and after looking at the patient, advised them to
persevere with a cooling treatment, and at that point said a few
words of the chance of recovery.
"Have you ever chanced to see people in my state not set
off for Elysium? " asked Bazarov; and suddenly snatching the leg
of a heavy table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round,
## p. 15071 (#659) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15071
and pushed it away. "There's strength, there's strength," he
murmured; - "everything's here still, and I must die! An old
man at least has time to be weaned from life, but I- Well, go
and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that's
all! Who's crying there? " he added, after a short pause.
"Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her
exquisite beet-root soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering
too, I do believe! Why, if Christianity's no help to you, be a
philosopher, a Stoic, or what not! Why, didn't you boast you
were a philosopher? »
"Me a philosopher! " wailed Vassily Ivanovitch, while the
tears fairly streamed down his cheeks.
Bazarov got worse every hour; the progress of the disease
was rapid, as is usually the way in cases of surgical poisoning.
He still had not lost consciousness, and understood what was said
to him; he was still struggling. "I don't want to lose my wits,"
he muttered, clenching his fists: "what rot it all is! " And at
once he would say, "Come, take ten from eight, what remains ? »
Vassily Ivanovitch wandered about like one possessed; proposed
first one remedy, then another; and ended by doing nothing but
cover up his son's feet. "Try cold pack-emetic-mustard plas-
ters on the stomach - bleeding," he would murmur with an effort.
The doctor, whom he had entreated to remain, agreed with him;
ordered the patient lemonade to drink; and for himself asked for
a pipe, and something "warming and strengthening," — that is to
say, brandy. Arina Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door,
and only went out from time to time to pray. A few days
before, a looking-glass had slipped out of her hands and been
broken, and this she had always considered an omen of evil; even
Anfisushka could say nothing to her. Timofeitch had gone off
-
to Madame Odintsov's.
That night passed badly for Bazarov. He was in the agonies
of high fever. Towards morning he was a little easier. He
asked for Arina Vlasyevna to comb his hair, kissed her hand,
and swallowed two gulps of tea. Vassily Ivanovitch revived a
little.
"Thank God! " he kept declaring; "the crisis is coming, the
crisis is at hand! "
"There, to think now," murmured Bazarov, "what a word
can do! He's found it; he's said 'crisis,' and is comforted. It's
an astounding thing how man believes in words. If he's told
he's a fool, for instance, though he's not thrashed, he'll be
## p. 15072 (#660) ##########################################
15072
IVAN TURGENEFF
wretched; call him a clever fellow, and he'll be delighted if you
go off without paying him. ”
This little speech, of Bazarov's, recalling his old retorts, moved
Vassily Ivanovitch greatly.
"Bravo! well said, very good! " he cried, making as though
he were clapping his hands.
Bazarov smiled mournfully.
"So what do you think," he said: "is the crisis over, or com-
ing? "
You are better, that's what I see; that's what rejoices me,”
answered Vassily Ivanovitch.
"Well, that's good: rejoicings never come amiss.
do you remember? did you send? "
"To be sure I did. "
-
The change for the better did not last long. The disease
resumed its onslaughts. Vassily Ivanovitch was sitting by Baza-
rov. It seemed as though the old man were tormented by some
special anguish. He was several times on the point of speaking
and could not.
"Yevgeny! " he brought out at last; "my son, my one dear
And to her,
-
son! "
This unfamiliar mode of address produced an effect on Baza-
rov. He turned his head a little, and obviously trying to fight
against the load of oblivion weighing upon him, he articulated,
"What is it, father? "
"Yevgeny," Vassily Ivanovitch went on, and he fell on his
knees before Bazarov, though the latter had closed his eyes
and could not see him. "Yevgeny, you are better now: please
God, you will get well; but make use of this time,-comfort
your mother and me, perform the duty of a Christian! What
it means for me to say this to you-it's awful; but still more
awful for ever and ever, Yevgeny-think a little, what - "
The old man's voice broke; and a strange look passed over
his son's face, though he still lay with closed eyes.
"I won't refuse, if that can be any comfort to you," he
brought out at last; "but it seems to me there's no need to be
in a hurry. You say yourself I am better. "
"Oh, yes, Yevgeny, better certainly; but who knows? it is all
in God's hands, and in doing the duty-"
"No, I will wait a bit," broke in Bazarov. "I agree with you
that the crisis has come. And if we're mistaken, well! they give
the sacrament to men who're unconscious, you know. "
## p. 15073 (#661) ##########################################
IVAN TURGENEFF
15073
"Yevgeny, I beg-»
"I'll wait a little. And now I want to go to sleep. Don't
disturb me. " And he laid his head back on the pillow.
The old man rose from his knees, sat down in the arm-chair,
and clutching his beard, began biting his own fingers.
The sound of a light carriage on springs-that sound which
is peculiarly impressive in the wilds of the country-suddenly
struck upon his hearing. Nearer and nearer rolled the light
wheels; now even the neighing of the horses could be heard.
Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up and ran to the little window. There
drove into the court-yard of his little house a carriage with seats
for two, with four horses harnessed abreast.
