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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

_ «THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A
COLLECTION MADE BY

BENNO LOEWY

1854-1919
AND BEQUEATHED TO
CORNELL. UNIVERSITY

 
PG
Gre

|

wii

      
 

NIKOLAT V. GOGOL.
THE GREAT MASTERS

OF

RUSSIAN LITERATURE

IN THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

BY

ERNEST DUPUY

TRANSLATED BY
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

THE PROSE WRITERS
NIKOLAI VASILYVITCH GOGOL, IVAN SERGEYVITCH TURGENIEF,
COUNT LYOF NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOI

WITH APPENDIX

 

LONDON
JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL

MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS
anD
SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.

[All rights reserved]
PREFACE,

Wrrn a view of adding new oil to the recently
kindled fire of interest in Russian literature, the pres-
ent translation of M. Dupuy’s little book is offered to
the public. M. Dupuy is entirely modest in his
claims. In his brief preface he acknowledges his
predecessors in the study of Russian literature, and
merely thinks that it is not possible to open too many
windows toward the horizon of foreign lands: “ how-
ever small mine may be, I take keen delight in throw-
ing it wide open.” The translator has no more desire
to “boast or excuse” than the author. He feels,
indeed, that to transfer into English the style which
marks M. Dupuy’s essays is an impossibility. They
are delicate, fragile works of art. The thought is
not seldom commonplace. For instance, M. Dupuy

begins a paragraph on p. 176 with this sentence,

i
ii PREFACE.

“‘Chaque homme a, pour ainsi parler, une physiogno-
mie, et cette physiognomie, comme le visage méme, est
plus ou moins caractérisée.”

But these trivialities, dressed in graceful idioms, are
simply charming. To touch them, to analyze them, is
like touching a soap-bubble. Fortunately, M. Dupuy
has also all the Gallic acuteness and cleverness of illus-
tration ; and, in spite of occasional glittering, illusive
triteness, there is a solid basis of value, which remains
even when the scintillations are dulled, when the iri-
descence is obscured by “the veil of translation.”
His skill in giving the gist of a book is thoroughly
characteristic; and that, it is to be hoped, shines
through the English.

The translator is responsible for the appendix and
most of the notes. There is little that is original in it
or them; but together they may add a touch of accu-
racy, and an hour of interest. If not original, they are

derived from sources not generally accessible.

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.

PHILADELPHIA, July 21, 1886.
GOGOL

TURGENIEF .

TOLSTOI
APPENDIX

INDEX

.

CONTENTS,

PAGE

117

° 215

339
 

Ir may be said, that the emancipation of lit-
erature in Russia dates back scarcely fifty years.
All the Russian writers, whether of poetry or
prose, with the exception possibly of one or two
satirists, were little more than imitators. Some
of the most valued authors during the first half
of this century, Zhukovsky for example, owed
all their fame to translations. Pushkin himself,
who, on the recommendation of Merimée, has
for some time been admired in France, did not
venture far from the Byronic manner. He died,
to be sure, just at the moment when he ha
found his path. He suspected the profit tha
could be made from national sources; he ha
a presentiment that a truly Russian literatur
was about to burst into bloom; he aided in it
production. His greatest originality lies in hi
having predicted, preached, perhaps prepared
or inspired Gogol.

 
NIKOLAI GOGOL.

 

Is

NixoLai GocoL*' was born in 1810, in a vil-
lage of the government of Poltava. His father,
a small proprietor with some education, obtained
for him a scholarship in the college of Niézhin.
Fortunately the young Gogol was able to hold
his own in rebellion against the direction of his
instructors, and neither the dead nor the living
languages brought him any gain. He thus
failed of becoming a commonplace man of let-
ters, and consequently had less trouble in the
end with discovering his original genius.

In his father’s house, on the other hand, he

1 Nikolai Vasilyévitch Gogol-Yanovsky, born, according to Polevoi,
on the 31st of March, 1809, at Sorotchintsui. See Appendix.
5
6 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

received a priceless education, such as Push-
kin, in spite of all his efforts, vainly attempted
to obtain. He was imbued with the poetry
of the people. His childhood was entertained
by the marvellous legends of the Malo-Russians.
Gogol’s grandfather was one of those Zaparog
Cossacks whose heroic exploits the author of
“Taras Bulba” was destined to celebrate. He
excelled in the art of story-telling, and his
narrations had a tinge of mystery about them
that brought the cold chills. ‘“ When he was
speaking I would not move from my place all
day long, but would listen, . . . and the things
were so strange that I always shivered, and my
hair stood on end. Sometimes I was so fright-
ened by them, that at night every thing seemed
like God knows what monsters.” This fund of
mainly fantastic and diabolical legends after-
wards furnished the grandson of the Ukraine
village story-teller, with the material for his
first original work.'

Gogol’s first attempts were not original: he
began too early. Scarcely out of the gymna-
sium, he began to write in rhyme; in the morn-

* Evenings at the Farm House (Vetchera na Khutoryé).
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 7

ing trying all the styles in vogue, at evening
making parodies upon them. He established
a manuscript journal “The Star” (Zvyezd).
The student intoxicated by reading Pushkin
still remained in the trammels of uninspired
verse, in the formulas of romanticism. Some
characteristics already began to reveal the pre-
cocious observer, the brilliant satirist. Thus
his prose articles, clandestinely introduced, had
a tremendous success never equalled in his
ripest years, even by his comedy of “The
Revizor.”

After his studies were ended, Gogol was
obliged to conquer the favor of a public less
complacent than the rhetoricians and philoso-
phers of Niézhin. He obtained (1830) an
exceedingly modest office in the Ministry of
Appanages (Udyéluz). But in the- bureau,
where, like Popritshchin in the “ Recollections
of a Lunatic” his service was limited to sharp-
ening dozens of pens for the director, he worked
out a comedy on the pattern of Scribe’s, and
spun a cottony idyl in the German style. The
comedy was hisséd by the public, and the idyl
was so unkindly received by the critics that.
8 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

Gogol had this attempt withdrawn from the
market. *

Gogol almost simultaneously shook off the
double yoke of bureaucratic slavery and literary
imitation. Instead of following, like so many
others, in the track of French, English, or Ger-
man writers, he determined to be himself. He
went back over the course of his early years to
find in this way in all their freshness the im-
pressions of his childhood; he returned to his
first, his real masters, and began once more to
get material around the Malo-Russian hearth.
He appealed to his mother for recollections ; he
besought the aid of his friends; he put them
like so many bloodhounds on the track of half-
forgotten legends, half-vanished traditions; he
collected documents of every sort and kind: and
when he was sufficiently permeated with sav-
agery to think and speak, if need were, like a
Cossack of the last century, he created a work
at once modern and archaic, learned and enthu-
siastic, mystic and refined,— Russian, in a

? Hans Kiichel Garten —such was the name of the unfortunate
idyl—was afterwards placed by the author, not without complai-
-sance, among his javend/ia. See Appendix,
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 9

word, — and published it under the title “ Even-
ings at the Farm” (Vetchera na Khutoryé bliz
Dikankt).

This series of fantastic tales, published in the
reviews under the pseudonyme of Rudui Panko
(Sandy the little nobleman), produced a singular
effect. The Russian reader was surprised and
charmed in the same way as a French traveller,
who, after having visited all the countries and
admired all the floras of the world, should dis-
cover the banks of the Seine, and declare that
he was willing to exchange the splendors of the
savannas for a tuft of turf and a bunch of
violets. No one was more struck with the
value of these tales than Pushkin. He recom-
mended their author to Pletnef, minister of
public instruction; and Gogol was appointed
professor. The servitude was still more oner-
ous than that of the bureaucracy. The young
writer had too much originality to bend under
it very long: a second time he escaped, and
took his departure for the Ukraina.

The Zaparog Cossack’s grandson used to say
that there was material for an Iliad in the
exploits of his ancestors. He buried himself in
10 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

the study of the annals of Little Russia; he
collected the traditions ; more than all, he picked
up the national songs of the Ukraina, —those
kinds of heroic cantilenas composed by the
players of the bandura. A modern diaskenastes,
he constructed a body out of all these poetic
remains, joined them together by means of a
romantic plot, and renewed the astonishment
caused by the appearance of “Evenings at the
Farm,” by publishing “Taras Bulba.” The
minister was convinced that a man who could
thus revivify history could not fail to be skilled
in teaching it: he therefore offered Gogol the
chair of medizeval history in the University of
Petersburg. The romancer gave only one lec-
ture, his opening lecture. This day he dazzled
his audience. The remainder of his course was
for both students and professor only a long-
continued bore, which ended finally in his losing
the place.

Gogol dreamed of a different success. In
1835 he published his comedy, “ The Revizor”
(The Inspector General), It was applauded,
and, what was of more value, it was desperately
attacked. The author gained as many admirers
NIKOLAT GOGOL. II

and enemies as “Tartuffe” cost Moliére. At
Petersburg, as at Paris, the masterpiece was
produced on the stage, and kept before the
public, only by a fortunate caprice on the part
of the sovereign.

Gogol’s health, which had long been failing,
caused him about this period to leave Russia.
He lived many years in Italy. There he com-
pleted his great romance, “ Dead Souls” (AZ@ert-
vuia Dushi). The work appeared in complete
form in 1841. The author had reached a state
of nervous irritation and hypochondria, which
was more and more manifested in his corre-
spondence, published in part towards 1846. The
last years of Gogol’s life were only a long tor-
ture. A sort of mystic madness took possession
of his brain, exhausted or over-excited by pro-
duction : death put an end to his nervous dis-
ease (1852).

! This is a mistake. He completed it, to be sure, but in his religious

mania he destroyed the most of the second part: it was completed by
another hand. See Appendix.
12 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

II.

DREAMINESS and banter are the two natural
tendencies, the two favorite pleasures, of the
Russian mind. They are also the two ele-
ments of Gogol’s talent. At the beginning of
his career as a writer, and during the sprightly
years of his youth, it is dreaminess which pre-
vails: the narrator penetrates with enthusiasm
into the untrodden paths of: the Malo-Russian
legends. On the track of witches, of Rusal-
kas, he finds the unpublished poetry of the
forests, the ponds, the wide stretches, and the
sky of the steppes. These lovely days pass.
With age, this restless spirit grows gloomy and
melancholy. The observer’s eyes turn from
the pacifying spectacle of nature, and attempt —
only to notice. the vexing absurdities of hu-
manity.

The satirical spirit in Gogol is first expressed
in verse. He is poetical only in prose; but his
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 13

prose is equal to the most beautiful verse. In
truth, poetry is not rhyme, or metre, or even
rhythm : it is the power of touching, of record-
ing its impressions in vivid and genuine im-
ages. To feel emotion suitable for poetic
expression, there is no need of picturing lofty
heroes, or of spreading marvellous landscapes
before the eyes. Properly speaking, a Malo-
Russian peasant is like a hero in Corneille ;
and the imagination of an author, and therefore
of his reader, can just as well be stirred by the
view of a bit of the flat and naked steppe, as
by the sight of the Bay of Naples or a sunset
on the ruins of the Coliseum.

Gogol understood this, and, what is far bet-
ter, made it understood. Instead of preparing
his imitation of Werther and his copy of Childe
Harold in the fashion of so many others, he
had the courage to go to Nature for his models,
And in this Russian nature, the wild grace and
strange flavor of which he was, so to speak, the
first to feel, that which attracts him more than
all else is its unostentatious aspect. His field
of observation is the village. His heroes are
unimportant people, half-barbarous peasants,
14 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

true Cossack lads, hard drinkers, with circum-
scribed intellectual training, with superstitious
imaginations ; in a word, very simple souls,
whose artless passions are shown without any
veil, but whose very ingenuousness is a deli-
ciously restful contrast to our romantic or the-
atrical characters, so artificial in their labored
mechanism, so insipid and perfunctory in the
refinements of their conventionality.

Gogol places his characters in their natural
surroundings. It is the hamlet bordering on
the steppe, monotonous and infinite, deserted
and mysterious. All this country appeals to
the writer’s imagination, as well as to that of
those Malo-Russians, whose history, past and
present, he will describe for us in turn. Each
shrub inshrines a memory; each winding val-
ley veils alegend. In yonder stretch of water,
beset with rushes and starred with nenuphars,
the sceptic traveller in his indifference sees
only a sort of marsh. The peasant who is
here a poet, and the poet who remembers that
he was once a peasant, know well who the Ru-
salka is who has been hiding there these many
years. From its surface, on nights when the
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 15

moon lights up the silvery mist, the queen of
the drowned comes forth with her train of vir-
gins, to find and drag into the depths of the
water her stepmother, the witch whose evil
deeds drove her to suicide.

But to move those whom she has brought
forth, this land of the Ukraina has no need of
being wrapped in’ mystery. Gogol has only to

pronounce the name of the Dniépr to arouse a
" sort of passionate woe, whose expression, un-
happily almost untranslatable, equals in beauty
the accents of the noblest poetry.

*“Marvellous is the Dniépr in peaceful weath-
er, when he rolls his wide waters in a free
and reposeful course by forests and mountains.
Not the slightest jar, not the slightest tumult.
Thou beholdest, and thou canst not tell if his
majestic breadth is moving or is stationary.
It is almost like a sheet of molten glass. It
might be compared to a road of blue ice, with-
out measure in its breadth, without limit to its
length, describing its wondrous curves in the
emerald distance. How delightful for the burn-
ing sun to turn his gaze to earth, and to plunge
his rays into the refreshing coolness of the

1 From A Terrible Vengeance.
16 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

glassy waves, and for the trees along the bank
to see their reflections in this crystal mirror!
Oh the green-crowned trees! They stand in
groups with the flowers of the field by the
water-side, and they bend over and gaze, and
cannot weary of gazing. They cannot suffi-
ciently admire their bright reflection, and they
smile back to it, and greet it, waving their
branches. They dare not look towards the
middle of the Dniépr: none but the sun and
the azure sky gaze at it. Some daring bird
occasionally wings his way to the middle of the
Dniépr. Oh the giant that he is! There is
not a river like him in the world!

“Marvellous indeed is the Dniépr on a warm
summer's night, when all things are asleep, —
both man and beast and bird. God only from
on high looks down majestically on sky and
earth, and shakes with solemnity his chasuble,
and from his priestly raiment scatters all the
stars. The stars are kindled, they shine upon
the world ; and allat the same instant also flash
forth from the Dniépr. He holds them every
one, the Dniépr, in his sombre bosom ; not one
shall escape from him, unless, indeed, it perish
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 17

from the sky. The black forest, dotted with
sleeping crows, and the mountains rent from
immemorial time, strive, as they catch the light,
to veil him with their mighty shadow. In vain!
There is naught on earth can veil the Dniépr!
Forever blue, he marches onward in his restful
course by day and night. He can be seen as
far as human sight can pierce. As he goes to
rest voluptuously, and presses close unto the
shore by reason of the nocturnal cold, he leaves
behind him a silver trail, flashing like the blade
of a’ Damascus sword, and then he yields to
sleep again. Then also he is wonderful, the
Dniépr, and there is no river like him in the
world !

“But when the black clouds advance like
mountains on the sky, the gloomy forest sways,
the oaks clash, and the lightning, darting zigzag
across the cloud, lights up suddenly the whole
world, terrible then the Dniépr is! The col-
umns of water thunder down, dashing against
the mountain, and then with shouts and groans
draw far away, and weep, and break out into
tears again in the distance. Thus some aged
Cossack mother consumes away with grief,
18 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

when she gets ready her son to take his depart-
ure for the army. With many airs, a genuine
good-for-naught, he dashes up on his black
steed, his hand on his hip, and his cap set jaun-
tily awry ; and she, weeping at the top of her
voice, runs after him, seizes him by the stirrup,
strives to grasp the reins, and twists her arms,
and breaks into a passion of scalding tears.
Like dark stains in the midst of the struggling
waves, emerge uncannily the stumps of charred
trees and the rocks on the shelving shore. -
And the boats moored along the shore knock
against each other as they rise and fall. What
Cossack would dare embark in his canoe when
the ancient Dniépr is angry? Apparently yon-
der man knows not that his waves swallow men
like flies.”

The same powerful and charming feeling is
found in all the descriptions which are scattered
throughout Gogol’s work. One must read in
“Taras Bulba” the celebrated description of
the beauty of the steppe at different hours of
the day. What a picture it is of this ocean
of gilded verdure, where, amid the delicate dry
stalks of the tall grass, shine patches of corn-
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 19

flower with their shades of blue, of violet, or of
red; the broom with its pyramid of yellow
flowers ; the clover with its white tufts; and in
this luxuriant flora a corn-stalk, brought thither
God knows how, lifting itself with the haughty -
vigor of a solitary fruit! The warm atmos-
phere is vocal with the cries of unseen birds.
A few hawks are seen hovering ; a flock of wild
geese sweep by, and the prairie-gull mounts
and swoops down again, now black and glisten-
ing in the sunbeam. Then it is the evening
twilight, with its vapors descending denser and
more dense, its perfumes rising more and more
penetrating; the jerboas creep out from their
hiding-places ; the crickets madly chirp in their
holes; and ‘one hears resounding, like a vibrat-
ing bell in the sleepy air, the cry of the solitary
swan winging its way from some distant lake.”’?

! The passage referred to is as follows: “ The steppe grew more
and more beautiful. The whole South, all the region which includes
the New Russia of the present day as far as the Black Sea, was a vir-
gin desert of green. Never had the plough passed through the bound-
less waves of vegetation, Only a few horses, concealed in it as ina
forest, trod it under their hoofs. Nothing in nature could be finer.
All the surface of the earth was like a green golden ocean from which
emerged millions of varied flowers. Amidst the delicate tall stalks of
the grass gleamed azure, purple, violet blue-bonnets (vo/osh2i) ; the yel-
20 NIKOLAL GOCOL.

What gives this picturesque and vivid prose
es . ¥ 7
a singularly penetrating accent, is the writer's
emotion. His admiration has a truly passionate
character, and this passion breaks out in cries
of joy, even in expletives. “The deuce take
you, steppes, how beautiful you are!” There
is in this a flavor of savagery which takes hold
. TBs .

of us like a novelty, and which must have been
as agreeable to the Russian taste as the secretly
preferable national dish after too long use of
foreign insipidities.

And even for many Russians, this nature
which Gogol studied and described, or, more
accurately speaking, sang with a sort of intoxi-
low broom lifted on high its pyramidal tower; the white clover, with
its umbrella-like bonnets, mottled the plain; a wheat-stalk, brought
from God knows where, was waxing full of seed. Under their slender
roots the partridges were running about, thrusting out their necks,
The air was full of a thousand different bird-notes. In the sky hung
motionless a cloud of hawks, stretching wide their wings and fixing
their eyes silently on the grass. Thecry of the wild geese moving in
clouds was heard from God knows what distant lake. From the grass
arose with measured strokes the prairie-gull, and luxuriously bathed
herself in the blue waves of the air. Now she was lost in immensity,
and was visible only as a lone black speck. Now she swept back
on broad wings, and gleamed in the sun. The deuce take you,

steppes, how beautiful youare!” (Tchort vas vozmi, styepi, kak vui
khoroshi !)
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 21

cation, was a sort of new world offering every
attraction, Nothing is more peculiar than the
little Russian landscape with its solitudes, its
lakes, its vast rivers, the incomparable purity of
its sky, icy and burning in turn. Here there
is material to tempt the palette of colorist most
enamoured of the untouched (ris @inédit).
But what painter’s palette has colors sufficiently
powerful to express as Gogol has done the pro-
found, ineffable poetry of the sounds and gleams
of the night ?

*“Do you know the Ukraine night? Oh! you
do not know the Ukraine night. Gaze upon it’
with your eyes. From the midst of the sky
the moon looks down. The immense vault of
heaven unrolls wider and still more wide; more
immense it has become; it glows; it breathes.
The whole earth is in a silvery effulgence, and
the marvellous air is both suffocating and fresh.
It is full of tender caresses. It stirs into move-
ment an ocean of perfumes.

“Night divine! enchanting night! silent, and
as though full of life, the forests rise bristling
with darkness; they cast an enormous shadow.
Silent and motionless are the ponds: the coolness

«From The May Night.
22 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

of their darkling waters is gloomily enshrined
between the dark green walls of the gardens,

“The cherry-trees and wild plums stretch
their roots with cautious timidity towards the
icy water of the springs; and from their leaves
only now and then are heard faint whisperings,
as though they were angry, as though they were
indignant, when the gay adventurer, the night
wind, glides stealthily up to them and kisses
them.

“All the landscape sleeps; and far above,
all is breathing, all is marvellous, all is solemn,
The soul cannot fathom it: it is sublime. An
infinite number of silver visions arise like a
harmony inthe depths. Night divine! enchant-
ing night! And suddenly all is filled with life,
—the forests, the ponds, the steppes. Majes-
tically the thunder of the voice of the Ukraine
nightingale rolls along; and it seems as though
the moon drank her song from the bosom of
the sky.

“A magic slumber holds the village yonder
in repose. Still more brilliant in the moonlight
the group of little houses stands out in relief ;
still more blinding are their low walls in con-
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 23

trast with the shade. The songs have ceased;
all is noa still. The pious folk are already
asleep. Here and there a narrow window
shows a gleam of light; on the doorstep of
some cottage, a belated family are finishing
their evening meal.”

Gogol excels not only in picturing the grand
aspects of the Ukraine landscape. He has
sketches filled in with adorable detail; and
nothing is more curious than the contrast
between the lyricism with which he celebrates
the seductions of the Malo-Russian sky, and the
fine, discreet, restrained tone of so many famil-
iar impressions. The feeling for nature finds
in Gogol all manner of expression: he passes in
turn through every gradation.

Sometimes it is a vigorous sketch made with
a few strokes, at once broad and accurate, domi-
nated by a strange and grandiose theme :—

*“Tn places the black sky was colored by the
burning of dry rushes on the shore of some
river or out-of-the-way lake; and a long line
of swans flying to the north, struck suddeniy by
the silver rose-light of the flame, were like red
handkerchiefs waving across the night.”

! From Taras Bulba.
24 MIKOLAT GOGOL.

Sometimes it is a picture full of detail,
whose motives have been strangely, brought
together and treated delicately, elaborately, as
with a magnifying-glass :—

*“T see from here the little house, surrounded
by a gallery supported by delicate, slender
columns of darkened wood, and going entirely
around the building, so that during thunder-
showers or hail-storms the window- shutters
can be closed without exposure to the rain;
behind the house, mulberry-trees in bloom, then
long rows: of dwarf fruit-trees drowned in the
bright scarlet of the cherries and in an ame-
thystine sea of plums with leaden down ; then
a large old beech-tree, under the shade of which
is spread a catpet for repose; before the house,
a spacious court with short and verdant grass,
with two little foot-paths trodden down by the
steps of those who went from the barn to the
kitchen and from the kitchen to the proprie-
tor’s house. A loag-necked goose drinking
water from a puddle, surrounded by her soft
and silky yellow goslings; a long hedge hung
with strings of dried pears and apples, and rugs
put out to air; a wagon loaded with melons

* From Old-time Proprietors.
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 25

near the barn; on one side an ox unyoked
and chewing his cud, lazily lying down. All
this has for me an inexpressible charm.”

Here we have a realism anterior to our own,
and, if I may be allowed to say so, far superior.
Here we do not find, as we do elsewhere,
features collected and reproduced with the
conscientiousness— or rather the lack of con-
scientiousness — of a photographic camera: a
choice is shown, a soul-felt attention. The
observer’s notice is that of a poet: the external
world is no longer reflected in a glass lens, but
is caught by a quivering retina; the image
which is transferred to the book is no less
alive, and what the- writer has felt in this
manner the reader feels in turn,

Just so far as purely descriptive description
produces an impression of puerility, of unlike-
ness, and, when it is carried to extremes in the
style of our realists, of fatigue and disgust, to
the same degree does it here afford interest,
picturesqueness, appropriateness. Who could
fail to see, or who would refuse to admire, the
pose of “yonder wooden cottages, leaning to
one side, and buried in a thicket of willows,
26 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

elders, and pear-trees”? They have something
better than a physiognomy: they have a
language.

“T could not tell why the doors sang in this
way. Was it because the hinges were rusted?
Or had the joiner who made them concealed in
them some secret mechanism? I do not know;
but the strangest thing was, that each door had
its own individual voice. That of the sleep-
ing-room had the most delicate soprano, that of
the dining-room a sonorous bass. As to that
which closed the ante-room, it gave forth a
strange, tremulous, and plaintive sound, so that
by listening attentively these words could be
distinctly heard: ‘ Batiushki! I am freezing,’
I know that many people do not like the
squeaking of doors: for my part, I like it very
much. And when I happen to hear in St.
Petersburg a door crying, I suddenly perceive
the scent of the country, together with the
memory of a small, low room, lighted by a
taper set in an ancient candlestick. Supper is
already on the table, near the open window
through which the lovely May night looks into
the room, A nightingale fills the garden, the
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 27

house, and the slope to the river gleaming
in the gloomy distance, with the glory of his
voice; the trees gently rustle. Bozhe moi!
what a train of memories arise within me!”

We must draw attention to the exclamations
which in Gogol serve for the passionate conclu-
sion to his most accurate descriptions. They
give us the key to his poetic realism. It is
feeling which stored away the impression in
the treasure-house of the memory; it is feeling
which calls it up again, and places it before
the reader, kindled with all the fires of the
imagination.
28 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

III.

Tus power of resurrection which makes the
poet a god, Gogol applies equally to facts and
to ideas, to men and to things, to legends and to
history. His whole work shows it, but noth-
ing in his work shows it more clearly than his
early writings. Here imagination plays the
leading part. In the works of his-riper years,
it is observation which comes to get the mas-
tery, forcing itself everywhere. The part played
by poetry, by fancy, grows less and less. The
author of “The Revzzor,” of “Dead Souls,” no
longer takes pains, except rarely, to distinguish
by his characteristic touch his models of coarse-
ness, platitude, or ugliness.

The writer of the “Evenings at the Farm”
is still content to vivify or revivify in his half-
imaginary, half-biographical tales, artless lovers,
full of passion and pathos, heroes of epic grand-
eur, good old folks of the vanished past, of odd
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 29

exteriors, of ridiculous aspect, but charming by
their glances, stirring by their smiles, as in the
pale, faded pastels of a bygone age. Such are
the figures which Gogol afterwards ceases to de-
pict for us: it is these which we are going to
endeavor to take out from his first collection, so
as to examine them entirely at our ease.

This collection of “Evenings at the Farm”
is divided into two parts, bearing, by way of
sub-title, the town names, Didanka and Mir-
gorod.

Each part contains two groups of novels. In
the “Evenings near Didanka,”' the first group
contains “The Fair at Sorotchintsui,” “St.
John’s Eve,” “The May Night, or the Drowned
Girl,” and “The Missing Paper.” The second
group includes “Christmas Eve,” “A Terrible
Vengeance,” “Ivan Feodorovitch Shponka and
his Aunt,” and “An Enchanted Spot.”

The “Evenings near Mirgorod” contain four
novels in two groups: in the one, “Old-time
Proprietors”? and “Taras Bulba”’ (in its first
form; shortly afterwards the author recast it

1 Vetchera na Khutoryé bliz Dikanki.
2 Starosvyétskié Pomyéeshchiki.
30 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

and developed it); in the other, “Vii,” which
has been translated into French under the title
“The King of the Gnomes,” and “The Story of
how Ivan Ivanovitch and Ivan Nikiforovitch
quarrelled.”’ !

The novels of the first part have especially a
fantastic character. The Devil, who holds such
a place in the imagination of the Malo-Russian
peasants, is the principal hero of some of the
stories, “The Fair at Sorotchintsui” for exam-
ple. Witches also play a preponderating part in
his mysterious tales. But here the witch is not
that wrinkled, toothless, unclean being, hiding
herself like an abominable beast in some ill-
omened hovel. She is generally a beautiful
girl, with eyes green as an Undine’s, with skin
of lily and rose, with long hair yellow as gold
or black as ebony, with delicate level, haughty
eye-brows. Sometimes, as in “Vii,” it is the
proprietor’s daughter, and those who are impu-
dent enough to stare at her are lost: witness
the groom Mikita.

This groom had no equal in the world. En-

* Pouyést 0 Tom Kak Possorilis Ivan Ivanovitch s. Ivanom Niki-

Sorovitchem. \
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 31

chanted by the maiden, he becomes a little
woman, a rag, the deuce knows what. Did she
look at him? The reins fell from his hand.
He forgot the names of his dogs, and called one
instead of the other. One day, while he was
grooming a horse at the stable, the maiden
came and asked him to let her rest her little
foot upon him. He accepted with joy, foolish
fellow! but she compelled him to gallop like a
horse, and struck him redoubled blows with her
witch’s stick. He came back half dead, and
from that day he vanished from mortal sight.
“Once when they went to the stable, they
found instead of him only a handful of ashes by
an empty pail. He had burned up, — entirely
burned up by his own fire. Yet he had been a
groom such as no more can be found in the
world.”

Artless but not silly sorcery. It is the timid
homage, pathetic from its very timidity, which
is offered by these barbarous souls to the eter-
nal power of beauty and love.

These witches of Gogol, so bold and novel in
their conception, put me in mind of a painting
of the Spanish school, attributed to Murillo.
32 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

’

This canvas, which I saw several years ago in
a private gallery, is a Temptation of St. An-
thony, interpreted in an unlooked-for way. A
young man of thirty years, whose features are
those of the painter himself, with sunburned
face and passionate eyes, bends towards his
mistress, a lovely girl with piquant charm, sal y
pimienta, who is leaning on his shoulder, while
her mouth is arched at the corners of the lips
in a smile of irresistible seduction.

In these tales of Gogol, the marvellous
abounds. But it abounds equally in the life of
these Malo-Russians whom the author has
wished to depict for us. The supernatural
affrights and charms them. If the legends of
the Ukraina are lugubrious, yet they never’
-weary of hearing them told. The young girl
who at the first sound of the serenade lifts the
latch, steals out from the door, and joins the
love-stricken dandura-player, desires no other
‘entertainment on the border of the pond which
in the uncanny lights of the night reflects in
its waters the willows and the maples: ' “ Tell
me it, my handsome Cossack,” she says, laying
her cheek to his face and kissing him: “No?

* From The May Night.
MIKOLAT GOGOL. 33

Then it is plain that thou dost not love me,
that thou hast some other young girl. Speak!
I shall not be afraid. My sleep will not be
broken by it. On the contrary, I shall not be
able to go to sleep at all if thou dost not tell
me this story. I shall be thinking of something
else. I shall believe — come, Lyévko, tell it.”
They are right who say that the Devil haunts
the brain of young girls to keep their curiosity
awake.

Lyévko, however, yields, and unfolds the old
legend. It is the story of the daughter of the
Sotnik (captain of a hundred Cossacks). The
sotntk had a daughter white as snow. He was
old, and one day he brought home a second
“wife, young and handsome, white and rose;
but she looked at her stepdaughter in ‘such
a strange way that she cried out under her
gaze. The young wife was a witch, as was
seen immediately. The very night of the wed-
ding, a black cat enters the young girl’s room,
and tries to choke her with his iron claws.
She snatches a sabre down from the wall, she
strikes at the animal, and cuts off his paw.
He disappears with a yell. When the step-
34 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

mother was seen again, her hand was covered -
with bandages. Five days later the father drove
his daughter from the house, and in grief
she drowned herself in the pond. Since then
the drowned girl. has been waiting for the
sorceress, to beat her with the green rushes
of the pond; but up to the present time the
stepmother has succeeded in escaping from all
her traps. ‘She is very wily,’ says the poor
Undine. ‘I feel that she is here. I suffer
from her presence. Because of her, I cannot
swim freely like a fish. I go to the bottom
like a key. Find her for me.”
Lyévko the singer hears the drowned girl
thus speaking to him in a dream. But this
dream is a reality; for when he wakes, Lyévko,
who has tracked and caught the stepmother in
the circle of the young shadows, finds in his
hand the reward of the Queen of the Lake.
It is a letter containing an order for the mar-
riage between Lyévko and Hanna, his fiancée.
The order is given by the district commis-
sioner, to Hanna’s father, who has hitherto |
shown himself recalcitrant. “I shall not tell
any one the miracle which has been performed
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 35

this night,”.murmurs the happy bridegroom.
“To thee alone will I confide it, Hanna; thou
alone wilt believe me, and together we will pray
for the soul of the poor drowned girl.”
36 WIKOLAS GOGOL.

IV.

In this collection of ‘ Evenings at the Farm
figures the heroic story of a great character, th
life of the atamdn Taras Bulba. Gogol afte:
wards turned this epopée into prose, but th
after-touches did not change the character c
the early composition. The hero of “Tara
Bulba”’ is one of those Zaporog Cossacks wh
played such an important part in the histor
of Poland, and later in the history of Russiz
After the beginning of the sixteenth century
the Zaporozhtsui, who formed a military repuk
lic, or, if the term is preferred, an associatio:
of cavalry bandits, became the terror of th
neighboring peoples. They had on an islan
in the Dniépr a permanent camp, the Setc/
where, even in times of peace, young Cossack
came to perfect themselves in the noble gam
of war. Women were rigorously excluded fror
the Setch. The men were quartered in divis
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 37

ions, or kurénut; each kurén had its ‘chief, an
atamdn (hetman); the entire camp was com-
manded by a supreme chief, the atamdn-kotche-
vi.

The romance of “Taras Bulba” opens in
the most original fashion.t The two sons.of the
Cossack Taras are just back from the divinity
school, to which they will not return. The
father, a vigorous Zaporozhets, who has grown
gray in harness, receives them with sarcastic
observations about their long robes. It is a
sort of test like that which Don Diego gives
his sons in the “Romancero.” The eldest of
Bulba’s sons, Ostap (Eustace), behaves like
Rodriguez. “Though thou art my father, I
swear to thee, if thou continuest to laugh at
me, I will give thee a drubbing.”

After an exchange of well-directed blows on
either side, Taras kisses effusively his son
whose courage and strength he has just expe-
rienced; he rudely rallies Andrii (Andrew), the
younger, on his gentleness: “Thou art a puppy
so far as I can judge. Don’t listen to thy
mother’s words: she is a woman; she knows

1 For a translation of this portion, see Appendix.
38 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

naught. What need have ye of being coddled?
A good prairie, a good horse, that’s all the
delicacies that yeneed. See this sabre: behold
your mother, lads!”

The poor woman is not at the end of her
trials. Taras announces his immediate depart-
ure with his sons: she protests amid tears and
lamentations; the Cossack ill-uses her, and
cuts short her complaints. The two sons
spend in their father’s house just time enough
to give the narrator a chance to describe this
interior so characteristic and brilliantly colored.
‘On the wall hang all the exquisite ornaments in
which barbarous man delights, — sabres, whips,
inlaid arms, reins worked in gold wire, silver-
nailed clogs. On the dressers are the products
of civilization brought from different corners
of the world, — masterpieces of Florentine en-
gravers, of Venetian glass-blowers, of Oriental .
goldsmiths ; and in contrast with all this treas-
ure, the fruit of pillage, piles of wood, the.
stove made of the enamelled bricks loved by
the Ukraine peasant, and the “holy images” in
hieratic posture, these Lares indispensable at
every Malo-Russian fireside.
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 39

The old Bulba has declared at table, before
all the sotuzks of his po/k' who were present
in the village, that he should be off next day.
The mother spends the fight in tears, crouch-
ing by her children’s bedside, gazing upon
them with a look full of anguish like the swal-
low of the steppe on her nest. She still hopes
that when he wakes, Bulba will have forgotten
what he vowed in the exaltation of the bowl.

“The moon from the height of heaven had
long been lighting up all the dvor filled with
sleepers, the thick mass of willows, and the
tall grass in which the palisade which encir-
cled the dver was drowned. She sat all night
by the heads of her beloved sons: not for a
moment did she turn her eyes from them, and
she had no thought of sleep. Already the
horses, prescient of dawn, had all stretched
themselves upon the grass, and ceased to feed.
The topmost leaves of the willows began to
whisper, and little by little a stream of inces-
sant chattering descended through them to the
very base. Still she sat in the selfsame place;
she felt no fatigue at all, and she wished in

1 Regiment.
40 MIKOLAT GOGOL.

her inmost heart that the night might last as
long as possible. From the steppe resounded
the sonorous whinnying of a foal. Ruddy
streaks stretched across the sky. Bulba sud-
denly waked up, and leaped to his feet. He
remembered very well all that he had deter-
mined upon the evening before.”

The preparations for the departure are de-
scribed in detail. with Homeric satisfaction.
Bulba commands the mother to give her sons
her blessing: “A mother’s blessing preserves
from all danger on land and on water.” The
farewell is heart-rending: the poor woman
seizes the stirrup of her youngest, Andrii,
clings to his saddle, and twice, in a paroxysm
of maternal delirium, throws herself in front of
the horses, until she is led away. Here we
see. the features of a painting rapidly sketched
by Gogol in another novel. The elements of
this scene would, moreover, be found elsewhere
still, It goes back to the ancient dumas, the
cantilenas of the Malo-Russian, the traces of
which are constantly found in the epic of
“Taras Bulba.”

They depart. As they ride along, their minds
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 41

are filled with melancholy thoughts. Andrit
reviews mentally a romantic adventure, the be-
ginning of which dates from his life at the
seminary. At Kief, in order to pay back a joke
which had been played upon him, he made his
way into the room of a wild Polish girl, the
daughter of the vofevod of Kovno. The Polish ,
girl made sport of him as though he were a
savage; he put up with his dismissal, but fell
in love with her. It is natural to conjecture
that this love will have a decisive influence
upon Andrit’s conduct, and that the beautiful
girl will appear again. For the time being, the
activity of the adventurous life just beginning
drives away these recollections. The Cossacks
cross the steppe, and the narrator’makes us
realize the wholly novel charm of this primitive
existence, with its sensations no less strong
than simple, in these immense spaces which
under apparent monotony are so varied and
marvellous.

They reach the Setch, and nothing equals
the vigor, the color, the life, of the scenes
which the story-teller’s imagination brings be-
fore our eyes. When they disembark from the
42 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

ferry-boat, which after a three-hours’ passage
has brought them to the island of Khortitsa,
Taras Bulba and his sons reach the camp by an
entrance echoing with the hammers of twenty-
five smithies, and encumbered with the packs
of pedlers. A huge Zaporozhets sleeping in
the very middle of the road, with arms and
legs stretched out, is the first spectacle which
attracts their admiration. Farther, a young
Cossack is dancing with frenzy, dripping with
sweat in his winter sheepskin: he refuses to,
take it off, for it would quickly find its way into
the pot-house. The merry fellow has already
drunk up his cap, his belt, and his embroidered
hilt. You feel that here is a young, exuberant,
indomitable race. You have to go back to
the Iliad to meet such men, and to Homer to
-find again this freshness of delineation. Other
scenes awaken comparisons such as the author
of “Taras Bulba” scarcely anticipated. His
hero finds well-known faces, and he asks after
his ancient companions ‘in arms. They are
questions of Philoktetes to Neoptolemos, and
the same replies, followed by the same melan-
choly regrets: “And Taras Bulba heard. only,
NIKOLATL GOGOL. 43

as reply, that Borodavka had been hanged at
Tolopan; that Koloper had been flayed alive
near Kizikirmen; that Pidsuitok’s head had
been salted in a cask, and sent to Tsar-grad
(Constantinople) itself. The old Bulba hung
his head, and after a long pause he said, ‘Good
Kazaks were they.’”

I shall not dwell upon the scenes in which
Gogol has described for us the customs of the
Setch, such as the election of the new kotch-
evdi; and the wiles of these Zaporogs, in their
longing for pillage, to take up the offensive
without having the appearance of breaking
treaties. From the Ukraina, news is brought
which arrives at the very nick of time. The
Poles and the Jews have been heaping up deeds
of infamy: the Cossack people is oppressed ;
religion is odiously persecuted. The whole
camp breaks into enthusiastic fervor. They
fling the Jew pedlers (kvamari) into the water.
One of them, Yankel, has recognized Taras:
he throws himself on his knees groaning; he
reminds him of a service which he had once
done Bulba’s brother; finally he escapes pun-
ishment, thanks to this scornful and brutal pro-
44 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

tection. A few hours later, Taras finds him
established under a tent, selling all sorts of
provisions, powder, screws, gun-flints, at the
risk of being caught again, and “killed like a
sparrow.”

“Taras shrugged his shoulders to see what
was the ruling power of the Jewish race.” We
catch a glimpse here of that lively humor
which is common in Gogol, and that keenness
of observation which is always heightened by
a satiric flavor. ;

The Zaporogs invade the Polish soil. They
lay siege to Dubno. One night, Andrii sees
rising before him a woman’s form. He recog-
nizes an old Tartar servant of the votevod’s
daughter. She comes in her young mistress’s
name to beg a little bread. The besieged town
is a prey to all the torments of famine. Andrit
is anxious instantly to make his way inside the
walls. He is introduced by a subterranean pas-
sage by which the old woman reached the
camp. Andrif sees once again the woman
whom he loves, and it is all over with him.
“He will never see again the Setch, nor his
father’s village, nor the house of God. The
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 45

Ukraina will never behold again one of its
bravest sons. The old Taras will tear his gray
hair. by handfuls, cursing the day and the hour
when to his own shame he begot such a son.”

Here the romance halts to make room for
the epos. Help comes to the city almost im-
mediately after Andrii’s defection. This news
is brought by Yankel, who, true Jew that he is,
has succeeded in penetrating the city, in mak-
ing his escape, in seeing every thing, hearing
every thing, and putting a good profit into his
pocket. What consoles Taras for Andrit’s trea-
son is Ostap’s bravery, who is made ataman on
the battle-field. One must read the exploits
of giants, where the cruelty of the carnage is
relieved by the beauty of the coloring. Pic-
tures of heroic grandeur light up these sinister
scenes, and the magic of a sparkling -palette
makes poetical the strong touches of the bold-
est realism.

Suddenly the news reaches the camp of the
Zaporogs, that the Setch has been plundered
by the Tartars. The old Bovdug, the Nestor of
this second Iliad, proposes a plan which divides
the besieging army in such a way as to protect
46 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

at once the interests and the honor of the Cos.
sack nation. One part sets out in pursuit of
the Tartars: the others remain under the walls
of the city, with the old Taras as ataman. One
would like to quote from beginning to end
these lists of heroes, with their Malo-Russian
names so nearly uniform in termination. One
would like to reproduce these parentheses,
these episodes devoted to the complaisant enu-
meration of the deeds of prowess of all these
braves. The separation is marked by a melan-
choly full of grandeur. The feeling of the
solidarity which has grouped all these men, of
the brotherhood which unites all these sons
of the Ukraina, is expressed with rare power.
Taras perceives that it is necessary to create
some diversion for this profound melancholy.
He gives his Cossacks the solace of precious
wine, and the stimulus of a fortifying word.
They drink to religion, the Setch, and glory.
“Never will a splendid action perish ; and the
glory of the Cossacks shall not be lost like a
grain of powder dropped from the pan, and
fallen by chance.”

The battle begins anew; the cannon make
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 47

wide gaps in the ranks, and many mothers will
not see again their sons fallen this day. ‘“ Vainly
the widow will stop the passers-by, and. gaze
into their eyes to see if among them is not
found the man whom best she loves in all the
world.” What an accent in all that, and how
we discover in the labored arrangement of the
writer, the native force of the primitive song,
the depth of the feeling of the people! This
arises in fact from the Malo-Russian folk-song ;
and so also do those challenges which recall
those of the heroes of Argos or of Troy, and
that sublime death-refrain which each hero
murmurs as he dies, “Flourish the Russian
soil!” and likewise those rhythmic questions
alternating with replies like couplets, “Is there
yet powder in the powder-flasks? Is not the
Cossack power enfeebled? Do not the Cossacks
now show signs of yielding?” —“ There still is
powder in the powder-flasks ; the Cossack power
is not enfeebled ; the Cossacks do not yet begin
to yield.”

At the height of the battle, Andrii, who is
fighting like a lion at the head of the Poles,
finds himself suddenly face to face with Taras
48 NMIKOLAT GOGOL.

Bulba. Here follows an admirable scene, and
long admired, but admired in an imitation. Is
not the conclusion of “Mateo Falcone” an in-
vention stolen from Gogol? In the two tales,
the father becomes the arbiter of the treason
committed by the son; the details of this exe-
cution, the accompanying words, the calculated
impression of coldness in the account, meant to
add to the horror of the deed, —all the resem-
blances seem to form a literary theft, the traces
of which Merimée would have done better not
to hide; and we have almost the right to im-
pute to him this intention when we see the
part that he took in disparagement of “ Taras
Bulba.”

This tragedy is followed by a new drama
still more painful. Ostap is taken prisoner,
and carried to Warsaw for execution. Taras,
left for dead, is picked up by his followers. He
recovers, and, unable to survive his beloved son,
goes to risk his life in the attempt to rescue
him. Through Yankel’s craft he makes his
way into Warsaw, but the assistance of the
Polish Jews fails to get him within the prison
walls. He arrives only in time to see the
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 49

execution of the Cossacks. Ostap is broken
on the wheel before his father’s eyes. In a
moment of- weakness the heroic lad utters the
cry of the Crucified on Golgotha: “Father,
where art thou? Dost thou hear this?”
“Yes, I hear,” replies a mighty voice from
the midst of the throng. “A detachment of
mounted soldiers hastened anxiously to scan
the throng of people. Yankel turned pale as
death, and when the horsemen had got a
short distance from him, he turned round in
terror to look for Taras: but Taras was no
longer beside him; every trace of him was
lost.”” A little later on, and Taras has seized
his arms, and is making a terrible “funeral
mass” in honor of his son. At last he dies,
pinned down like Prometheus, and burned
alive; but from the midst of the flames he
tastes the triumph which his last shout of
command has just assured to his soldiers.
50 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

V.

WHEN Gogol was spoken of to the great
romancer Turgénief, he said simply, “ He is our
master; from him we get our best qualities.”
But when Turgénief came to speak of “Taras
Bulba,” he grew animated, and went on with
an accent of admiration which, for my part, I
cannot forget, and said, “The day when our
Gogol stood the colossal Taras on his feet, he
showed genius.”

It would have been a very delicate question,
to ask Turgénief his opinion of another of
Gogol’s little masterpieces, ‘“Old-time Propri-
etors.” The question would have seemed in-
discreet to the author of “Virgin Soil;” for
when this last romance of Turgénief’s appeared,
all the Russian readers, when they came to
the charming chapter where the two old men,
Fimushka and Fémushka, come upon the stage,
uttered the same cry: “It is Gogol, pure and

4
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 51

simple! it is the Stavosuyétskié Pomyéshchiki !”
If the model and the imitation are examined
closely, a great quantity of differences in detail
are unravelled; and it may be said that here
as elsewhere Turgénief is personal, original in
his work, in his own fashion. But at first
glance one has the right to be struck by the
resemblances.

“ Old-time Proprietors” is a novel of a num-
ber of pages. In this novel there are no in-
trigue, no abrupt changes, nothing fantastic,
no theatrical climaxes, no surprising characters,
no unexpected sentiments. Gogol dispensed
with all the elements of success: he seems to
have wished to reduce the interest to the mini-
mum, and he wrote a masterpiece.

He introduces us to one of those country
houses whose appearance alone tells the story
of the calm and peaceful life of its inhabitants:
‘“‘Never had a desire crossed the hedge which
shut in the little dvor.”

In this habitation of sages, all is friendly,
all is kindly, “even to the phlegmatic baying
of the dogs.” What is to be said of the recep-
tion which we meet with at the hands of the
52 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

owners of the dwelling? The husband, Afai
asi Ivanovitch, generally sitting down and ber
over, always smiles, whether he be speakin
or listening. His wife, Pulkheria Ivanovna, o
the other hand, is serious; but there is so muc
goodness in her eyes and in all of her feature,
that a smile would be too much, would rend
insipid her expression of face which is alread
so sweet.

Afanasi Ivanovitch and Pulkheria Ivanovn
had grown up without children: thus they ha
come to love each other with that affectio
which is usually reserved for beings in whor
one’s youthful days seem to bloom anev
Their youth had been full of life, however, lik
all youth, but it was far away. The husban
had sérved in the army; he had eloped wit
his sweetheart. But this wild period had bee
followed by so many days of a calm, seclude
uniform, absolutely happy existence, that the
never spoke of the past, and it may be doubte
if they ever thought of it either.

These delicious hours are disturbed only t
such events as an indigestion, or a pain in tk
bowels. They are filled only by collations an
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 53

repasts of greater or less degree. They leave
room for no other care than that of varying
the bill of fare, of bringing into agreement the
most diverse viands, of tempting appetites sated
but not satiated.

At first thought, nothing seems more com-
monplace than such a subject. What poetry,
what interest even, could be attached to that
complaining belly whose ever-recurring pangs
must be lulled to sleep the livelong day and a
portion of the night? Herein shines forth all
the power of Gogol’s talent. He paints ego-
tism for us, double egotism: but he paints it
with such delicate shades that the picture
excites something more than admiration; it
arouses a sort of sympathy.

Gogol knows well that happy people are the
best people; that their joy radiates out, as it
were, and that it warms, lightens, enlivens,
just as sadness, even though legitimate, chills,
wounds, warns away, every thing that ap-
proaches it. The two old people are happy,
not so much by the quality of the pleasures
which they taste, or by the value of the goods
which they enjoy, as by the assurance which
54 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

they feel that as long as they live they are not
going to see this luxurious abundance dis-
appear, nor these far from ruinous pleasures
lose their flavor. Notwithstanding the thefts
of the prikashchik, of the housekeeper, of the
hands, of the visitors, of their coachman, of
their valets, “this fertile and beneficent soil
produced all things in- such quantity, Afanasi
Ivanovitch and Pulkheria Ivanovna had so few
necessities, that all these depredations could
have no injurious effect on their well-being.”

These two fortunate people are worshipped
for their indulgence, which comes from uncon-
cern; and for their liberality, which takes its
rise, if not from the vanity of giving, as La
Rochefoucauld would have expressed it, yet at
least from the need of feeling further satisfac-
tion, after having taken full enjoyment of what
is indispensable, in allowing others to have a
certain portion of the superfluous.

In the same way their pity is, above all, a
“selfish consideration, and a movement of dismay
at the idea of falling into such disagreeable or
trying situations as they have seen in the cases
of others. “ Wait,’ says Afanasi Ivanovitch
NIKOLAS GOGOL. 55

to each visitor: “we don’t know what may
happen. Robbers may attack you, or you may
meet with rascals.” ‘God protect us from
robbers!” said Pulkheria Ivanovna: “ why tell
such stories when it is night?”

In this association for happiness, which is
scarcely any thing else than the joining of two
aspirations towards well-being, how did Gogol
succeed in bringing about his return to the
idea of sacrifice? In point of fact, one of these
good old egotists acts to a certain degree in a
spirit of self-sacrifice, without ever rising above
self-love; becomes partially absorbed in the
affection of the companion, who is more indif-
ferent, more inclined to accept fondling with-
out offering return. All love, it has been said,
is reduced in last analysis to this: the one
kisses, the other offers the cheek. In this case
the one who offers the cheek —that is to say,
the one who permits the fondling, and limits
all manifestations of feeling to not ill-natured
but not kindly teasing—is the husband. His
wife adores him after her fashion. This adora-
tion it is vain to express in vulgar language,
and translate by attentions of far from exalted
56 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

order: it is real, and it brings to the reader’s
lips a smile full of indulgence, even at the
moment when it compels from the eyes a tear
of a rare quality, the discreet witness of the
deepest and purest feeling.

This good old woman feels that she is dying;
and at the moment when death “comes to
take her,” she knows only one grief, — that of
leaving alone, and, as it were, orphaned, this
poor old child for whom she has lived, and who
without her will not know what to do with his
sad life. With prayers, even with threats, good
soul that she is, she intrusts him to a maid-
servant old as themselves; and after making
all arrangements and dispositions, so that her
companion “need not feel too sorely her ab-
sence,” she goes whither death calls her.

Afanasi Ivanovitch at first is overwhelmed
with grief. On his return from the funeral,
his solitude comes to him with the sensation
of an irreparable void; “and he began to sob
bitterly, inconsolably ; and the tears flowed, —
flowed like two streams from his dull eyes.”
Is it not striking to find here the expressions |
of Homer? “He sat down, pouring forth tears
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 57

like a stream of dark water, which spreads its
shady water along the cliff where even the
goats do not climb.” And is there not here,
as in the epic tale of Taras Bulba, the power of
the pathetic, the savory freshness of emotion,
the secret of which is known only to primitive
poetry?

But what is not primitive, what, on the con-
trary, reveals Gogol as a very well-informed
writer, a very watchful psychologist, a satirist
whose scheme was well thought out in advance,
and whose slightest details are calculated with
perfect precision, is the little parable which at
the most touching moment of this tale inter-
rupts its thread, and brings out its hidden sig-
nificance, its moral bearing, its psychological
lesson.

Gogol leaves the husband and wife at the
very hour of their most touching separation,
and tells us rapidly the romance of a young
man madly in love with a mistress who is
dying. In the effervescence of his grief, the
lover twice in succession tries to kill himself :
the first time, by a pistol-shot in the head;
somewhat later, when he is barely recovered,
58 NMIKOLAT GOGOL.

by throwing himself under the wheel of a pass.
ing carriage. .Again he recovers; “and a year
later,” says Gogol, “I met him in a fashiona-
ble salon. He was seated at a table, playing
boston, and was saying in a free and easy tone,
‘Little Misery.’ Behind him, leaning on his
chair, stood his young and pretty wife, toying
with the counters in the basket.”

The old Afanasi Ivanovitch does not try to
kill himself; but he dies slowly day by day
from the ever-growing regret for her whom he
has lost, from the wound, always more keen and
more deep, which has been left in his heart, or,
if the expression be preferred, left in his very
flesh by the torn cluster of his imperishable
habits.

“T have never written from imagination,”
said Gogol: “it is a talent which I do not pos-
sess.” “Pushkin,” he says in another place,
“has hit it right when in speaking of me he
declared that he had never known in any other
writer an equal gift of making a vivid picture
of the miseries of actual life, in sketching with
a firm touch the nothingness of a good-for-
nothing man.” This talent, which will be seen
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 59

illustrated in such a brilliant way in the great
romance of.“ Dead Souls,” already begins to
give a striking character to the stories written
by Gogol about St. Petersburg. Here he de-
scribes in a most fascinating way the morti-
fications, the humiliations, the tortures even,
which he had felt or anticipated at the time
of the painful beginning of his literary career,
and his wearisome sojourn in the bureaucracy.

“The Portrait,” for example, is a fantastic
tale which is distinguished from the stories of
the former collection by a satiric accent full of
bitterness. It is the account of a painter kept
in the depths of wretchedness just as long as
he takes his art seriously. A happy chance
places in his hands a sum of money which
allows him to engage rooms on the Nevsky
Prospekt. He allows trickery to usurp the
place of work. He grows rich from the day
when he loses his talent : however, the feeling
of having deserted his ideal follows him like
remorse, and this remorse leads him straight
to madness.

“The Cloak” is the story of a small official,
gentle, conscientious, but timid, slow, and ab-
60 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

sent-minded. The poor devil has a fixed pur.
pose, —the purchase of a cloak to keep him
from the cold. This never-to-be-realized idea
finally unsettles his somewhat feeble brain.

It is noticeable that the most lugubrious re-
frains serve for the conclusion of these different
moral analyses. ‘The recollections of a Luna-
tic,’ known in France under the title ‘“ Les
Mémoires d’un Fou,” take the reader one step
farther into this region of mental trouble, which
is explored with a boldness truly disquieting.
Involuntarily one thinks of the author’s own
final insanity ; and the tale has the effect of a
prelude, or at least of a prognostication.

At the risk of repetition, I lay especial em-
phasis upon this evolution which took place in
the mind and in the work of Nikolai Gogol.

”

In the “Evenings at the Farm,’ the satirical
note scarcely appears, except in a few details;
it is found tempered, and as it were refreshed,
by a pure breath of poetry ; Nature spoke there
almost as much as man, and she spoke a lan- .
guage of very penetrating sweetness and of
superb grandeur. Inthe novels on St. Peters-

burg, satire has already entirely usurped her
MIKOLAT GOGOL. 61

place. There is added, to be sure, an element
of fancy, and of caprice, which is no longer the
poetry of the first novels, but which still draws
on the imagination; a troubled, unregulated
imagination, which in Gogol shows a physical
and moral state sufficiently akin to the hyper-
eesthesia of seers, of the insane. This period
of excitement is followed by several years of
rather morose observation and contemplation,
during which Gogol writes or plans for his two
great works, the comedy of “The Revizor,” and
the romance of “The Dead Souls.” Here we
are in full satire, and the satire is fully in the
domain of reality,—reality often vulgar, and
sometimes odious. The author paints only
what he sees; and if amid the objects of his
contemplation, and his keen pitiless glance,
there passes often as it were a shade of illusion,
it is only a. gloomy illusion, a reflection of
melancholy obscuring the real day, and making
the colors of things more sombre, the aspect of
men more pitiable.

It is not that the romance of “The Dead
Souls,” and especially the comedy of “The
Revizor,’ have not details, or even whole
62 NIKOLAL GOCOL.

scenes, which are very amusing. There is no
satire without gayety; and Gogol understands
how to indulge in raillery, that is to say, how
to make fun at the expense of another, as
perfectly as any satirist that ever lived. But
never was laughter more bitter than his, and
it never came nearer the ancient definition,
“cachinnus perfidum ridens.’ This bitterness
of style is only too well explained by a morbid
state of mind, the first manifestations of which
can be traced back even to Gogol’s infancy,
while its tragic end was madness.
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 63

VI.

Tue comedy of “The Revizor” (The Inspect-
or-General) is therefore a satire, —a satire
on Russian functionaryism. The action takes
place in a small provincial city. The ¢chénov-
niks of the district have met at the mayor’s, for
news has just been brought of the approaching
visit of the vevizor. ‘ What can you expect?”
asks the mayor’ with a sigh: “it is a judgment
from God! Hitherto it has fallen on other
cities. It is our turn now.”

Like a prudent man, he has taken his meas-
ures, and he advises the other employees to do
likewise. “You,” he says to the director of the
hospital, — “you will do well to take pains that
every thing is on a good footing. ... Let
“em put on white cotton nightcaps, and don’t
allow the patients to look like chimney-sweeps
as they usually do.—And you,” he says to

L Gorodnitchi.
64 NIKOLAS GOGOL.

the doctor, “you must look out that each bed
has its label in Latin, or some other language,
... And it would be better not to have so
many patients, for they won’t fail to throw
the blame on the administration.” The director
of the hospital explains the method of treat-
ment which is adopted. No costly medicines:
man is a simple being; if he dies, he dies;
if he recovers, he recovers. Besides, any other
method would be scarcely practicable with a
German doctor who does not understand Rus-
sian, and consequently cannot tell at all what
his patients say.

“You,” he says to the justice of the peace,
“pay attention to your tribunal! Your boy
brings his geese into your great hall, and they

come quacking between the legs of the plain-
tiffs. . . . And your audience-chamber looks like
—the Devil knows what! a horsewhip in the
midst of briefs! and the assessor, who always
exhales an odor as though he had just come
out of a distillery!” But the most serious
part of the matter is the rumors of corruption.
“A trifle,” replies the justice: “a few grey-
hounds as presents.” And he immediately
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 65

returns allusion for allusion: “Ah! I did not
say that if some one had presented me with
a five-hundred-ruble suba, and a shawl for
my wife’ — The mayor interrupts warmly,
with that tone of hypocrisy so common to the
Russian ¢chinxovuik, “That’s all right! Do
you know why you take presents of dogs?
It’s because you don’t believe in God. You
never go to church. I at least have some
religion: Fridays I go to mass. But you—
Ah! I know you well. When you begin to
descant on the way the world was made, your
hair stands up on your head.

«And you,” he says to the principal of the
college, —‘“‘you watch over your professors.
Their actions are suspicious; there is one who
so far forgets himself in his chair as to put
his fingers behind his cravat, and to scratch his
chin: it is not necessary to teach the young
habits of independence.’ The postmaster re-
mains. The mayor urges him to open a few
letters, so as to assure himself that there are
no denunciations. ‘“ You need not teach me
my trade,” replies the postmaster: “I have
nothing else to do.” In fact, it is his daily
66 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

amusement : he could not do without this read-
ing. Some letters are as well composed as the
Moscow journals. He has at this very moment
in his pocket a young lieutenant’s letter, —
reminiscences of a ball, an elegant description.
The mayor begs him to hold back every peti-
tion of complaint. ‘“There’s nothing to fear
any other way. It would be a different thing
if this were generally the custom ; but it’s just
a little family affair, the way we do it.”

Two loungers of the place,’ two self-impor-
tant bustlers, in their eager rivalry of tittle
tattle and gossip, run up all out of breath, and,
after a great deal of desultory talk, are delivered
of the great news. He has come, the govern-
ment ¢chinovntk, the rcvizor ; he saw them eat-
ing salmon at the hotel; he cast a terrible look
at their plates. ‘Ah / God in heaven,” cries
the mayor; “have pity upon us, miserable
offenders!”

And here follows a general confession, a re-
capitulation of the most recent sins of moment:
an under-officer’s wife whipped, prisoners’ de-
prived of their rations, wine-shops established in

! Bobtchinski and Dobtchinski by name.
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 67

open defiance of the law, the streets not swept.
“Tow old is he? He’s a young man; then
there’s more hope than with an old devil.
Quick! orders, measures; and let us get ahead
of him. My hat! my sword! but the sword is
ruined.

“That cursed hatter! He sees that the mayor
has an old sword, and does not send him a new
one. What a pack of villains! Az/L/ my fine
fellows! I am perfectly sure they have their
complaints all ready, and that they will rise up
right out of the cobble-stones. Let everybody
take hold of the street. The Devil take the
street! Fetch me a broom, I say, and have
the street cleaned in front of the hotel; and
let it be well done.—Listen! Take care
there, you / I know you well. You put on
a saintly look, and yet you hide the silver
spoons in your boots, You look out! Don’t
you dare to stirme up! What kind of a job
did you concoct at the tailor’s? He gave you
two arshins of cloth to make you a uniform,
and you gobbled up the whole piece. Atten-
tion! You steal too much for your rank.”

That phrase has taken its place among the
68 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

popular proverbs in Russia, and our Moliére
has not many more pointed. Exactly as in
Moliére, the situation is spun out and renewed
with a liveliness which suffers no loss of force.
On the mayor’s lips, command follows com.
mand; ideas crowd upon one another; words:
get tripped up; exclamations of fury, of terror,
fly out ; the note of hypocrisy mingles with his
main characteristic, the violence of which forces
its way to the surface under false appearances.
And this inward trouble is rendered visible, as
it were, by stage tricks, not free from vulgarity,
but extremely amusing. “You have the hat-
box in your hand: here is your hat.” All this
forms a rude, rough, but new and irresistible
element of comedy.

The personage who thus sets a whole city by
the ears is a poor devil, himself in a peck of
trouble. Kléstakof has left Petersburg, where
he is a small official, in order to spend his vaca-
tion in the province. On the way he has gam-
bled, has emptied his pockets, and he is waiting
for his father to send him a fresh supply of
funds to pay travelling expenses and the land-
lord’s bill. “We learn all these details from his
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 69

valet Osip. He it is who, in his description of
the situation, gives us the key to his master’s
character. “One day he lives like a lord, the
next he perishes with starvation. But we
must have carriages. Every day he sends me
to get theatre-tickets. This lasts a week, and
then he tells me to bring him his new suit of
clothes from the nail. A suit costs him a hun-
dred and fifty rubles. He spends twenty rubles
for a waistcoat. I won’t answer for the trou-
sers: it’s impossible to tell what that amounts
to. And the wherefore of all this? the where-
fore? I will tell you. He does not attend to
his business ; he goes for a walk on the Presh-
pektive (the Nevsky Prospekt). He plays his
game. Akh! if the old gentleman knew all this
business, he would not bother his head whether
his son held a place in government: he would
take off his shirt, and give him such a drubbing
as would warm him up for a week.”

In this comedy of “The Revizor,” the valet
Osip fills a comic 7é/e quite like that of the fool
in Shakspeare, or the gvaczoso in the Spanish
comedy, The Russian buffoon, however, is a
clown rather than a joker. He does not en-
70 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

liven the scene with jests: he makes the specta-
tor split his sides by his artless blunders. This
smacks of farce, and may seem overdone. But
exaggeration in this way is not in the power
of every one. Itis the splendid fault of Aristo-
phanes, and even of Moliére. Let us remember
what Fénelon, La Bruyére, and Rousseau said
of it. And after all, in spite of the famous
definition, is it not the greatest triumph of the
comic poet to make the fastidious laugh, and
especially smile? An excellent actor of our
own time defined the great comedian as one
who has only to show his grimace at the open-
ing of a door, to make the whole public shout
with laughter. Are not the author and the
actor of genius told by the same characteristic?
Have not both of them the secret of this
grimace?

To return to the analysis of the piece: Klés-
takof scolds his valct because he no longer
dares to report the traveller’s complaints at the
office. The landlord treats this stranger as a
man who does not pay his bills. After many
negotiations he permits him to have some dish-
water as apology for soup, and some burned
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 7U

sole-leather in place of the roast. Amid the
vociferations wrung from him by such an out-
rage, Kléstakof beholds Osip returning to an-
nounce a call from the mayor. He imagines
that the official has come in order to put him
in arrest, with which he was threatened only a
few moments since; and he endeavors immedi-
ately to exonerate himself in the mayor’s eyes.
His explanations, enigmatical for the still more
anxious visitor, clear only for the reader or the
audience, have no other effect than to increase
the terror of the high functionary, who thinks
that he is in the presence of a crafty inspector-
general. In the incoherent remarks, full of in-
genuous confessions, which the little schznounik
makes to him, the mayor hears only certain
portentous words, —the prison, the minister.
He is only half re-assured when the conversa-
tion offers him a chance to proffer some money
and insist on its acceptance.

Kléstakof finally blurts out how matters really
stand. “I am here, and I have not a kopek.”
The mayor sees in this avowal only a further
illustration of cunning. He immediately offers
his services. The stranger borrows two hun-
72 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

Jred rubles of him. ‘Take it,” he says ea-
gerly; “don’t trouble to count it, it isn’t worth
while:” and instead of two hundred rubles, he
slips four hundred into his hand. And now
behold our two sharpers delighted to find them-
selves so easily in agreement. Kléstakof sus-
pects that there is some misunderstanding, but
he takes pains not to say a word which may
bring about an explanation. The mayor thinks
that he can detect, under Kléstakof’s ambigu-
ous actions, an immensely profound plan. “He
wants his zzcoguito respected. Two cam play
that game. Let us make believe not know who
ae is.” While the traveller’s baggage is trans-
sorted to a place more worthy of him, — that
S, to the mayor’s own dwelling, — they drive off
na drozhsky to visit the college and the hos-
sital. They hastily turn their backs on the
orison, which offers not the slightest attraction
‘or Kléstakof. ‘What's the good of seeing the
srison? It would be much better to give our
attention to institutions of beneficence!”
Here we are now in the mayor’s house.
They are waiting for Kléstakof; and the en-
‘rance of this important personage is very well
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 73

led up to by two or three scenes of chattering, in
which the voices of the mayor’s wife and daugh-
ter are dominant. At last he appears, followed
by the mayor and other ¢chinovnzks of the dis-
trict. They have just returned from visiting
the hospital; that is to say, from enjoying a
bounteous. collation at the superintendent’s.
The ice is broken: tongues are unloosed ;
Kléstakof'¢ performs wonders.

First come the exquisite courtesies of the in-
troduction, then the expatiation on the charms
of the capital; and instantly there begins a
series of inventions grafted by Kléstalof one
upon the other.

Here is the summing-up which loses the
devil-possessed movement, but not the comic
value of the scene.

At the ministry, Kléstakof is the intimate of
the dircektor; on the street, he is recognized as
he is out walking ; the soldiers leave the guard-
house, and present arms; at the theatre, he
frequents the green-room ; he composes vaude-
villes; he is the friend of Pushkin, “that great
original ;”' he writes for the magazines; he

? He says that he addresses Pushkin by the familiar pronoun tw
(thou).
74. NIKOLAT GOGOL.

wrote the articles on the “ Marriage of Fi-
raro,” “Robert le Diable,” “Norma.” It is
ie who writes under the signature of the
Baron de Brambeus. A book is mentioned: “I

as

wrote it;’’ the daughter objects that it bears
yn the title-page the name of Iuri Miloslavski ;
ae replies to the objection [by declaring that
‘here is another book by the same name, which
ae wrote]. The balls which he gives at Peters-
burg are marvellous beyond description; he
collects around his whist-table the minister
of foreign affairs, the ambassadors of France
and of Germany. From time to time a glimpse
of the truth shines through this tissue of im-
grovised boastings, but he leisurely recalls the
ohrase imprudently uttered. His importance’
ncreases at every new effort of his imagina-
sion. Once he had been offered the direction
of the ministry : he would have been glad to
lecline, but what would the Emperor have
said? Therefore he accepts the office, and
with what hands! He inspires everybody with
awe ; all bow in the dust before him ; the coun-
cil of state trembles at sight of him; at a
moment’s notice he will be made field-marshal.
wr NIKOLAL GOGOL. 75

’
The adventurer would not make any end of
skating did not intoxication become a factor,
and cut short his flow of words. The ¢chinov-
ntks, whose dismay has reached the highest
pitch, respectfully assist him to leave the din-
ing-room, to sleep off the effects of his glory
and his wine on a bed in a neighboring room.
“Charming young man!” say the mayor’s wife
and daughter in chorus. “ Terrible man!” de-
clares the mayor, in an anxious and dubious
tone, for he has detected in all this braggadocio
some grains of falsehood. ‘But how can one
speak of any thing without a little prevarica-
tion? The certain thing is that he makes fools
of the ministers, that he goes to court.” And
while the false revizor is snoring peacefully,
taking his mid-day nap, they turn to his valet
Osip as a make-shift. He also unflinchingly
receives flatteries, compliments, and fces.

But now follows the truly new and powerful
part of this bold satire. How to wheedle the
ferocious inspector? Is he a man to aecept
money? ‘This attempt at corruption may lead
to Siberia. The justice essays the risk with
fear and trembling. The bank-note which he
'6 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

ield in his hand slips out. To his great (r iy
nay, he sees the vevizor make a dash for the
iote; to his great delight, he hears the words,
‘You would do me great pleasure by lending
ne this.”— “Why, certainly, only too much
1onor.” And discreetly he allows another to
ake his place.

The postmaster enters in great style, and as-
sumes his most official attitude. Kléstakof cuts
short the formalities of the interview: “Could
you not lend me three hundred rubles?” A
yew and eager acquiescence ; a new and still
nore eager disappearance.

The college principal appears: Kléstakof,
iow in good humor, offers him a cigar, in-
lulges in rollicking conversation, all of which
completely dumbfounds the poor man’s brain,
which is already full of perplexity. But a new
orced loan of three hundred rubles is accom-
lished in four words; and the principal takes
‘0 his heels, crying, ‘God have mercy, he has
10t visited my classes yet!”

The director of the hospitals has hoped to
whiten himself at the expense of the other ¢chz-
zovuiks. He has brought against them a com-
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 77

alaint which our adventurer has but to take
iction upon. The false vevizor consents that
ill the details should be transcribed for him.
What the director does not think to proffer is
the sum of four hundr@d rubles; but this is
inally demanded of him, and paid over with-
yut a word.

It is more difficult to extract a little money
‘rom the two gossips who were the first to
liscover, in the traveller at the inn, the stuff
of which an inspector-general is made. This
devil of a man nevertheless has the skill to ex-
tort a little something from them. They are
not ¢chinouniks, to be sure, but how gayly they
swell the ranks of the procession! Gogol jus-
tifies their visit in showing them up in the
capacity of petitioners. The one wants to legiti-
mize a bastard son of his, “born, so to speak,
in wedlock,” and consequently half legitimate.
The other would like to have his name men-
tioned, on some suitable occasion, before the
court and the Emperor: “nothing but these
words, ‘in such and such a village lives such
and such a person;’ yes, nothing more, —
‘such an one lives in such a village.’”
78 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

This train of ¢chzxouniks has its counterpart
full of eloquent, and even melancholy, humor.
Kléstakof has just finished counting his money;
he finds the part easy to play, and full of profit.
But Osip, whose dull fad contains more sense
than his master’s giddy pate, advises him to
have his post-horses put in, and to pack off
while yet there is time. Kléstakof admits that
his reasoning is good; still, the farce is so pleas-
ant that he cannot refrain from writing to one
of his friends, a Petersburg journalist. It is
easy to conjecture that this letter will never
reach its destination, and that it will serve to
bring about the dénodment.

Suddenly voices are heard outside the house.
It is the merchants, the hatter at their head,
coming to bring their complaints before the
revizor. The mayor steals from them shame-
lessly: when they complain, he slams the door
in your face, saying, “I will not apply the
knout, for that’s against the law; but I will
make you eat humble pie.’”” A woman comes,
complaining that her husband had been forcibly
conscripted as a soldier, in place of two others
who had escaped service through the aid of
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 79

oribes. “ Your husband is a thief: he is al-
‘eady, or he will be,” —that is the excuse of-
ered her by this “ blackguard of a mayor.”

But it is a real inspector-general’s business
0 perform the functions of his office. Klés-
‘akof has enjoyed the profits, and thinks that
1e can confine his duties to that. At this mo-
nent the sick appear in their hospital dressing-
zowns, fever and pestilence in their faces: the
‘alse revizor rudely drives away all this impor-
cunate throng, and shuts the door fast.

In happy contrast to the lugubrious impres-
sion of these scenes, the author introduces
some inventions of charming buffoonery. The
nayor’s daughter enters. To beguile the
ime, Kléstakof makes love to her, kisses her,
‘alls on his knees before her. The mother ap-
sears, and expresses her astonishment — but in
the fashion of Bélise, in the ‘Femmes Sa-
vantes ;” such homage as that is befitting. The
Jaughter departs after a sharp reprimand.
The extempore lover, now addressing the
nother, continues the wooing which he had
yegun with the daughter, who returns just as
ie throws himself on his knees for the second
‘0 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

ime. The mayor comes in unexpectedly, and
Imost chokes with surprise to hear an in.
pector-general ask for his daughter’s hand,
dow can he deny himself such an honor? The
greement is made on the spot, and the two
overs fall into each other’s arms.

Just at this moment the valet Osip comes,
nd, twitching his master by the tail of his
‘oat, announces that the horses are ready,
[he adventurer, recalled to reality, ventures
. brief explanation: a very wealthy uncle to
‘Isit, a day’s journey distant. The post-chaise
leparts; and the act ends with the postilion’s
ommand to his horses, “Off with you, on
vings !”

The dénodment has been unnecessarily antici-
ated. It has a gayety, a dash, a variety in its
etail, which make it amusing, fascinating,
ich in surprises. Nevertheless it is only the
lentical dénotment of our “Misanthrope,”
he all-revealing letter *in which each char-
cter of the drama receives his share of epi-
rams. Gogol’s humor is given free play in
his series of rapidly sketched portraits, the
riginals of which are united around the reader,
NIKOLA? GOGOL. 81

vho is spared no more than the rest. The
levelopment of the idea has an inexhaustible
verve; but the idea itself belongs to Moliére,
ind Mérimée long ago ascribed: to him all
he honor of it.

What belongs to Gogol, what gives the dé
coment of “The Revizor” an original coloring,
s the mayor’s comic fury at finding that he
as been cheated in such a fine fashion. His
1ew title of father-in-law of an inspector-gen-
‘ral had already begun to exalt him, to intoxi-
‘ate him. He has crushed the merchants
vith it. He has overwhelmed them with the
ightning of his glance. He has dismissed
hem with one of those deep phrases, such
is paint the Russian ¢chinounzk with his re-
loubtable hypocrisy: “God commands us to
orgive: I have no spite against you. You
vill only be good enough to remember that I
im giving my daughter in marriage, and not
o the first noble that comes along. Endeavor
o have your congratulations suitable to the
iccasion. Don’t expect to get off with a
moked salmon or a sugar-loaf. Do you hear
ne? Go, and God protect you!” The sly
e
32 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

ld dog has already begun to dream of a gen-
‘ral’s epaulets : it can be seen how he is puffed
ip; he receives with the air of a prince the
inctuous compliments of the other ¢chinouniks,
suddenly the pail of milk falls, and the milk is
ipilt; the balloon bursts! In all that comes to
ass, there is only sheer comedy; a skilful
harper, and duped rascals. The one who is
nost duped of all, the mayor, gives himself
ip to a storm of the most amusing frenzy.
‘You great fool!” he says to himself, pounding
iimself, “idiot! you have taken a dish-clout for
L great personage! And this very moment he
s galloping off down the road to the sound of
he bells. He will tell the story to everybody.
Worse than all, he will find some penny-a-liner,
ome scribbler, to cover you with ridicule! Be-
old the disgrace of it! He will not spare
rour rank or your office, and he will find peo-
le to applaud him with their voices and their.
ands. Youlaugh? Laugh at yourselves, yes.
He stamps with passion.] If I only had’em!
hese scribblers! Cursed liberals! Spawn of
he Devil! I’d put a bit on’em! I’d put acurb
m’em! I'd crush the whole brood of ’em.”
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 83

And behold what adds a still keener flavor to
his adventure.

At the very moment when the mayor, out
if his wits at having been capable of mistaking
his fop for an inspector-general, is trying to
ind the one who egged him on to commit this
olunder, a policeman enters, and says, “ You
ire requested to repair instantly to the revizor,
vho has come on a mission from Petersburg.
e has just arrived at the hotel.” The whole
“ompany are, as it were, thunderstruck; and
the curtain falls on a scene of’ silence, the ar-
‘angement of which Gogol provided for with the
ninute accuracy of a realistic writer, for whom
ittitudes and facial expression are the indis-
yensable complement of a moral painting. In
roint of fact, they are, especially at times when
. lively emotion tears away all masks, the faith-
ul and legible translation of character.
34 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

VII.

AFTER having laid bare the vices of the
Russian administration, in his satiric comedy
xf “The Revizor,” Gogol attacked the social
yuestion in his romance of the “Dead Souls,”
He set himself to work at the very moment
when the Tsar Nicolas, in a-liberal humof,
sroclaimed in a wkaz of prodigious power the
orinciple of the abolition of serfage. Unhap-
dily this liberal policy of the throne was not
strong enough to hold its own before the dis-
satisfaction of the higher classes: the decree
vas not put into effect. But the impulse was
ziven, and Gogol’s satire once more became
the echo of the popular feeling.

The very title of the romance was a satiric
‘ouch, the significance of which could not
sscape a Russian, but which for a French
‘eader needs rather a long explanation. At
the time of serfdom, a Russian proprietor’s
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 85

ortune was not valued according to the extent
f his lands, but according to the number of
aale serfs which were held upon them. These
erfs were called “souls” (dushi). The owner
ff a thousand souls was a great proprietor ; the
wner of a hundred souls was only a beggarly
ountry squire. The proprietor paid the capi-
ation tax for all the souls on his domain; but,
s the census was rarely taken, it happened
hat he had long to pay for dead serfs, until a
ew official revision struck them out from
mong the number of the living. It is easy
o see what these dead souls must have cost a
roprietor whose lands had been visited by
amine, cholera, or any other scourge; and his
aterest in getting rid of them will be ex-
licable.

What seems more surprising is, that there
rere people ready to purchase them. But here,
gain, it is sufficient to lessen the strangeness
f the fact, if we accompany it with a simple
xplanation. There was in Russia, at the time
» which Gogol’s novel transports us, a sort of
ank, established and supported by the State,
ad directed by the managing boards of certain
86 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

institutions for orphan boys and girls, deaf.
mutes, and others. This bank borrowed money
at four per cent, and loaned on deposits. Here
a man could pawn his personal property, or
mortgage his real estate and his peasants up to
ten thousand souls, say at two hundred rubles a
head ; in other words, up to two million rubles,
Here is a reason why the hero of Gogol’s
romance, Tchitchikof, a former customs officer,
dismissed for embezzlement, purchases dead
souls. He hopes some day to possess a suffi-
cient number to populate an_ out-of-the-way
estate in a distant province of the empire, and
to pawn this domain to the State for a sum
large enough to permit him to go and live in
grand style abroad.

As can be seen, the motive of the book has
lost its point since the abolition of serfage, and
this motive never was very interesting except
for Russian readers. But this motive serves
Gogol only as a piquant pretext for a series of
studies of provincial life in Russia. These
studies have an originality, a variety, and some-
‘imes a force, so great that it is to be feared
est our analysis can give only a very feeble
notion of it.
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 87

The hero of “Dead Souls” is a veritable
ero of a realistic romance; that is to say, he
as nothing which justifies the title of hero.
Je is neither handsome nor ugly, neither fat
or lean, neither stiff nor pliant; he cannot any
onger be taken for a young man. He is more
irudent than courageous, more ambitious than
ionorable, more obsequious than dignified, more
crupulous of his bearing than of his conduct ;
t once capable of trickery, and guilty of heed-
assness; without talent, but not without ex-
iedients ; with no foundation of goodness, but
ot without some small change of benevolence;
rithout conscience, but not lacking a certain
arnish of decency and gravity. This charac-
erless' personage is brought out ina sort of
elief by the very frame in which the author
as ingeniously placed him. Tchitchikof
ravels across the province; and Gogol does
ot separate him from what is his indispensable
ccompaniment in his outlandish Odyssey, —I
aean from his coach, his horses, and his ser-
ants.

Petrushka, his lackey, is a blockhead of

1 Effact.
88 NIKOLAT GOGOL. nee

ance:

thirty summers, with a big nose, thick lips,
coarse features, and with a skin exhaling an
odor sui generis which clings to every thing that
comes in his vicinity. He speaks rarely, and
reads as much as possible ; but little difference
makes it to him, what the nature of the book
may be. He does not bother his head with the
subject. ‘What pleased him was not what he
read: it was the mere act of reading. It did
not trouble him to see that he was eternally
coming upon words the meaning of which the
deuce alone knows.”

The coachman, Selifan, is a little man, as
talkative as Petrushka is silent. He fills the
long hours of the journey across the deserted
steppe or the monotonous cultivated fields,
with monologues laughable in their variety.
For the most part, he addresses his incoherent
discourse to his horses. With his reproaches,
sometimes accompanicd by a blow of the whip
under the belly or across the ears, he stirs up
“Spot,” a huge trickster, harnessed on the
right for draught, who makes believe pull so
that one would think that he was doing him-
self great injury, but in reality he is not pull-
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 89

ing at all. The bay, on the contrary, is a very
“respectable” horse: he does his work con-
scientiously ; as does also the light sorrel, sur-
named the Assessor because he was bought
of a justice. The coachman, Selifan, who
understands the spirit of his animals, finds no
subject too lofty for their comprehension. He
quotes their master’s example, who is a man
to be respected because he has been in gov-
ernment service, because he is a college coun-
cillor;! and when once he enters into these
abstract and subtile considerations about duty,
he goes so far, he soars so high, that he regu-
larly gets lost in the confusing network of
Russian roads, and sometimes he finishes his
discussion in the bottom of a slough.

As to the carriage, it also has its strange
physiognomy, and, so to speak, its national
stamp. It is the britchka, with leather flaps
fortified with two round bull’s-eyes ; the britch-
ka, whose postilion, not booted in the German
fashion, but simply with his huge beard and
his mittens, seated on no one knows what,

® Kollezhsky sovyetnik, the ninth rank in the civil ¢chin, giving
personal nobility.
90 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

whistles, brandishes his whip, shouts his song,
and makes his team fly over the trembling
earth.

In this equipage Tchitchikof reaches the vil-
lage of N——. He introduces himself to the
mayor, to the vice-mayor, to the fiscal attorney,
to the xatchalzik of the court, to the chief
of police, to the vodka-farmer, to the general
director of the crown works. His politeness,
his flattering words skilfully accommodated to
each of these gentlemen, his air of concern in

- presence of the ladics, immediatcly give him the
reputation of being a man of the best tone. He
is overwhelmed with invitations; he makes his

 

first appearance in the fine society of N
on the occasion of a party given by the mayor.
The throng of functionaries is divided into two
classes, — the ‘“‘slenders” ( 2ze¢s), who hover like
butterflies around the ladies, jargon gayly in
French, and in three years succeed in mort
gaging all their paternal property to the Lom-
bard; and secondly the “solids” (gros), who
thesaurise without making any stir, buy estates
in the name of their wives, and some fine day
go into retirement, so as to go and live like

-
NIKOLAT GOGOL. gI

village proprietors, like true Russian Jdarins,
until their heirs, who are generally the “slen-
ders,” come to take possession of the inherit-
ance, and make a single mouthful of it.

In this somewhat monotonous .throng, Tchi-
tchikof’s attention is attracted by two country
gentlemen, — Manilof, a Russian Philinte, ex-
tremely fair-spoken, assiduous, and sensitive ;
and Sabakeévitch, a colossus of brusque man-
ners, of laconic speech. Both of them invite
the new-comer to honor with his presence their
dwellings, which are only a few versts distant.
Here the novelist’s plan becomes apparent.
He is going to take his hero and his readers
from visit to visit, through all the households
of these provincial proprietors, whose foibles
he intends to make sport of, and whose vices
he intends to scourge. And what the travel-
ler’s business will bring under our observation
in his peregrinations, will be the condition of
the serfs under different masters, —a preca-
rious and ill-regulated condition under the best,
lamentable under those who are bad. Thus
the importance of the literary value in the

»

romance of the “ Dead Souls,” whatever it may
92 MIKOLAL GOGOL.

be, fades before the political and social aim
of the conception. Or, rather, here may be
seen the new and durable character which
Gogol impressed upon the national romance,
He applied that form in which fancy reigns
to the real description of Russian life: that is to
say, he devoted it to the portraying of those
abuses of every sort in which the Russian is
still, to a certain degree, swaddled; to the ex-
pression of the sufferings under which the
thinking class, more oppressed to-day than the
serfs of yore, feel themselves more and more
crushed ; finally, to the translation of all those
obscure but insistent desires, those vague but
ardent aspirations, which are summed up in the
o:d Muscovite cry é‘ Forward!” repeated to-day
in a whisper, from one end of the country to
the other, like a watchword.

The first household which Gogol brings us
to visit, in company with the purchaser of dead
souls, is that of the Manilof family. At the
very approach to the village of Manilovka, you
begin to feel an impression of vulgarity, of
vapidness, and of exuz. The country is poor,
- but it does not exclude pretentiousness: in the
NIKOLAl GOGOL. 93

bottom is a greenish pond, like a billiard-cloth,
and on the higher part of the rising ground
a few atrophied birches. Under two of these
decrepit and consumptive trees stands an
arbor with flat roof, with green painted lattice-
work, the entrance of which is made by two
little pillars with a pediment, on which can be
read the inscription: “ Temple de la méditation
solttatre.”’

The frame is entirely appropriate to the
characters. Marfilof is a pale blonde, with eyes
blue as fafence. “His ever-smiling face, his
ever-sugared words, make you say at first,
‘What a good and amiable man!’ The next
minute you will not say any thing; and the
third you ask yourself, ‘What the deuce is this
man, anyway?’” Above all, he is a man weary
of life. He has not a passion, or a hobby, or
a fault. He has nothing decisive in his char-
acter. At one time he was in the service; and
he left in the army the reputation of being
a very gentle officer, but a “spendthrift of
Levant tobacco.” After’ returning to his
estate, he allowed the management of it to
go as chance would have it. ‘When one
94 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

of his peasants came to find him, and said
scratching the nape of his neck, ‘ Bartzyetet
me go and find some work so as to earn enough
to pay my obvok (quit-rent) ;’— ‘All right, go
ahead!’ he replied, drawing a full whiff from
his: pipe; and he did not take the trouble to
think that this man wanted to get out of his
sight so as to have a better chance to indulge
in his habits of drunkenness.” Manilof him-
self is continually plunged in a sort of somno-
lent revery which is like intoxication of the
mind. His thoughts do not emerge from the
embryonic state, but they come back with
the persistence of the fixed idea in the brain
of a man who has no ideas. His bureau always
has the same book open at the same place.
The parlor of his house was hung round with
silk and luxuriously furnished many years ago.
It has always lacked two arm-chairs, “which
aren’t done yet;” and this has been so since
the first days of his marriage. A bronze can-
delabrum, which is an object of art, has as a
pendant a wretched copper candlestick, out of
shape, humpbacked, soiled with tallow.

This disorder disturbs no one in the house.
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 95

Manilof and his wife are enchanted with every
thing, —with themselves, with their children,
with their neighbors, with the city of N——.
Every ¢chinovutk is the “most distinguished,
the most lovable, the most honorable of men.”
People so prone to admiration and to praise
melt into gush at the visit of their guest. Me,
in his turn, praiscs Manilof’s merits to the
skies, goes into ecstasics over the precocious
intelligence of their two sons: Alcides and
Themistocles; and when he has charmed them
all by his delicate attentions, he takes Manilof
aside, and asks if he has lost many peasants
since the last census. The proprietor, in great
perplexity as to what answer to give, summons
his prikashchik, formerly a peasant, who has
cut his beard and’ thrown his kaftan to the
winds, a great friend of the feather-bed and
fine down foot-warmers, godfather-or relative
of all the big-wigs of the village, a tyrant over
the poor devils whom. ne loads down with fees
and tasks. The Paty old fellow, who gets
up at eight,o’clock in the morning, and who
gets up sinoly to put his red-copper samevar
on the table, and then to tipple his tea like a
96 NIKOLAS GOGOL.

gourmand for an hour and a half, has no greater
knowledge than his master about the insignifi-
cant question of the mortality: of the serfs,
“The number of the dead? That’s something
we don’t take note of. How’s that ?— the
number of the dead? No one has had the idea
of counting them, naturally.”

Tchitchikof asks to have an exact list made
out, with the names, surnames, nicknamcs,
dates of birth, color of eyes, tints of hair,
When the prikashchik has gone, Tchitchikof
comes to the delicate explanation. At first
Manilof takes his guest to be crazy; but his
face has nothing about it that is not re-assuring.
He still hesitates, in the fear of some illegality.
The purchaser dispels this fear. The bill of
sale will not say any thing about dead souls.
“Dead? Never! We will have them entered
as living; they are so inscribed on the official
registers. No one shall ever induce me to
break the law. I respect-it. I have suffered
enough from my uprightness daring my career
as a tchinovnik. Duty first, the Iyw above all
things. That’s the kind of man I\am, and I
shall die the same. When the law speaks, there
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 97

must be no objections!” Manilof is therefore
re-assured ; and when he is convinced that the
crown has only to gain by this exchange of
property, even though it be fictitious, he offers
all his dead souls for nothing. He would like
to have many other occasions to show his new
friend “all the drawing of his heart, all the
magnetism of his soul.” The friend takes his
departure, promising the precocious children
some toys; and “when the cloud of dust raised
by the britchka had drifted away, Manilof came
into the house again, sat down, and abandoned
himself to the sweet thought that he had shown
his crony a perfect amiability, such as might
have been expected from his eminently benevo-
lent and complaisant soul.” ;
Not all his negotiations come to this suc- |
cessful issue with such ease. In driving over
to the house of the laconic giant Sabakévitch,
the equipage gets off the track, and the car-
riage is overturned directly in front of a coun-
‘vetllTag, where an old Russian lady, Mrs.
bote otchka, lives. As in the case of Mani-
| he appearance of the landscape in some
¢ lFree gives the clew to the character of the

a
98 NIKOLAS GOGOL.

native. The landscape is little else than a
nest for poultry. owls of every sort fill the
court-yard, behind which stretch vegetable-gar-
dens, variegated here and there with fruit-trees
protected by great webs of thread. Amid this
vulgarly utilitarian nature, rises a pole which
ends in a bar shaped like a cross; and on
the arm of this cross is nailed a nightdress,
surmounted by a damaged bonnet belong-
ing to “the lady and mistress of all this
property.”

Tchitchikof does not waste so much polite-
ness upon Nastasia Petrovna (these are the
lady’s given names) as upon Manilof. He is
Russian ; that is to say, he possesses in perfec-
tion all those shades of speech and all those
different intonations by which it is possible to
~Show the one with whom you are speaking,
veneration, respect, deference, esteem, vulgar
consideration, disdainful familiarity, and, de-
scending still lower, all thegrees._of patron-
age, even to the extreme limit of sc Scardet
cordingly he opens his project in fre all ,
style. But the proposition shocks* :

woman. “What do you want to do wo” y
~~

  
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 99

dead?” she asks, fixing upon him two great
eyes streaked with yellow saffron. She sus-
pects some shrewd trick in this business ; and
her obstinacy, characteristic of the narrow-
minded but calculating dada, finally exasperates
the purchaser, who gets carried away, pounds
the floor with a cane-seated chair within his
reach, and to the old woman’s horror mingles
the name of the Devil in his furious exclama-
tions. These violent actions, however, have
less effect than a promis { deftly introduced
into the conversation: ¢I wanted to buy of
you your various farm pyoducts ' because I have
charge of various crown’contracts.” This men-
tion of the crown brings the old blockhead to
terms. ‘“ Mu, yes, I consent. Iam ready to sell
them for fifty paper rubles. Only look, my
father, at that question of supplies. If it hap-
pens you want rye-flour or buckwheat, or grits,
or slaughtered neats, then please don’t forget
me.” One good turn desétves another. The
contract is instantly 4fawn up; and Mrs. Kara-
botchka, seeing t guest fetch forth from his
travelling outfit a supply of newly stamped

 

! Khozyaistvennuie produktu,
100 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

paper, arranges to have him leave a packag
for five rubles in case of necessity."

All this comedy would be well worth tran;

lating word for word. The situation alread:
treated in the preceding canto is here renewe

' with consummate art. The characters are de
‘veloped in broad light: the contrasts are for
cibly brought out; the drawing is full o
(freedom in its requisite vulgarity ; the coloring
‘is full of brilliancy in its rather trivial bold
ness, This country scene is itself enclosed
between two capital bits of narration, opening
and ending the chapter or canto with a sym.
metry of the most skilful effect.

At the beginning of the episode comes the
soliloquy of Selifan the coachman, with his
horses, already mentioned; the britchka’s wan-

1 «&¢ 4khti! what nice stamped paper you have!’ continued she,
gazing at him, at his portfolio. And, indeed, there was not much
stamped paperto be had then. ‘If you would only Jet me have a
sheet! I need it so much. It happens sometimes I want to write
a petition to the court, and I poy any thing fit to write on.’

“Tchitchikof explained to -her

kind; that it was designed for drawing

hat this paper was not of that

  
 

contracts in regard to serfs,
and not for petitions. However, in order\to accommodate her, he
let her have a few sheets for a ruble” (not five*ubles, as M. Dupuy
translates it, mistaking the word meaning price for five) —N. .D.

|
NIKOLAT GOGOL. IOI

derings in a pouring rain, across roads torn up
by the storm; finally the catastrophe which
sends the whole equipage to the bottom of a
ditch into the mud.

At the end of the canto we have the britch-
ka’s return guided by a little girl of the neigh-
borhood, a sort of wild Indian with bare legs
literally shod with fresh mire. Selifan drives
his team with a silent care which makes a
pointed contrast with his loquacious spirit the
day before. The horses, especially the mottled
one, miss his discourses ; for he substitutes for
them a hail-storm of treacherous goads in the
fat, pulpy, soft, delicate, and sensitive portions
of their bodies. At last, when the carriage
has emerged from the region of mud, and has
passed all these roads, running, in every sense
of the word, “like crawfish at market when
they are allowed to escape from the bag ;”
and when the coachman has reached the high-
way, and caught a glimpse of the public house,
“he reined in his team, helped the little maiden
to dismount, and, as he helped her, he looked at
her for the first time. He muttered between
his teeth, ‘What muddy legs! hu! hu! hu! all
102 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

the way from here home, she will soil the clean
grass!’ Tchitchikof gave the little maiden a.
copper coin, about two kopeks: she turned
her back quick as a flash, and off she went,
starting with five or six mad gambols; she
was enchanted at the splendid gift, still more
enchanted at having been allowed to sit on the
coach-box of the britchka.”

At the public house Tchitchikof falls in with
a character. whom he has already met at the
crown solicitor’s at dinner, where his famil-
iarity surprises him, less, however, than his
skill at cards, and the suspicious way in which
the other players watch his fingers. He is a
terrible braggart, and he carries off the traveller
willy-nilly... Once again the domain resembles
the owner. Nozdref is a great hand for going

ee

to fairs, a mighty tippler,_ a “mighty_gambler,

a mighty liar, or, as they say in Russia of these
impudent i improvisers, “a mighty maker of bul-
lets.” He is always ready to sell all his pos-
sessions at a bargain. He sometimes wins at
play, and he spends his gains in purchases of
every sort. The booths at the fairs in a few
hours absorb all his winnings. Generally he
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 103

loses; and, with the forlorn hope of getting
back his money, he casts into the same hole
his watch, his horses, and both carriage and
coachman. Some friend has to carry him
home in a simple short overcoat of Bokharian
stuff, despoiled and shorn, but filled only
with thoughts of having his revenge next
market-day. This imbecile’s country - house

 

has nothing more remarkable than his ken-

 

nels, where beasts of every race growl and
bark. As to the mill, the clamp which tight-
ens the mill- stone is missing. "The fields lie
fallow. Nozdref’s work- -shop is adorned only
with * Turkish | guns, “swords, poniards ; add to
that, pipes of every clay and of every size,
and an old hand-organ. ; Here the negotia-
tions about dead souls do not run smoothly.
‘Nozdref treats his man as though he were a
liar, a shai ou he wants _to compel bye, to
eee oiee then he offers to ‘put up up ‘souls at
lansquenet. Tchitchikof, in spite of insults,
accepts only a part of the queens; and the
game has hardly begun before he refuses to

play in consequence of the strange pertinacity
104 NIKOLAS GOGOL.

shown by his adversary’s sleeve in pushing for.
ward the cards which are not in the game.
Hence a terrible quarrel. Nozdref seizes the
suspicious player by the throat, and calls_his

valets to thrash him. The comedy is changing
into a tragedy. The purchaser of souls is paler
than one of his dead. At the critical moment
a carriage drives up, and from it descends the
deus ex machind, a police-officer, who comes to
arrest Nozdref for assault and battery com-
mitted by him and some other gentlemen on
the person of a Mr Maksimoef, whom they had
beaten on leaving some orgy.

The procession of vices and absurdities
sweeps on. Next to Nozdref, the -rascally
brutal gambler, appears/ Sabakévitch, the Rus-
sian gormandizer, —a colossus with enormous
feet, with a back as wide as the rump of a
Viatkan horse, with arms and legs huge as the
granite posts which fence in certain monu-
ments ; a man capable of wrestling with a bear,
himself a bear, as his surname Mikhail, which
is the nickname of the bear in Russia, suffi-
ciently indicates."

1 See Mérimée’s novel entitled Lokis. — Author’s note.
NIKOLAT GOGOL. 105

After Sabakevitch comes the miser Plushkin,
a portrait whose hideous relief outdoes the
effect of Balzac’s Grandet. The village where
he lives still preserves traces of former wealth,
rendering more noticeable and more frightful
the state of degradation and wretchedness into
which the present proprietor has let it fall.
The appearance of the miser on his threshold,
his sullen reception of the traveller, the charac-
teristics of his dress and his person, the enu-
meration of the treasures which fill his sheds,
the utensils crowding his office, the bric-a-brac
loading his what-not, the description of his
stingy ways, the contrast with his wise and
happy past, the account of his domestic trou-
‘bles, and of his rapid transformation under the
influence of anxiety and loneliness, —all this
makes this canto not only a picturesque paint-
ing, a most lively comedy, but, more than all, a
psychological study as deep as it is novel. In
fact, avarice may have been as well described in
its effects; it had never before been so studied
in its principles, and, as it were, determined in
its essence.

Plushkin has sold Tchitchikof all his dead
106 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

souls, and all his runaway serfs into the bar-
gain. The list of the different purchases al-
ready concluded reaches a respectable length,
The names, surnames, nicknames, description,
and other particulars, complaisantly noted down
by those who sell, give Tchitchikof the illusion
of having actual property. His imagination
brings all these dead to life. He knows their
ways, their faults, their habits, the distinctive
characteristics of each. The only thing that is
left is to have all the purchases sanctioned by
the tribunals. Now or never is the chance to
show up in satire the Russian échinovniz and his
incurable corruption. The cunning tricks of
the clerks, whose slightest service must be
bought, the watchalnik's collusion, the character
of the witnesses, the method of blinding the
chief of police as to the nature of the contract,
—here would be the material for another
comedy in the style of “The Revizor.”

Every thing comes out just as Tchitchikof
desires. In the village, he marches from ova-
tion to ovation: he seems at the height of his
good fortune. But, unhappily for him, Nozdref
meets him at the mayor’s ball, and publicly and
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 107

in a loud voice makes sport of him on account
of his craze for purchasing dead souls. This
mysterious word has its effect. Tchitchikof is
shunned as a dangerous man. The tattle of a
whole idle village ravins on his reputation. Jus-
tice is stirred up: it imputes to him all sorts
of misdemcanors and even crimes. True, these
imputations almost instantly are shown to be
false; but public opinion does not make
charges against an innocent man for nothing.
Suspicion always hovers about him. Every
townsman goes a little farther than what has
been already supposed. One day the postmas-
ter comes declaring that Tchitchikof is Capt.
Kopéikin. This Kopéikin is a robber chieftain,
known by his wooden leg and his amputated
arm. It is needless to say that Tchitchikof
possesses all his limbs.

Finally Nozdref, who has done all the harm,
makes partial reparation. He tells Tchitchikof
what is thought and said about him in the city
of N——. The man of “acquisitions” has his
britchka cleaned and greased, straps his valise,
and gives Selifan his orders for their departure.
Selifan scratches the nape of his neck at this
108 NIKOLAL GOGOL.

order to depart. What did this expressive pan-
tomime mcan? Did he regret the wine-room,
and his friends the tipplers, he with the tulup
thrown negligently over his shoulders? Was
he deep in some love-affair, and did he mourn
the porte-cochérc, under the shelter of which he
squeezed two whitish hands at the hour when
the bandura-player, in red camisole, claws his
instrument? Did he mercly turn-a melancholy
glance towards the kitchen with its savory per-
fume of sauer-kraut, and look with dismay on
the weariness of the cold, the wind, the snow,
and the interminable roads, following this life
of contemplation? “His gesture might signify
all that, and many other things; for among the
Russians the action of scratching the nape of
the neck is not the indication of two or three
ideas, limited in number, but rather of an infi-
nite quantity of thoughts.”

They depart. A new Odyssey begins ; that is
to say, a new series of visits, and a new gallery
of portraits. This time the author seems to
have desired to soften his satire, and to add to
the critical portion of his work certain theories,
or, at least, certain counsels. Taking as his
NIKOLATL GOGOL. 109

ext Andréi Tentyotnikof, —a sweet-tempered
nd easy-going gentleman, who is slowly con-
uming away in the vague torment of a senti-
ental life, —he propounds his ideas on edu-
ation, and lays out his programme of studies
othe fashion of Rabelais, his favorite author.
n contrast to Andréi he places the charming
igure of Julienne, daughter of the old general
3etrishef. Those who blame Gogol for never
iaving created an elegant and graceful heroine
ave not read the thirteenth canto of “Dead
souls.” Never to be forgotten when once met
3 the dazzling amazon, whose portraiture thus
egins: “The person so suddenly introduced
vas bathed and caressed by the light of heaven ;
he was as straight and as agile as a rosewood
avelin.” Andréi is in love with her. But this
omance is scarcely begun before it is hidden
rom us, and in its place comes satire again.
We fall back into vulgar life, and into the
iost beastly epicureanism, with the gastrono-
uist Peetukof. This jovial fat-paunch has a
plenetic neighbor. With good health, and
ighty thousand rubles income, the handsome,
entle, and good Platonof is bored. He has only
110 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

this word on his tongue: exuz. His brother.
in-law Konstantin is apparently the only one of
these Russian grandees whom Gogol has been
pleased to spare. Industrious as an ox, he de.
mands of ‘his serfs constant labor. “I have
discovered,” he says, “that when a man does
not work, dreams come along, his brains run
away, and he becomes a mere idiot.” This
proprietor has, moreover, no claims to noble
descent. “He took very little thought about
his genealogical tree, judging that the posses-
sion of proofs was not worth the labor of
research, and that such documents have no ap-
plication to agriculture.” Finally, he contented
himself with speaking Russian without going
round Robin Hood’s barn, and, without any ad-
mixture of French, in thorough Russian style.

This wise man has made his property a model
domain, and he would like to see the country
peopled with good proprietors like himself. He
lends Tchitchikof money to purchase an estate
in the neighborhood. But we may conjecture
that the adventurer will not settle down so
soon. In fact, we are yet to see other ab-
surd specimens ; for example, the fool Koshka-
NIKOLAT GOGOL. IIt

-ef, who, though within two steps of ruin, plays
with governmental forms. He has transformed
ais domain into a little state divided into bu-
-eaus, with such inscriptions as these: “ Depot
of Farm Utensils ;” “Central Bureau for the
Settlement of Accounts;” “Bureau of Rural
Matters ;” “School of High Normal Instruc-
sion ;”’ etc. It is needless to say, that, through
the fault of the employees, the bureaus do not
work; for the Bureau of Edifices has taken his
last ruble, and the poor sovereign’s ruin is
rapidly drawing nigh.

Finally, the spectacle on which the narrator
longest holds our attention is that of the pov-
2rty whereto the various faults or vices, touched
oy our finger in this tale, bring the great ma-
ority of the small proprietors of Russia. Klo-
yéyef has been ruined this ten years. He still
ives, and his existence is a problem. To-day
sa gala day, grand dinner, play by French
ictors: the next, not a morsel of bread in the
arder. Any one would have hung himself,
lrowned himself, or put a bullet through his
read. Klobéyef finds the means of keeping up
his alternation of luxury and wretchedness.
112 NIKOLAT GOGOL.

He is a well-bred, enlightened, intelligent man:
he absolutely lacks common-sense. When he
is in trouble, he opens some pious book; and
when the compassion of his old friends, or the
charity of some strange lady on the lookout for
good works, succeeds in rescuing him, for the
time being, from the final tragedy, he ascribes
praise to Providence, thanks the holy images,
and begins to bite off from both ends this for-
tune come from Heaven.

With this portrait we must end the analysis
of “Dead Souls.” The impression, as can be
seen, is truly heart-rending. According to the
author’s own statement, “it is a picture of the
universal platitude of the country.” The story
is told, that the scoffer Pushkin, after hearing
his friend Gogol read this romance, said to him,
in a voice broken by emotion, “Good God! the
sad thing is our poor Russia.” It is indeed this
state of moral wretchedness which Gogol strove

_above all to make the Russian reader feel, even

though he had to do so at the cost of his own
popularity.

I shall pass briefly over the last part of the
romance, which is only an arrangement drawn
NIKOLAL GOGOL. 113

from the author’s notes. The adventurer is
seen for the second time in the clutches of the
law. He has forged a will, like Crispin in “Le
Légataire ;” and he is only released from prison
by the intercession of an old philanthropist,
who finally succeeds in softening the governor-
general’s severity. Tchitchikof has agreed to
become an honest man, or at least to marry,
and to found a line of honest folk.

It has been thought that in this violent but
straightforward governor, “animated by healthy
hatreds” as Alceste says, Gogol meant to pic-
ture the Tsar Nicholas. Gogol belonged, in-
deed, to an epoch when Russia as yet expected
her salvation and delivery from above. How-
ever, the tsar is not mentioned here more than
elsewhere in “Dead Souls ;” and the author,
whose patriotism shines forth in so many places
in the book, does not seem to have cared, as
might have been expected, to personify the
country in the emperor. I might adduce, in
proof, all the passages where, by way of com-
pensation, words about Russian soil, Russian
horsemanship, Russian idiom, etc., bring out,
through the ironical and trivial prose of the
114 MIKOLAT GOGOL.

satire, the poet’s passionate lyric utterances
which were revealed to us in his first writings,
Here is a fragment which deserves to be en-
shrined in an anthology along with the piece
about the Dniépr or the “ Ukraine night :” —

“ Russia! Russia! from the beautiful distant
places where I dwell’ I see thee, I see thee
plainly, O my country! Thy nature is nig-
gardly. In thee there is nothing to charm or
to awe the spectator. . . . No: there is nothing
splendid in thee, Russia, nothing marvellous ; all
is open, desert, flat. Thy little cities are scarce
visible in thy plains, like points, like specks.
Nothing in thee is seductive, nothing even de-
lights the eye. What-secret mysterious force,
then, draws me to thee? Why does thy song,
melancholy, fascinating, restless, resounding
throughout all thy length and breadth, from one
sea to the other, ring forever in my ears? What
does this song contain? Whence come these
accents and these sobs which find their echo in
the heart? What are these dolorous tones

1 Gogol was living at that time in Italy. He wrote while abroad
the second part of Dead Souls. He left Russia after the publication
of the first part. — Author's Note.
MIKOLAT GOGOL. II5

which strike deep into the soul, and wake the
memories? Russia, what desirest thou of me?
What is this obscure, mysterious bond which
unites us to each other? Why dost thou look
at me thus? Why does all that thou con-
tainest fix upon me this expectant gaze? My
thought remains mute before thy immensity.
This very infinity, to what forebodings does it
give rise? Since thou art limitless, canst thou
not be the mother country of thoughts whose
grandeur is fmmeasurable? Canst thou not
bring forth giants, thou who art the country of
mighty spaces? This thought of thy immeas-
urable extent is reflected powerfully in my soul,
and an unknown force makes its way into the
depths of my mind. My eyes are kindled with
a supernatural vision. What dazzling distances!

What a marvellous mirage unknown to earth!
O Russia!” 7
        

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ENIEF.

IVAN S. TURG
IVAN TURGENIEF.
I.

IvaAN TURGENIEF was born at Orel on the
28th of October, 1818. This date, given by
Turgénief himself in a letter to the Russian
journalist Suvarin, corresponds to the oth of
November in our calendar.

His father, Sergéi , Nikolayevitch, and his
mother, Varvara Petrovna, died early... He
was brought up by his grandmother, a Russian
lady of the old school, haughty by nature
and of despotic disposition. The portrait of
this “severe and choleric” daruina is found
sketched in vigorous outlines in the little story
“Punin and Baburin.” This story, says Tur-
génief in the letter which I have just men-
tioned, “contains much biography.”

Turgénief’s grandmother lived in the coun-
try, on an estate a short distance from the city

' This is a mistake. His father died in 1835; and his mother

reached the age of seventy, dying in 1850.
117
118 IVAN TURGENIEF.

of Orel. Here the child became passionately
fond of nature. From the age of twelve he’
entered into intimate, relationship with trees
and flowers; and he felt, when in contact with
them, impressions whose vividness remains
after more than forty years in the deeply
stirred remembrances of the mature man.
“The garden belonging to my grandmother’s
property was a large park of ancient date. On
one side it sloped towards a pond of running
water, wherein lived not only gudgeon and
tench, but also salvelines, the famous salvelines,
those little eels which are found scarcely any-
where nowadays. At the head of this pond
grew a dense rose-bed; higher up, on both
sides of the ravine, stretched a thicket of
vigorous bushes, — hazel, elder, honeysuckle,
black-thorn, in the lower part encroached upon
by tall grass and lovage. Amid the clumps of
trees, but only here and there, appeared very
small bits of emerald-green lawn of fine and
silken grass, prettily mottled with the dainty
pink, yellow, lilac caps of those mushrooms
called vusswles; and there the golden balls of
the great celandine hung in luminous patches.
IVAN TURGENIEEF. 119

There in springtime were heard the songs of
nightingales, the whistling of blackbirds, and
the cuckoos’ call. It was always cool there,
even during the warmest days of summer;
and I loved to bury myself in those depths
where I had my favorite hiding-places, myste-
rious, known to myself alone—or at least so
I imagined.”

Prepared by this beneficent influence of
colors, perfumes, and the sounds of rustic life,
the child’s moral education was directed, with-
out anybody’s knowledge, and influenced for all
time, by the presence of two outlandish servants,
flitting members of the high-born lady’s house-
hold. One of them was a “philanthropic and
philosophical plebeian,” destined to die in Sibe-
ria; the other, a sort of innocent enthusiast, a
great reader of Russian epics then out of fashion.
The former sowed in the young Turgénief’s
soul the seeds of a liberalism which will bear
fruit in the most manly resolves; the latter
kindled in the lad’s lively imagination a poetic
flame whose heat and glory will shine out in a
score of masterpieces.

Towards the age of thirteen, the young Ivan
120 IVAN TURGENIEF.

was removed from these influences. He was
given two tutors, one French and the other
German. Having obtained his diploma as can-
didate in philology, he went to Berlin to finish,
or rather begin anew, his studies in the hu-
manities; and he brought them to a close by
plunging into the current of the Hegelian phi-
losophy. He came back to Russia converted
to that “occidentalism” which we shall define
later when we study Turgénief’s political theo-
ries,

He made his début as a writer in 1843, with
a little poem, “Parasha.”* The critic Biélinsky
gave it such praise that it covered the author
with confusion. Towards the end of his life,
Turgénief criticised his poetry with a severity
that was absolutely sincere. Even at this

1 Turgénief says in his Recollections: “ About Easter, 1843, in
Petersburg, an event took place, in itself indeed of small importance,
and long ere this swallowed up in perfect oblivion. It was this: A
short poem entitled Parasha, by a certain T. L., was published. That
T. L. was I. With this poem I began my literary career.” He says
further that Biélinsky’s praise was so extravagant that he felt more
confusion than pleasure. “I could not believe it,” he adds; “and
when in Moscow the late I. V. Kiréyevski came to me with congratu-

lations, I hastened to disown my child, declaring that I was not the
author.” — N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 121

period, he set as little value on his verses as
though he had already shown his ability in a
prose masterpiece. The masterpiece appeared
three years later, in 1846. The first story in
“The Annals of a Sportsman,”! “Khor and
Kalinuitch,” was published in the Souvremennik
(“Contemporary”’); and at a single stroke Tur-
génief’s fame reached a height which will never
be surpassed by any of his great works.?
[Most of] the other stories in Turgénief’s
first collection were written abroad. The au-
thor came back to Russia in 1851, but only
to leave it again two years later. Ne will
still have a domicile there, and above all he
will come back regularly to keep up his rela-
tions, and touch foot to earth; but it may be
said that after 1863 he made only flying visits
to his country. The Russians have heaped
reproaches on Turgénief for this abandonment
of his native soil. It has always been easily ex-
plained. There was, at least primarily, a sort
of state reason. In 1852, owing to an article

© Zapiski Okhotnika,
2 Vet Biélinsky wrote him: “ ‘Khor’ gives promise that you will
be a remarkable writer — in the future.” — N. H. D.
122 IVAN TURGENIEF.

on Gogol’s death, Turgénief got into difficulty
with the imperial censorship, which ended in
a month of close imprisonment, and in the
writer being interned at his estate. After two
years of solitude and work, Turgénief felt the
need of “gaining freedom, the knowledge of
himself.” He acquired these conditions, outside
of which it was impossible for him to write and
to struggle, at the price of life in a foreign
country.” *

But behold what was not known, and what
was revealed only by the posthumous publica-
tion of Turgénief’s letters. This Russian who
made his home abroad, who dwelt twenty years
in France, and died in the very heart of Paris,

1 Turgénief says in his Recollections: ‘‘I should certainly never
have written The Annals of a Sportsman if I had staid in Russia. I
was in a state of mind singularly analogous to Gogol’s, who just about
this time wrote his best pages about Russia from ‘the beautiful dis-
tance.” The article on Gogol’s death was not passed by the Peters-
burg censor, but was admitted by the Moscow censor, and appeared in
the Vyédomosti in March, 1852, Nevertheless, the article was con-
strued as a violation of the law: “Iwas put under partial arrest for
a month, and then sent into domicile in the country, where I lived two
years... . But all for the best. ... My being under arrest, and in
the country, proved to my undeniable advantage: it brought me close
to those sides of Russian life which, in the ordinary course of things,
would probably have escaped my observation.” — N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 123

was overwhelmed during his forced or voluntary
exile with the blackest melancholy of homesick-
ness, and during the last part of his life suffered
even the sharpest torment.

He did not succeed in acclimating himself,
either at Baden Baden, in spite of the charm
of the situation where his poet’s glance first
rested; or at Paris, where he was to be en-
chained by the bonds of love which he himself
called “imperishable, indissoluble.” It may be
asked, in regard to this well-known friendship,
whether Turgénief, exiled from Russia by his
desire for liberty, succeeded in avoiding all the
forms of dependence. It is a problem which I
leave to the most inquisitive to settle. I con-
fine myself to pointing out in Turgénief the
expressions which now and again betray his
weariness of exile, his restlessness as of a North-
ern bird, a captive swan or eider, languishing,
mourning with regret for its cold natal seas.
“I am condemned to a Bohemian life, and I
must make up my mind never to build me a
nest.” “In a foreign atmosphere,” he writes
once more, “I decompose like a frozen fish in
time of thaw. . . . I shall certainly come back
to Russia in the spring.”
124 IVAN TURGENIEF.

During the winter of 1856 Turgénief made
this promise to return; and he repeats it many
times, as though to assure himself further ex.
cuses for keeping it. From that time he knows
all the disappointments of a wandering life; and
to express the idea of not feeling at home where
one is, he uses a word of rare power: “Say
what you will, but in a foreign country a man
is atslocated: you are needful to no one, and
no one is needful to you.” Far from growing
feeble, this painful impression will increase as
time goes on; the flame of regret, instead of
going out or dying down, will get fresh vigor,
and break forth in new developments.

First it is the family instinct, which wakens
and which speaks very eloquently at that am-
biguous hour when youth begins to withdraw,
and when, like the foliage in autumn, one feels
a premonitory shiver, harbinger of the wintry
winds. “Anenkof married,” says Turgénief
smiling, “is handsomer than ever.” “Get thee
a wife,” he writes seriously to another of his
friends: “it is the one thing needful.”

Then there is also the acute feeling of the
impoverishment of the creative faculty, the very
~

IVAN TURGENIEF. 125

disturbing realization or apprehension of a sort
of literary axema due to the deprivation of the
desired climate with its inspiring horizons, with
its atmosphere filled with vivifying breezes and
suggestive sounds. “I will admit, if you please,
that the talent with which I was endowed by
nature has not grown smaller; but I have noth-
ing on which to set it to work. The voice is
rested: there is naught to sing, so it is better
to be silent. And I have nothing to sing,
because I live away from Russia.” “Living
abroad,” he says in another place, “the fountain
from which my inspiration sprang has dried
up.”

Finally, more than all, it is the lofty sadness
and the noble remorse at not being on hand, at
not mingling more intimately in the troublous,
dangerous drama which is enacting on Russian
soil. “In fact,” Turgénief writes his friend the
great author, Lyof Tolstoi, “ Russia is now pass-
ing through serious and gloomy times; but
itis for that very reason that at this moment
one feels the gnawing of conscience at living
like a foreigner.”

And so this existence which seemed to be
126 IVAN TURGENIEF.

ruled by a certain indifference, a sort of elegant
and fortunate dilettanteism, was early crossed,
and to the very end disturbed, by fits of melan-
choly and splenetic depression, the secret of
whose existence few people, I am inclined to
think, ever discovered. Who seeing Turgénief
unaffectedly smiling, in a humor not exactly
sportive, but sweet, even, and obliging, would
have suspected that after an interview with his
Parisian friends, for whom he saved all the
flower of his wit, he would shut himself up
to confide his heart-secret to pages destined to
fall only under the softened and by no means
mocking eyes of his old Russian comrades ?

One can easily imagine the sympathy roused
in a Polonsky, for example, by passages such as
this: “ The chill of old age every day penetrates
farther into my soul: it takes entire possession
of it. The absolute indifference which I find in
me makes me tremble for myself. I can now
repeat with Hamlet, —

‘ How stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems me that life!’:

t A misquotation, of course, of
“How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me all the uses of this world!” —N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 127

Perhaps this mood will pass; or, if it lasts, per-
haps I shall succeed in /égnzfyzng, and in that
case, it is all the same.”

Another day he tears out from his private
journal this page, the disappearance of which
is to be deeply regretted: “Again I am at my
table, and in my soul it is gloomier than the
gloomiest night. Thus, like a moment, passes
the day, empty, aimless, colorless. A space to
give a passing glance, and, lo! it is bedtime
again. No right to life, no desire to live.
Nothing to do, nothing to expect, nothing to
hope for. . . . Thou speakest of halos of glory,
and of enchanting tones. O my friend! we
are the fragments of a vase broken long ago.”

When once the straits of old age were
crossed, Turgénief enjoyed a few years of rela-
tive calm, of less bitter resignation. It was
the time of his intimacy with George Sand and
Flaubert. They both died. Illness falls upon
Turgénief himself, and nails him pitilessly to
the land of exile.

From the day when the way of return is
cut off, the “occidental” is seized once more
with the agony of homesickness for the mother
128 IVAN TURGENIEF.

country. His eyes and his heart are fastened
immovably on the corner of Russia whither all
the memories of childhood and youth draw him.
Unable to see his village of Spaskoe, he sends
his best friends to it, and establishes them there.
He begs them to give him endless details about
the peasants, about ‘the women, the school, the
chapel, the hospital. He worries about the
garden, and urges Mrs. Polonskaia to look upon
its most humble products with “the eyes of
the master.” He feels more keenly than ever
the value of what he has lost. In addition to
his ever renewed and lively regrets comes the
feeling of bitterness and mourning which is
born of the irreparable. His country calls him,
and draws him with such force, that he has
the sensation of a great “tearing asunder.”
That is the expression to which it is necessary
to hold fast. It is calculated to surprise even
those who had the good fortune often to meet
Ivan Sergéyevitch; but what regret it ought
to cause those who, deceived by the way in
which Turgénief persisted in living far away
from the Russian land, cruelly upbraided him
for having forgotten his country !
IVAN TURGENIEF. 129

Turgénief was so far from forgetting Russia,
that he went back almost every year; and he
wrote almost all his works there. The critics
scarcely had any suspicion of such a thing.
They attacked Turgénief’s later novels, bring-
ing up against them his residence abroad.
“How could he know Russia any more? He
no longer lives there.” Turgénief was indig-
nant at this objection, which “that old woman
called the public” persisted in hurling at him.
He answered this argument once for all, in
terms which must be quoted: “The objection
can only be made to what I have published
since 1863. Until that time, —that is, until my
forty-fifth year,—I lived in Russia, scarcely
going out of the country, except the years from
1848 to 1850. During just those years I wrote
‘The Annals of a Sportsman.’ On the other
hand, ‘Rudin,’ ‘The Nest of Gentlemen,’ ‘On
the Eve,’ and ‘Fathers and Sons’ were written
in Russia. But that makes no difference to the
old woman. Her mind is already made up.”

To be a little more precise, “Rudin” was
published in 1855. “A Nest of Gentlemen”?

' Dooryanskaye Gnyezdé, an untranstatable title. A Nest of

arias nn =
130 IVAN TURGENIEF.

appeared in 1859 [1858?], and the year 1862
was distinguished by the appearance of ‘Fath..
ers and Sons.” Better than any one, Turgénief
understood the necessity of writing nothing
without his models before him; and he went
to seek for them where they were to be found.
Turgénief’s correspondence shows these scru-
ples in a score of places, and especially in regard
to “Fathers and Sons.” MHaving once con-
ceived the plan of the work, the novelist has
no rest until he finds himself in Russia. There
only can he imagine, create, or, to speak more
accurately, reproduce what he sees in real life.
His pen, which refused to move as long as
he was abroad, runs and flies over the paper.
The sight of familiar landscapes refreshes the
parched brain : inspiration flows.

Between the romance of “ Fathers and Sons,”
and that of “Smoke,” which was published. in
1867, during the period when the Russian writer
was an habitual resident of Baden Baden," ap-
peared quite a large number of shorter stories
and tales of less pretension, but not of less

“Tn 1863 Ivan Sergéyevitch bought a plat of land at Baden
Baden, built a house on it, and lived there until 1870.” — Polevoi.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 131

value, There is more than one masterpiece
of sentiment or imagination in “ Apparitions,”
in “Strange Stories,” “Spring Waters,” “ Liv-
ing Relics.” Not all these collections preceded
“Smoke,” but they came shortly before or
shortly after it.

Between “Smoke” and “Virgin Soil,” Tur-
génief’s last great novel, passes a period of
nearly ten years. The cause of this long
silence was the alienation which had arisen
between the writer and his public. Russian
readers had already begun to show their dis-
satisfaction with “Fathers and Sons,” and the
causes of this displeasure deserve to be closely
examined. We shall return to them in the
course of this study. The spitefulness of the
critics was let loose against the very satirical
romance “Smoke ;” other works, such as “The
King Lear of the Steppe,” did not even have
the success of causing scandal, and were
“damned with faint praise.” “That,” said
Turgénief, “for an author who is growing old,
is worse than a fiasco. It is the best proof
that it is time to stop, and I am going to stop.”

In such a resolution, there were other mo-
132 IVAN TURGENIEF.

tives besidess pique. Turgénief felt weary,
and, as it were, short of inspiration or of sub-
jects. In the intervals between the recupera-
tive journeys which we have mentioned, he was
obliged to nourish himself on his own sub-
stance. He knew that to suspend them, or
even to postpone them too long, was at the
risk of losing his strength and wasting away
even to consumption. “I am compelled, like
a bear in winter, to suck my paw; and thus it
is that nothing comes forth.”

The weariness disappeared, the pique wore
away, and gradually this firm resolution to enjoy
rest and absolute silence was shaken. Turgé
nief finally even found excellent reason for re-
suming the pen. It was necessary, not to blot
out, but to complete, the effect of “ Fathers and
Sons” by writing another romance, which this
time should clear up misunderstandings, and
put the author in the position and in the rank
that he felt he ought to hold. This romance,
“Virgin Soil,”* did not appear till 1876; but

1 Nov, the Russian title, means merely xew, — one of the words,
by the way, showing the affinity of Russian with Latin, English, and

the other Indo-European languages, — and is suggestive not only cf
new land, but of new people and new ideas. — N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 133

almost two years beforehand Turgénief was
talking of it, thinking about it, and working
at it. It can be seen in his correspondence,
that the work is in some degree taking shape ;
and under each abstract formula one can
already detect the outlines of a character who
will be the realization of it.

It is easily understood how Turgénief, who
expected so much from this last work, who
thought that he had put into it the best of
his talent, and reached the culmination of his
creative faculty, was disappointed and discour-
aged to receive once more only reproaches and
blame. “This time,” he says, “it is my last
original work. Such is my decision, and it is
irrevocable. ... I may possibly busy myself
still with translations. I am contemplating
‘Don Quixote’ and Montaigne.” In vain opin-
ion calms down, changes base, turns to praise
and admiration: he remains firm in his design
of staying in retreat, and of “joining the vet-
erans.” Indeed, for a few months at least, he
seems to drop this implement of the writer,
“which he has used for thirty years.”

He travels abroad, in England; and quickly
134 IVAN TURGENIEF.

finds himself too well known, too much en-
tertained, too much exhibited. This excess of
glory is incompatible with his modesty.

Was it the delight in his visit to Russia in
the spring of 1878, was it the joy of renewing
long-interrupted relations of intimacy with
Count Lyof Tolstor? At all events, Turgénief
again finds literary work to his taste. At first,
it is true, he is seen occupying himself only
with the work of others. He wishes to do for
Tolstoi the same service in France, as for Flau-
bert in Russia, by popularizing. their works in
translation. Or he publishes Pushkin’s corre-
spondence, and supervises a superb edition of
the complete works of his favorite poet.

He writes Bougival his ‘Song of Triumphant
Love,” which he regretfully allows to be printed,
and which is this time hailed as a marvel. He
makes a selection of his “Poems in Prose.”
He puts some personal reminiscences in the
form of short stories; among others, “The
Hopeless Man.” He already passes beyond
the horizon of life, —which is ending for him
amid the most cruel sufferings, —by writing
that half-real vision entitled “The Morrow of
Death.”
IVAN TURGENIEF. 135

Turgénief, by these short works, endeavored
to get himself into the mood of writing another
great work. He was already beginning to
speak of it to his friends; he explained the
subject ; he had, perhaps, blocked out his plan ;
and since we know his habits of work, and his
method, we are safe in adding that he had con-
ceived the principal types, that he had seen the
majority of the characters pass and halt before
his eyes. In this romance, Turgénief intended
to compare the Russian with the French gvé-
vistes or anarchists. We see it is the subject
which Zola had the ambition to take up in
“Germinal ;” and, in spite of the popularity of
the work, I may be allowed to believe that this
subject still remains to be treated.

The idea of this great romance must have
been suggested to Turgénief’s mind, as a con-
sequence of his almost triumphal journey in
Russia, on the occasion of the Pushkin festi-
val. A few years had sufficed absolutely to
change the feelings of the younger generation
in Russia. The popularity which the author of
“The Annals of a Sportsman” so suddenly won
was restored to him after a pretty long period
136 IVAN TURGENIEF.

of alienation, and at last beatified the author
of “Virgin Soil.” The enthusiastic reception of
the Moscow students filled his soul with the
emotion of unexpected joy, and the ovation
which he received had for him all the value of
an improbable result. A Russian who was very
near to Turgénief told me that, on this occa-
sion, he found only a few hesitating and broken
words to reply to the speeches of the orators,
the leaders of this young generation; but he
had the moistened eyes and the smile of a happy
man.

Full of gratitude for this eleventh-hour hom-
age, he would have been glad to express his
thankfulness in his own manner; and doubtless
the new work would have translated it. His
illness put a stop to his project. On the
8th of April, 1882, Turgénief writes to Mrs.
Polonskaia to inform her of the physician’s diag-
nosis in regard to what they call his axgina
pectoris, or his gouty neuralgia of the heart.
The term was not accurate. It is known that
Turgénief died of cancer of the spinal marrow.
Whatever the trouble was, the torment of it
became atrocious, and the suffering which the
IVAN. TURGENIEF. 137

invalid underwent lasted more than a year.
He bore this slow agony with great sweetness.
His complaints were rare, and they were for the
most part hidden under a veil of irony which
robbed them of every shade of bitterness.
Pinched by pain as by a vise, he still found
the time and the power to address comforting
raillery to those who were sadder than himself.
“For your consolation,” he wrote to one of his
friends, “I wish to quote one of Goethe’s re-
marks, made just before his death. It would
seem as if he at least had to satiety all of the
happiness that life can give. Think what a
pitch of glory he reached, loved by women, and_
hated by fools; think that he had been trans-
lated even into Chinese; that all Europe was
setting out in pilgrimage to salute him; that
Napoleon himself said of him, ‘There is a
man!* think that our Russian critics, the Uv-
arofs and others, burned incense under his
nose: and yet, at the age of eighty-two, he de-
-clared that during his long life he had not been
happy a quarter of an hour all told. Then
for you and me it is the will of God, isn’t it?
Suppose the perfect health which Goethe always
138 IVAN TURGENIEF.

enjoyed is lacking to us, still he was bored
. . . But what is to be done about it?”

On the 3d of July, 1883, Turgénief with fee-
ble hand, and at the cost of cruel pangs, wrote
in pencil the following unsigned letter to his
friend the great novelist Lyof Tolstor: “It is
long since I have written you, for I have been
and I am literally on my death-bed. It is im-
possible for me to recover: it is not within
the limits of thought. I write you simply to
tell you that I am happy to have been your
contemporary, and to express to you my last
and most sincere request: my friend, return
to literary work! This talent of yours came to
you from the source whence come all our
gifts. Ah! how happy I should be if my
prayer were to have the effect upon you so
deeply desired! As for me, I am a dead man.
The doctors do not even know what name
to give my ailment. Gouty neuralgia of the
stomach; no walking, no eating, no sleeping.
Bah! it is tiresome to repeat all this. My
friend, great writer of the Russian land, hear
my supplication. Let me know if you receive
this slip of paper, and allow me once more to
IVAN TURGENIEF. 139

press you closely ir. my embrace, — you, your
wife, and all your family. I cannot write you
more, I am weary.”

Turgénief died a month later, on Monday,
Sept. 3, 1883.
. Turgénief’s features are so well known that
it seems unnecessary to sketch them in his
biography. One of his characters, the gigantic
Karlof, thus defined the men of his race: “We
are all born with light hair, brilliant eyes, and
pale faces; for we have sprung up under the
snow.” Turgénief himself had a good share
of these race characteristics. But in France
the majority of people knew the good giant
only after he was well along in life, and when
he already had the aspect of one of those ven-
erable kings of whom the poet speaks : —

. . « Nosco crines incanaque menta.

Turgénief was of a very honest, very obli-
ging, and very affable nature.* Those who met

' His generosity was more than princely ; not even the palpable im-
positions of his impecunious countrymen caused him to clasp his ever-
open purse, It is related that a Russian family residing in Paris
made frequent applications to this abundant fountain. ‘Turgénief saw
through their wiles, but let the stream still flow. The little daughter
of the family showed some musical talent, and Turgénief undertook
140 IVAN TURGENIEF.

him saw him to the best advantage at moments
when he allowed himself to talk with a charm-
ing frankness. He talked deliciously, with
abundance of feeling and a fluency of expres-
sion, which went with him even when he spoke
in French. He enchanted those who listened
to him in his moments of enthusiasm: always
lively and original, his conversation then be-
came passionate and brilliant, even lyrical.
Listening to this stream of ideas and words hur-
rying in eager floods, not noisily, from the lips
of this old man of heroic mould and structure,
one involuntarily thought of some Homeric
bard. There was also “the harmony of the
cicadas” and “all the sweetness of honey” in
the voice of the Nestor of the steppes.

her education. It happened that there was a very exclusive school in
Paris; and one fine day the ambitious mother came and besought their
Mecenas to use his influence to have the young girl admitted where
no foreigner was allowed. Turgénief was at last a little nettled, and
in epigrammatic Russian he said, ‘ Make her either a candle for the
Lord, or an ash-scraper for the Devil” (Bogu suyétchu ili Tchortu
katchergu).— N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 14!

II.

Was Turgénief only an artist, only a dilet-
tante?

We must give up this false definition which
his enemies wished to become current, and
which his friends even have been too willing
to let go with contravention. Superficial critics
deny in him ail capacity, all enlightenment, on
the questions of social order: they have gone
so far as to say that in these respects he has
neither teachings nor opinion. Certain fanatics,
young or old, the Pisarefs, the Dostoyevskys,
have taken it upon them to advance this pre-
text for denying him. the right to write and to
print his works, and to be read as they are and
more than they are.

It is true to say that Turgénief never laid
down, or even sketched out, a programme; that
he never made public speeches, that he did not
peddle interviews, that he did not lucubrate
leading articles for the editorial pages of jour-

RA
142 IVAN TURGENIEF.

nals. What am I saying? Perhaps he did not
even reply to a sensational toast during his
active life! Many persons obtain and grant the
title of political man only by this test. In
their judgment, Turgénief was not one.

As for believing that Turgénief had in politi-
cal matters no definite opinions, or keen sym-
pathies, or profound views, or well-digested
purposes, it takes a pretty strong dose of
passion or of maiveté to accept and to pro-
mulgate this mistake. Those who have read
his works carefully suspected it; those who
were in his intimate circle had no question
about it: but no scepticism in this regard could
withstand the revelations of his correspondence.

We know what popularity the Slavophile
party gained from the moment of its birth.
The declamations of the Pogodins and the
Aksakofs against “occidental rot,” their dithy-
rambs in honor of the virtues of the Slavic
race, their childish programmes pretending to
put the Russian people on the right track, and
to free it from the old vestment of foreign ideas
and habits which Peter the Great had swaddled
it with, —all this specious rhetoric, flattering
IVAN TURGENIEF. 143

at once the national vanity, ignorance, and
indolence, found in Turgénief from his early
youth a decided enemy. His conviction as an
occidental, which was the foundation of all his
other convictions, could not be shaken either
by the constant effort of years or by the sudden
shock of the most varied events.

But what was the characteristic of this occi-
dentalism? Did it go so far as to dislike the
special features of the Russian people, and
desire to extirpate the individuality of the race,
as one would demand the excision of a tumor
or the extirpation of a wart? Turgénief was
too proud of being a Russian, not to have a
legitimate share in the development of these
peculiarities of the national type ; but, accord-

sts)

ing to his own words, it was repugnant to him ™

“to feel any vanity in this sort of exclusiveness,
in whatever sphere it was manifested, pure art
or politics.” In his eyes, Slavophilism was an
artificial entity, a sort of hollow edifice, con-
structed on foreign models and in imitation of
the German genius.

He could not reconcile himself to the idea
of artificially isolating Russia from the rest of

Aelia tee RE
144 IVAN TURGENIEF.

Europe, and of shutting her up in a sort of quar-
antine, where, in order to be free from foreign
influences, the result would be that the natal
air would not preserve its purity, but would
grow vitiated and rarefied. And with still
greater reason, he regarded as puerile the
thought of giving new life to the European
organism by the infusion of the Slavic element.
This ambition of grafting the Russian shoot on
the aged wood of other races tore from him pro-
testations of very expressive irony. “I cannot
accustom myself to this view of Aksdkof’s, that
it is necessary for Europe, if she would be
saved, to accept our orthodox religion.” Every
policy that adopted this narrow principle seemed
to him worthy of reprobation, at least in its
principle. “In freeing the Bulgarians we ought
to be guided to this step, not because they are
Christians, but because the Turks are massa-
cring and robbing them.” “All that is human
is dear to me,” he says again: “ Slavophilism
is as foreign to me as every other orthodoxy.”
In bringing these habits of moderation to
his judgments of the acts of the government,
and of the men who helped, who extolled,
IVAN TURGENIEF. 145

who blamed, who clogged its action, Turgénief
might have expected to cause dissatisfaction,
and to rouse for the most part only murmurs.
Early in point of fact, and even to the end of
his career, Turgénief is the object of violent
attacks from the opposite party. At the very
moment when the younger generation of Rus-
sians felt that they were travestied by him in
“Fathers and Sons,” and when Tchernuishev-
sky, the author of the famous romance “ What
is to be Done?’’" turns to his own profit the
misunderstandings caused by the appearance
of the hero Bazarof; Turgénief, for having
created this same Bazarof, for having refused
to exaggerate or blacken his character, makes
for himself irreconcilable enemics in the re-
actionary party. He quarrels with Katkof, the
officious journalist, the confidant of the heir-
apparent, the inspirer of that retrograde policy
which has prevailed in Russia of late years.
“When I left ‘The Russian Messenger’ (Russki
Vyestnik), Katkof sent me word that I did not

know what it was to have him for an enemy.

1 Tchto Dyélat, « translation of which is published by T. Y.
Crowell & Co., under the title A Vital Question.
146 IVAN TURGENIEF.

He is trying, therefore, to show me. Let
him do his best. My soul is not in his
power.”

No consideration of interest, no low ambition
for popularity, could have decided Turgénief to
deviate from this line of conduct. We remem-
ber the quite barren movement of agitation
started a few years ago by those young people
who called themselves, somewhat naively, “the
new men.” <A lady who was one of their sym-
pathizers sends Turgénief a bundle of docu-
ments: it is the confession of one of the
representatives of this progressive generation.
Turgénief finds in this jumble of prose and
verse only two characteristics, —an intoxicated,
delirious self-conceit, and boundless incapacity
and ignorance. It is vain to make allowance
for time of life, and to attribute a part of their
faults to the extreme youth of these individuals
puffed up with a mighty sense of their small
importance. Under it all there lies “ only fee-
bleness of thought, absence of all knowledge,
a scantiness of talent verging on poverty.”
He does not put his unfavorable judgment
under any sort of subterfuge or oratorical
IVAN TURGENIEF. 147

disguise: his frankness costs him a storm of
bitter criticisms.

Yet Turgénief is the very same man who will
receive in Paris other young people, with still
more trenchant opinions, still more angular:
forms; and “in their presence,” he says elo-
quently, “I, old man that I am, I open my
heart, because I feel in them the ‘real presence,’
and force, and talent, and mind.” These virtues
attracted him and disarmed him, no matter in
what class of people or in what group of think-
ers he found them. Thus he is seen giving
the patronage of his name, and the cover of his
authority, to the first work on the newspaper
Le Temps of a young Russian, treated by the
home government as a dangerous character.
To punish Turgénief for this audacious deed,
the minister causes him to be insulted, slan-
dered by a paid scribbler. ‘Verily, among us,”
writes Turgénief, “many shameful things are
exposed to God’s air, like this vile article of
the raseally ..4." :

Now, a few days later, on the occasion of the
attempted assassination of 1879, behold how
the man whom “ The Moscow Gazette” (edited
148 IVAN TURGENIEF.

by Katkof) affected to confound with the scat-
ter-brains of Nihilism, expressed himself: “ The
last ignominious news has greatly troubled me.
I foresee that certain people will use this sense-
less outrage to the disadvantage of the party
which justly, in the interest of its liberal ideas,
places the Tsar’s life above every thing ; for salu-
tary reforms are to be expected from him alone.
In Russia, how can a reform be imagined
which does not come from above? ...I am
deeply troubled and grieved. Here for two
days I have not slept at the idea of it. I think
about it, and think about it; but I cannot
come to any conclusion.”

Whatever were his apprehensions, he could
not foresee with what fury of re-action the Em-
peror would strive to stem the Liberal current,
by which, when he first mounted the throne, he
had allowed himself to be carried onward. Tur-
génief suffered from this aberration of power
more than can be told. He foresaw new acts
of despair, which would give a color of reason
to measures of repression constantly growing
more crushing. He attributed this infatuated
policy to the influence of Pobyedonostsef, the
: IVAN TURGENIEF. 149

Ober-Prokuror of the Holy Synod; and above
all to the counsels of Katkof, that former Lib-
eral, that exile converted to the most brutal
absolutism. He writes: “Who can tell what
is going on at home, Katkovio regnante ?”’

With what passion Turgénief uttered one day
before two callers, one of whom was a French-
man, this expression, which I find also in his
correspondence! With what pathetic eloquence
he mourned for the days of yore, the days of
the old oppression! ‘We had then a bare wall
before us,” he writes, “but we knew where it
was necessary to make the breach. To-day the
door is ajar, but to enter through this narrow
opening is more difficult than to undermine
and cast down the wall.”

I find, among some notes taken down after
an afternoon call upon Ivan Turgénief during
the winter of 1882, a rather expressive résumé
of his conversation, which I beg permission to
quote in its entirety. “At that time we felt
sustained by an auxiliary which allows one to
defy, and which finally softens, all the severities
of power, — Opinion. We had on our side the
two stimuli which lead to victory, —the feeling
150 IVAN TURGENIEF. f

of duty, the presentiment of success. Who
would have believed that the day would come
when we should look back with regret upon
this period of terror, but of hope; of oppres-
sion, but of activity! Indeed, were not the
youth of that time happy and enviable compared
to those of to-day? What sincere mind can
help feeling the deepest pity for that handful
of Russians, educated, or greedy for education,
whom the misfortune of the times has driven
to the most frightful extremes? You might
say that every thinker is caught between the
anvil of an ignorant populace and the hammer
of a blinded power. The Russian people are
afraid even of those who, scorning every dan-
ger, are laboring to gain them their rights;
they are absolutely ignorant, and are afraid of
every innovation. They have the anxious look,
and the quick flashes of anger, of a wild beast.
We have just seen them rush upon the Jews
with a sort of frenzy. If the people were not
kept like a bear fastened to a chain, they would
treat the revolutionists with the same fairness
and the same gentleness.

“As to the throne, the end of advance in the
IVAN TURGENIEF. IS!

path of absolutism has just about been reached.
It is now the formidable ideal of tyranny. Dur-
ing the preceding reign it took the initiative of
reform. Alexander II. was carried away by the
current of liberal ideas. He ordered measures
to be taken; above all, he allowed projects to
be elaborated. He wished, for example, to give
the district assemblies power enough to strug-
gle against the abuses of the ¢chinovntks, and
to put a stop to corruption. But one day
he was panic-struck. Karakdzof’s pistol-shot
drove back into the shade that phantom of
liberty, the appearance of which all Russia had
hailed with acclamation. From that moment,
and even to the end of his life, the Emperor
devoted himself to the undoing of all that he
had done. If he could have cancelled with
one stroke the glorious wkaz which had pro-
claimed the emancipation of the serfs, he would
have been only too glad to disgrace himself.
“What can be said of his successor, that
doting sovereign, that victim nailed to the
throne? He shuts himself between four walls,
and, what is worse, between four narrow, lim-
ited minds, the responsible editors of the policy
152 IVAN TURGENIEF.

of an anonymous tsar, the former Liberal and
exile, Katkof. It is a war upon ideas, a crusade
of ignorance. Russia is having its Inquisition,
it has its Torquemada. What other name is
to be given to that minister of creeds, or, to
speak more exactly, that procuror-general of
the Synod, Pobyedonostsef ?

“The Tsar sees in Pobyedonostsef the most
virtuous and the most saintly man in all the
empire. He has for him all the tenderness of
Orgon; and you might say that he likes to
think, like that pig-headed dupe, —

‘He teaches me for naught to feel affection,
My soul from every friendship he estranges.’

“Just as the Tsar loves and venerates Pobye-
donostsef, so he shows Katkof zatve admiration
and respectful deference. In the one he sees
science inborn; in the other, religion personi-
fied. But the more dangerous of these two
fanatics is Katkof, the former Liberal, the com-
panion of Herzen’s misfortunes, the ex-profess-
or of philosophy at Moscow. He scorns to hold
the reins of power; he likes better to give the
word to those who carry the order for him and
IVAN TURGENIEF. 153

by him alone. The ministers are his valets ;
he has even his under-slaves; it would not be
interesting to mention all their names. He is
the disgraceful Richelieu behind the throne,
who terrorizes Russia.” -7
Notwithstanding the very gloomy aapect of!
the present, Turgénief had unshaken faith in
the future. “We must not expect that th
future will be all roses. No matter, things wi
come out all right.” And what were th

means, according to Turgénief’s idea, of reall

    
  
 
    

izing this? Give up illusions and fidgeting
Don’t imagine that you are going to find a pan
acea, a remedy for the great evils; and that, t
cure the Russian colossus of all his tribulations,
it will be sufficient to practise a sort of incan-
tation “analogous to the spells used by old
women to calm the toothache suddenly, mirac-
ulously.” According to Turgénief, the miracu-
lous means alone changes: “sometimes it is a
man, sometimes the natural sciences, sometimes
a war;” but what is unchangeable is faith in the
miracle. That is the superstition which first of ,
all must be extirpated. e

Likewise the idea of obtaining without delay
154 IVAN TURGENIEF.

“large, beautiful, and glorious” results, the
idea of wishing “to move mountains,” -must be
renounced. It is necessary to know how to
pay attention to little objects, to limit one’s self
to a very narrow circle of action, not to step out
of it; and there without glory, almost without
result, work incessantly. The only activity
that is fruitful was defined by Turgénief, in
quoting the two verses of Schiller’s old man:
“Unwearied activity is that which adds one
grain of sand to another.” ‘ What!” said he,
“you begin by telling me that your construc-
tive work is ended, that the school has just
been begun ; and, a little farther on, you speak
of the despair which takes hold of you! I
beg of you, for pity’s sake: your enterprise has
already had some small result. It is not un-
fruitful. What more do you want? Let” every
one do as much in his own sphere, and there
will be a grand, a splendid result.”

And Turgénief was one of the first to put his
doctrine into practice. Just as in his youth
he signed the charter for the emancipation of
his serfs, with the same pen which wrote the
indictment of serfage in “The Annals of a
IVAN TURGENIEEF. 155

Sportsman ;” so in the time of his old age, not-
withstanding his absence, tortured as he was by
the horrors of disease, he preached humbleness

of aim and constancy/of effort, but he preached -

it by his example. All his cares were directed
a a eee

 

to the improvement of the material and moral
condition of his former serfs. He granted them
a fifth of the sum settled upon for the redemp-
tion. At his own expense he built a school; he
founded a hospital in his village of Selo Spas-
koe; he succeeded in diminishing drunkenness,
and in spreading a taste for reading in a re-
gion where, at the time of his. boyhood, an edu-
cated, self-taught muzhzk was a genuine rarity.

His correspondence shows that he was greatly
concerned about his estate in the government
of Orel: but it was not the revenue of his lands
that troubled him; it was the happiness, the
moral welfare, of his little people of Spaskoe.
Behold the evolution which he wanted to see
accomplished from one end to the other of his
country, and which, so far as in him lay, he
called forth, he prepared.

Any other policy seemed to him useless, dan-
gerous, almost criminal. He hoped that the
e

156 IVAN TURGENIEF.

new reign was going to inaugurate a whole tra-
dition of efforts in favor of the development of
the rural classes. That was why he manifested
his sympathy with the new Tsar, on the acces-
sion of Alexander III.: he applied to him the
title, the “Emperor of the muzhiks,” and, if this
was not a name of praise, it was found at least
to contain a counsel.

“All that one can say,” wrote Turgénief
again on the subject of the Tsar, “is that he is
Russian, and nothing but Russian. . . . Seeing
him anywhere, one would know his country.”
I do not know whether these words went to the
Tsar’s heart; but are they not honorable to him
who penned them? What Slavophile would
have imagined any thing more eloquent in their
simplicity ? In giving this emperor, “in whose
veins runs scarce a drop of Russian blood,” his
naturalization papers, Turgénief surely thought
that he had reached the borders of eulogy.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 157

Til.

AFTER reading what has gone before, I trust
that no one will be inclined to see a mere para-
dox in this affirmation: Turgénief was above all
things interested in the question of politics and
social order, and of this interest were born
his great works. This was the reason that
Turgénief’s writings so stirred the public:
hence the favor of his readers at first was,
enthusiastic ; hence came notorious alienation,
irritation, almost calumnious fury, from the
time when the public and the author no longer
advanced with equal steps towards progress.
For, here is the point to be noted: Turgénief
never ceased to make progress; but as long as
he walked slowly, with regular steps, like a man
who holds aloof from the popular current, and
is not dragged along against his will by the
rising tide of the throng, the masses of the
nation —I mean the majority of the educated
158 IVAN TURGENIEF.

classes — no longer regulated his gait, and, see-
ing him each day a little farther behind them,
imagined that he was retrograding or was not
following. Turgénief was advancing, and he
went to great lengths. Let us see how great
was the distance between “The Annals of a
Sportsman” and “ Virgin Soil.”

Turgénief somewhere expressed his sympa-
thy and admiration for Don Quixote. He con-
trasted him with the dreamer Hamlet, in whom
he took little stock. Did not he himself enter
the career of letters like a knight-errant (cam-
peador) in the lists? From the very beginning,
when he had won all the glory of a victor, he
gave his young talent to the service of the right
and of truth; he turned his pen, like a sword,
against egotism, against injustice, against preju-
dice, —in a word, against the different forms
of error. His maiden book, “The Annals of a

a

Sportsman,” was not merely a literary event:
it brought about a political revolution. This
picture of the wretched condition of the serfs
contributed in large measure to call forth the

~~~ ukaz that enfranchised Russia.

It was not the first time that fiction had
IVAN TURGENIEF. 159.

attacked the social question. Gogol had already
struck the first blow against the enemy which
Turgénief had the honor of defeating. But
the author of “Dead Souls” had laid himself
out especially to depict the faults and foibles of
the small Russian proprietors; and, while he
made it sufficiently evident how miserable was
the condition of the serfs under their grotesque
or detestable tyranny, his book left the unfor-
tunate muzhik in the background. Turgénief’s
originality consisted in placing this pariah in _
full light. He dared to show not only his pity |
but his affection for the Russian peasant, often : -
narrow-minded, ignorant, or brutal, but good at |
heart. He undertook to reveal to the Russians
this being which they scarcely knew.

In the very first pages of his book he showed
him with his instinctive qualities; and for this
reason he took pains to place him in an excep-
tional condition, that is to say, in that sort of
relative independence occasionally realized in
spite of, or by favor of, the law. Khor and
Kalinuitch are accordingly almost freed from
the actual miseries of serfage, — the first by
living in the midst of a swamp, avoiding statute
e
160 IVAN TURGENIEF.

labor by paying a quit-rent (obvok); the second
by serving as whipper-in for his master, whom he
passionately adores. The former is a muzhik,
who has the feeling of reality, “who is settled
in life;” the other is a dreamer, “who sticks to
nothing, and smiles at all things.” Khor the
cautious has carefully observed men and things,
and his experiences are expressed with that
humorous zaiveté which gives such a color to
the conversation of the Russian peasant. Ka-
linuitch the enthusiast has the inspired lan-
guage of a poet. He is largely endowed with
mysterious powers. The bees obey him as
though he were an enchanter. Both of them
are good. The one is devout and gentle; the
other, simply cordial and hospitable. There is
profit in listening to the former, and pleasure
in holding intercourse with the latter. Under
these features Turgénief pictured the Russian
of the country districts. After showing him,
so to speak, in his native state, he went on to
explain the deformities from which the type was
liable to suffer under the brutalizing influences
of serfdom.

The first alteration of the character of the
IVAN TURGENIEF. 161

Russian muzhik is a sort of ferocious, even
savage, humor, which takes the place of the
original reason or ingenuity. The huntsman
Yermolat offers us a curious example of this
reversion to barbarism, of this return of the
muszhik towards the savage state. Emanci-
pated in the manner of an outlaw, of a bandit,
he lives in the woods or the marsh, sleeping on
a roof, under a bridge, in the crotch of a tree,
hunted down by the peasants like a hare, beaten
sometimes like a dog, but, aside from these trials,
enjoying to the full this strange independence.
He does not support his wife or his dog, both
of whom he beats with the same brutal indif-
ference. He has all the instincts of the beast
of prey in scenting game, in trapping birds,
in catching fish. He already possesses the
shrewdness of the savage: he would easily
acquire his cruelty. ‘I did not like the expres-
sion which came over his face yhen he applied
his teeth to the bird he had just brought to
earth.”

However precarious and anxious this inde-
pendent life may be, it appears very enviable
when compared to the torment and degrada-
162 IVAN TURGENIEF.

tions of slavery. The muzhik Vilas walks all
the way to Moscow, where he comes to ask a
reduction in his quit-rent ; for his son who paid
it for him is dead, and he himself is old. The
barin slams the door in his face, with the words,
“How do you dare to come to me?” Vlas
sadly returns to his hut, where his wife is wait-
ing for him, blowing in her fist from starvation.
“His lip is drawn, and in his little bloodshot
eyes stands a tear.” He suddenly bursts out
into a laugh, thinking that they can’t take any
thing more from him than his life, — “a wretched
pledge,” —and that that damned German, the
prikashchik Quintilian Semenitch, “will shuffle
in vain:” that’s all he’ll get. That tear of
anguish, and that desperate laugh, are never to
be forgotten.

Here are other impressions not less cruel.
| The serf Sutchok, now employed at his trade
_ of fisherman, t@ls how he began by working as
a cook; and how, in changing his profession,
according as he went from master to master,
he found himself successively cook, restaurant-
keeper, actor, then back to his ovens again,
then wearing livery as sub-footman, then pos-
IVAN TURGENIEF. 163

tilion, then huntsman, then cobbler, then jour-
neyman.in a paper-mill. These caprices of the
mastership which weighs upon the muzhzk have
not only their ridiculous side: there is always
something detestable about it. The last owner
of this wretch, whose life is only an irksome
apprenticeship, is an old maid, who vents her
spleen at having been left in single-blessedness
by forbidding all her household to marry. This
abasement of a human being, condemned by his
master to isolation, to barrenness, like a beast,
is powerfully shown in the little tale entitled
“Yermolai and the Miller Girl.”

But what seems still more painful than the
slavery itself is to see that it is endured with
resignation, and sometimes even upheld, ex-
cused, by those who have to submit to it. “How
do you live?” is asked of one of these victims
of feudal despotism. ‘Do you get wages, a
fixed salary?” —‘“ A salary! Ek! barin, we
are given our victuals. Indeed, that’s all we
need, God knows! And may Heaven grant long
life to our baruina!/” Another has just been
tremendously flogged. He treats with very
bad grace the stranger who presumes to express
164 IVAN TURGENIEF.

commiseration; he takes the part of the master
who has so cruelly abused him for a trifle; he
is proud of belonging to a man who makes
strict use of his seignorial prerogatives. “No,
no! there is not a dariz like to him in the
whole province!”

Turgénief does not confine himself to the ex-
pression of pity for the muzhiks: he is unspar-
ing of the nobles. With what irony he depicts
for us their false sentimentality, their detestable
selfishness! How he lays his finger on their
absurdities! How he scourges their cruelty!
How he lays bare their hypocrisy! They all ap-
pear in the book, from the narrow and cringing
citizen, to the cynically brutal country pomyesh-
chik, from the gentlemen of the steppe (ste-
niaks) wp to the vanished nobles, those legend-
ary vyelmozhui, personified in Count Aleksét
Orlof, so handsome, so strong, so terrible, and
at the same time so beloved! “Ifyou were not
acquainted with him, you would feel abashed ;
but after getting wonted to his presence, you felt
warmed and delighted as by a beautiful sunrise.”
The author finds in this vanished aristocracy
the rather barbaric form of his own grandfather,
IVAN TURGENIEF. 165

and he cannot refrain here from a sort of ad-
miration. It is true, that small men have a
sympathy very differently marked for these
ostentatious giants of the olden days. Besides,
is it not enough that the author of “Annals of
a Sportsman” makes no secret of the excesses
committed by those of his race? Has he not
the right to remember that the form of oppres-
sion has merely been changed, and that the
serf is not less abused from falling from the
mighty hands of the tyrants, into the hooked
claws of tyrannical weaklings ?

But the true tormentor of the serf was a man
whose condition brought him nearest to the
muzhtk, the one who, more often than not, was ;
himself only a muzhzk polished up, — in other
words, the representative of the proprietor, |
the superintendent (prikashchik), the burmistr.
This subaltern master pays the peasant’s quit-
rent until the latter, overwhelmed with debts,
is absolutely in his power. He becomes his
slave, his drudge. Now and then will be found
in the woods the corpse of some wretch who
has torn himself from this hell, by suicide. But
what is the use of complaining? The proprie-

 
166 IVAN TURGENIEF.

tor receives his revenue, and is satisfied. And
then the prikashchik has a thousand ways of
getting hold of the fault-finder, and the wreak-
ing of his vengeance brings a groan.

Proprietors, mushiks, priskashchiks, all these
characters strike, move, stir, by their fidelity to
the truth. In a subject which lent itself so
easily to declamation, the author succeeded in
refraining from all excess of fine writing. This
self-restraint in form gave greater force to the
satire, and added weight to the argument. Be-
sides, under the irony the bitterness was felt, and
under the comic fervor was occasionally heard
the rumbling of a generous wrath. Turgénief
himself explained the feelings which animated
him at this period of his life, which I would
rather compare to the morning of a battle. He
had just left Russia, the atmosphere of which
seemed no longer fit to breathe. He went away
to get afresh start, so as to come back witha
renewed impetus against his enemy serfage.
“ T swore that I would fight it even to the death;
I vowed that I would never come to terms with
it: that was my Hannibal’s oath.”

From one end of his work to the other, Tur-
IVAN TURGENIEF. 167

génief never did aught else than thus reflect
the feelings of the Russian people, express its
hopes, note carefully, proclaim sincerely, all the
forward and backward movements of opinion.
In every one of his novels, there is to be found
one person whose appearance, conduct, and
worth may vary, but whose dominant character-
istic holds throughout all changes. This per-
sonage, however alive he may be, serves to
express an abstraction. He is, so to speak, the
incarnation of the wishes, the fears, the claims,
of the Russian people. Now, in Russia, as else-
where, and still more than elsewhere, public
opinion is undergoing constant modification :
the novelist has followed with careful eye, and
copied with accurate hand, all these rapid trans-
formations.

In Dmitri Rudin, he depicts for us a lofty but
inconsequential generation, eloquent, but lack-
ing in depth, eager for every undertaking, but
having no fixed purpose; as the youth of 1840
must have been, who had the power of speech,
but were prevented from action.+

1 Pfsemsky described this same generation in his great story, Liwdé
Sorokovuikh Godof (People of the Forties). —N. H. D.
168 IVAN TURGENTEF.

This was the epoch when there was a passion
for words, and especially for words of foreign
origin. Hegel’s philosophy frothed and foamed
in these Russian brains, so little constituted for
the digestion of metaphysical nutriment. But
the fashion was for cosmopolitanism: they af-
fected to scorn national habits; they dreamed
only of going “beyond Russia.” Rudin, who
personifies this error, was its first victim. At
first he carries away, he rouses to enthusiasm,
all whom he approaches; then his friends, his
disciples, ultimately, sooner or later, turn against
him. He succeeds in rousing only hatred, or
exciting only distrust. Useless and inactive
amid his own people, he goes to perish on a
French barricade; and by a supreme but uncon-
scious irony, the insurgent who fights at his side
pronounces his funeral oration in these words:
“Lo, they have killed our Pole!”

Is it true to say that the Rudins were of no
advantage to their country? The author gives
us to understand, that their words may have
cast the germ of generous thoughts into more
than one young soul to whom nature will not
refuse the advantage of a fruitful activity.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 169

o this same unfortunate family of fore-
ryinners, and to this same sacrificed but indis-
pensable generation, belongs the character of
Lavretsky in the romance entitled “A Nest
of Noblemen.” Unlike Rudin, Lavretsky owes
nothing to schooling. Scarcely does he have
time for applying his simple and ingenuous mind
to the acquisition of knowledge during the
period between the moment when he escapes
the durance of paternal despotism, and that
when he takes upon him the more pleasing yoke
of conjugal will, He therefore has remained
Russian ; he believés in the future of the na-
tional genius. He is lavish of himself, and of
those of his age; but he admires the tendencies
of the young, and he praises their endeavors.
Departing from his country, happy, or at least
under that delusion, he returns alone and
crushed ; but he has the consolation of doing his
duty, that is to say, cultivating his estate, and
improving the lot of his peasants. This un-
ostentatious work of Lavretsky’s, better than
Rudin’s brilliant declamations, pointed out to
the rising generations what Russia henceforth
expected from her sons: ‘‘ You must act, and
170 IVAN TURGENIEF.

the benediction of us old men will fall npn
you.” . ‘n

But this period of action which they seem i
be approaching will be postponed before thi
unanimous wishes of the novelist and the reads
er. In the book “On the Eve,” translated into
French under the title “ Héléne,”’' the author’s
aim is very evident. He contrasts two Rus-
sians with a Bulgarian; and the brilliant or
solid qualities of the artist Shubin and the stu-
dent Bersénief yield before the unique virtue
of Insarof, a more common nature. This virtue
of the barbarian is to go’straight ahead; he
does not delay for dreaming or discussion;
there is nothing of the Hamlet about him.
However strange be his ideal, however adven-
turous his lot, he carries with him Elena’s hesi-
tating wisdom, just as Don Quixote overcame
Sancho’s rebellious good sense. It is this deci-
siveness, this bold gait, this firm resolution not
to fall back, and resolutely to emerge from the
beaten path, which the author of “On the Eve”
seems to hold up before the Russian people.
But it might be said that he despaired of find-

1 Also under the title Ux Bulgare.—N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 171

f

ing in his own country the man of action, des-
tined to win the glory to come; and it was thus
that the Russian critics explained his signifi-
cant choice of a Bulgarian for the hero of his
romance.

This ingenious explanation is not correct.
Insarof and Elena have experienced life.
This beautiful young Russian girl, who is
anxious to devote herself to a noble cause,
and who, not being able to die for her own
country, clings to the lot of the foreigner who
shows her the path of great sacrifices, was not
a creature of Turgénief’s imagination. Not
only did Elena exist, but there was a throng
of Elenas who asked only for a chance to
show themselves. This was seen as soon as
the romance was published. All feminine
hearts throbbed. One might say that the
author had placed before the eyes of the vir-
gins of Russia a mirror, where, for the first
time, they were allowed to see themselves,
and become conscious of their own existence.
A few years later Elena would have had a
chance to offer herself to Russia. She would
have acted like Viéra Sasuluitch, or, not to
172 IVAN TURGENIEF.

go outside of fiction, like Marian in “ Virgin
Soil.” 1

In the famous novel “Fathers and Sons,”
the young generation for the first time comes

 

upon the scéne. “It is represented by the medi-

 

cal student Bazarof. Better to bring out his
‘hero bya fortunate contrast, the author has

 

8 Se
;—put this brutal but thoroughly original plebeian

 

| face to face with a gentleman in whom are

 

united all the qualities and the eccentricities
e the conservative nobility. Again, it is Ger-
man educatiom which has fashioned Bazarof,

 

 

But Hegel’s theories have given place to Scho-

penhauer’s ; and Germanic, pessimism, grafted

on the Russian mind, has brought forth very

strange fruit. The young men of whom Baza-

 

 

rof is a type are of the earth earthy, to the

same degree as that generation of which Ru-
' din was the shining example showed itself
exalted. They have only one aim, action; they
admit only one principle of action, utility ; they
see only one form of utility at the present time,
absolute negation. “Yet isn’t it necessary to
rebuild ?— That does not concern us. Before
all things we must clear the ground.”
IVAN TURGENIEF. 173

Here, cle ted, is the theory of
Nihilism. This word, invented by Turgénief,
and spoken for the first time in “Fathers and
Sons,” has in short space gone all over the
world. We kfiow that all Russian readers,
young and old, blamed the author of the novel
for slandering them. The older generation
could not forgive him for having spurned their
prejudices; the rising generation were angry
with him for not preaching their errors. What
strikes us to-day is that at this moment he was
able to remain so clear-sighted and sincere ;_
that he was able to unite so. much nobility |
with Pavel Kirsanof’s narrow-sightedness, and |
so much subtilty with Bazarof’s ° fe
scepticism.

But the character which Turgénief liked best
in this romance of “Fathers and Sons” was
Bazarof, in other words, that personage rep-
resenting the Russian soul with aspiration to-
ward progress, no longer ideal and vague, but
“violent, and brutal. “What ! do you, « do you say
that in Bazarof I desired to draw a caricature
of our young men? You repeat (excuse the
freedom of the expression), you repeat that
174 IVAN TURGENIEF.

stupid reproach? Bazarof! but-he is my well?
beloved son, who caused me to break with Kat-
kof, for whom. I expended all the colors on
my palette. Bazarof, that quick spirit, that
hero, a caricature!”” And he“took delight in
returning to the definition of this enigmatic
personage. He never wearies in commenting
n “this harbinger type,” this “grand figure,”
surrounded by a genuine “magic spell,” and,
as it were, by some sort of “aureole.”

The conclusion of the book lies in the ironi-
cal-and bitter advice given by Bazarof to his
friend Arkad: ‘‘Take thee a wife as soon as
thou canst, build thy nest well, and beget many
children. They will certainly be people of
brains, because they will come in due time,
ae not like thee and me.”

Thus is the solution of the social problem
once more _ “more postponed. The rock of < Sisyphus
falls back as heavily on the new-comers as

yn their predecessors. The recoil is even so
mighty that the observer feels that he too is
\ attacked by pessimism ; and if he does not take
' pride in absolute negation, like Bazarof or his
young adepts, he just as surely comes to deny
IVAN TURGENIEE. 175

their qualities, to see any sense in their con-
duct. The romance “Smoke,” which is the
expression of this new state of mind, roused
in Russia. all the clamors by which a satiré is
received. What was entirely overlooked was
the feeling of painful compassion hidden under °
the aggressive form. It was an act of enlight-
ened patriotism, to let daylight into the hollow
declamations of the progressists, and to lay
the scourge on the stupid folly, the idiotic de-
pravity, of a nobility which had brought itself
into discredit. Between Gubaref, that solemn
imbecile, and Ramirof, the complaisant hus-
band of a faithless wife, one must go to the
hero of the story, Litvinof; that is to say, to
the idealized Russia, whose gloomy and painful
destiny we have followéd across all Turgénief's—.
“work, under the features of Rudin, of Lavret-
“sky, of Bazarof. Like Lavretsky twenty years
before, Litvinof returns to his country, over-
whelmed with domestic troubles, which exas-
perate all his other feelings, and change the
mishaps of his patriotism into despair. The
vanity of love makes him find all things vain.
In the tumult of the recent years, in the agita-
176 IVAN TURGENIEF.

tion of divers classes, in the words of others,
in his own thoughts, he sees mere nothingness,
sham, smoke. The desolation of this conclu-
sion was brought up against the author of the
book, by his compatriots, with a warmth which
almost disgusted him with the 7é/e of political
observer, and almost deprived us likewise of a
masterpiece in which Turgénief seems to have
reached his greatest height, — “ Virgin Soil.”
The author of “Fathers and Sons” named
and defined theoretic Nihilism: in “Virgin
Soil,” the same author shows us the Nihilists
at the very moment when, for the first time,
they begin to act. Between the two books a
pretty long time elapsed, during which Tur-
génief kept silent. There is lacking, therefore,
among his works, a book which might let us
into the secrets of the dark development and
mysterious spread of the new theories. In
regard to this Nihilist propaganda in its early
years, when it was only an attempt at self-
instruction, we find, in “Virgin Soil,” only
hints, allusions. The very character, however,
who is going to bring about the crisis, at the
risk of destroying every thing along with him-
IVAN TURGENIEE. 177

self, Markelof, still reads and propagates with
naive assurance the “brochures” which are
secretly sent him, and which he passes on
“under the mantle” to his other confederates.
What subjects were treated in these books so
carefully hidden? Those which were worth the
trouble of reading were translations of foreign
works on political economy ; writings attacking,
with greater or less ability, the problems of
society. But this instruction, good or bad,
could not have the least influence on the great
mass of the Russian population, which does not
read at all.

It was therefore necessary to find more effica-
cious means of action, and to organize actual
preaching. Then it was that a pretty large
number of people belonging to the educated
classes, students like Nedzhanof, women vol-
untarily deserting their own rank in life, like
Marian, undertook to go down among the
people, to dress in their style, to speak their
dialect, to lead their rough lives, to gain their
confidence at the cost of this labor, to open
their minds to the ideas of liberty and progress,
to rescue them from the double curse of lazi-
178 IVAN TURGENIEF.

ness and drunkenness, and, finally, to bring
them into the path of action. The trouble was
that these people who preached action did not
themselves know where to begin the work.
Each of them was waiting for the word of
command, which no one could give; for in this
concert of wills there was no one to direct, and
the most violent efforts, from lack of deter-
mined purpose, were obliged to remain without
results.

Another insurmountable obstacle lay in the
repugnance of the people at emerging from
their tremendous inertia. Nedzhanof compares
Holy Russia to a colossus, whose head touches
the north pole and his feet the Caucasus, and
who, holding a jug of vodka in his clutched
fingers, sleeps an endless sleep. Those who
try to struggle against this sleep lose their time
and their labor. Discouragement takes hold of
them, and some of them, like Markelof, for hav-
ing desired, having tried by themselves alone,
to perform a part which needs the efforts of an
army, go forth on the hopeless path by the gate
that leads to Siberia; others, like Nedzhanof,
having lost faith in this work for the regenera-
IVAN TURGENIEF. 179

tion and enfranchisement of a people to which
they believed themselves capable of offering
their devotion, throw down violently the double
burden of their vain labor and their ridiculous
lives. The Russian Hamlet gets rid of his
mission by suicide.

This beautiful novel of “ Virgin Soil,” which
must be read through, appeared on the very
eve of the great Nihilist suit against the One
Hundred and Ninety-three. At first the cry
was raised, that the author did not draw a true
picture: the author was again slandering
Russia. A few days later the critics, dis-
mayed at his power’ of divination, accused
Turgénief of having got into the confidence
of the ruling power, and of having had in his
hands the entire brief of the preparatory trial.*
Some Nihilists were already dreaming of more
tragic performances. “I also,” said one of
them, who at this time was a refugee in Paris,
“T also am a Nedzhanof; but I shall not kill
myself as he did: there is a better way of
doing it.” This better way was worse. It was

1 It was reported, and believed by some, that the Russian govern-
ment paid Turgénief fifty thousand rubles for Virgin Soil.—N. H. D.
180 IVAN TURGENIEF.

assassination in the manner of Solovief, who,
having resolved to kill himself, and for the
same reasons that influenced Nedzhanof, will
inaugurate suicide with a bloody preface.

Since “Virgin Soil,” the evolution of Nihil-
ism has made new and rapid strides. The
mania of descending among the people, and
“being simplified” has given place to other
fantastic notions, just as useless, but less inno-
cent. We have said that Turgénief died before
he had time to finish the romance in which he
would have shown us the agitations of to-day,
and possibly pointed out the social reforms of
to-morrow.

Who knows what Russia is preparing for us?
Hitherto the reforms have been decreed by the
throne; and the wsazes have remained without
effect, because they have not had the support
in the lever of the people. The expenditure of
energy, starting from above, did not make the
nation stir. But now suddenly the nation seems
to be shaking off its torpor. The peasants,
hitherto deaf to all voices, and stubbornly re-
sistant of all progress, have perhaps found for
themselves the way of safety and redemption.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 181

They are assembling in their villages, and they
are organizing the league against drunkenness.
This strike against the wine-shop is terrifying
to the Russian clergy: they see in it a new
form of heresy. In their eyes, these water-
drinkers are vaskolnzks, and the most dangerous
kind. We know the Russian proverb versified
by Nekrdsof: “The muzhtk has a head like a
bull: when a folly finds lodgement there, it is
impossible to drive it out, even with heavy
blows of the goad.” It is this headstrong ob-
stinacy which seemed to postpone forever, and
which may precipitate to-morrow, the settlement
of the social question.
182 IVAN TURGENIEF.

IV.

TuE expressions, “Russian ideal,” “repre-
sentative type of one generation,” and other
terms of this kind, which one must necessarily
use to mark the connection between Turgé-
nief’s different works, must not be allowed to
give a false idea of the nature of his talent and
of his methods in fiction.

He has himself defined his talent. He. has
explained his methods so far as they were essen-
tial. We have, therefore, only to turn to these
precious directions. “I will tell you in a few
words that I am, so far as preference goes, a
realist ; and that I am interested, more than all
else, in the living truth of the human physiog-
nomy.” He says elsewhere, that at no moment
of his career has he ever taken for his point of
departure in a new creation an abstract idea,
but that he has always started with the true
image, the objective reality, the characteristic
personage observed and living.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 183

Here is the very principle of his esthetic,
as he summed it up in his letter to Mr. King,
a novelist just beginning his career: “If the
study of the human physiognomy, and of the
life of another, interests you more than the pro-
mulgation of your own feelings and your own
ideas ; if, for example, it is more agreeable for
you to reproduce accurately the external ap-
pearance not only of a man, but also of a sim-
ple object, than to express with elegance and
warmth what you feel in seeing this object or
this man, —then you are an objective writer,
and you can begin a story or a novel.”

Truth is not disagreeable to those who love
it: it gives life to their conceptions. Turgé-
nief’s work, the political bearing of which we
have already tried to show our readers, is a
little world where go and come a thousand
people with variously expressive characters
and faces. The creator of such living char-
acters as these has been compared to a great
portrait-painter. The comparison is unjust to
the novelist. Like the great painters of por-
traits, he seizes a dominant feature, and ex-
presses it powerfully. It is thus that in a
184 IVAN TURGENIEF.

book, on the canvas, the resemblance is caught.
But the art of a Titian, of a Reynolds, renders
the aspect of the face, and reveals, if you like,
something more,—the temperament of the
model. It goes scarcely beyond that. The
novelist expresses, besides, a whole order of
hidden facts, a whole internal spectacle, of
which the brush scarcely gives us an inkling.
There is therefore a double field of studies to
go over, a double power of observation to put
into use. It is necessary at one and the same
time to note the attitude, and interpret the dis-
position ; to catch the expression of the face, and
to penetrate the meaning of the character.
Turgénief possessed this double talent to
a very high degree. As a general thing,
he paints with broad touches; and his por-
trait, both physically and morally, is finished
in few words. Sometimes the detail is more
minute, but the accumulation of lines serves
only to verify the dominant impression. I
refer the reader to the romance of “The
Abandoned One,” and to that admirable por-
trait of the old Russian gentleman in the time
of Catherine II. What a calling-back of the
IVAN TURGENIEF. 185

past is given by this old man of lofty stature,
perfumed with ambergris, glacial in doublet of
silk with its relief of stock and lace ruffles, a
suspicion of powder on his hair brought behind
into a cue, and in his hand a gold snuff-box
ornamented with the empress’s cipher! He
always speaks French; he scarcely knows
Russian. He reads perforce every day Vol-
taire, Mably, Helvétius, the Eucyclopédistes ;
he has whilom improvised verses in Madame de
Polignac’s sa/ox,; he has been among the guests
at Trianon ; he has seen Mirabeau wearing coat-
buttons of extravagant size, and his opinion on
our great orator is, that he was “exaggerated
in all respects; that, on the whole, he was a
man of low tone, in spite of his birth.”

It is seen by this example, that Turgénief’s
portraits often represent a class in an individ-
ual. They are the expression of an epoch.
In fact, though he studies nature closely, he
takes pains not to content himself, as our real-
ists do, with the first model that comes to
hand. He carefully seeks for the character
whose features are sufficiently marked and ori-
ginal, so that in copying it he shall be sure to
186 IVAN TURGENIEF.

reproduce the general type. Thus he discov-
ered Bazarof, the hero of “ Fathers and Sons.”
The idea was given him by the chance which
brought to his sick-bed in a small Russian city
the “young doctor of the district,” who served
him for his model. I do not know whether all
the characters of “ Virgin Soil,” without excep-
tion, passed under the author’s eyes; but I have
heard Turgénief tell how he knew, and was
able to study, the most characteristic personage
of the story, the Nihilist woman, — the upright,
solemn, and rather absurd, but strong and sub-
lime Mashurina.

It was by his knowledge of the heart of
women, and by the thorough-going fascination of
his heroines, that Turgénief left far behind him
his great predecessor Gogol. By an inexplicable
peculiarity, the author of “The Revizor,” of
“Dead Souls,” cared only to paint women who
were not women at all, who are lifeless abstrac-
tions or caricatures.'. The most gossiping biog-
raphers are embarrassed to explain the reason
of this impotence. All that can be said is that

t Yuliana Betrishef in Dead Souls is not a portrait: she is a lumi-

nous apparition. — Author's note.
IVAN TURGENTEF. 187

Gogol dreaded too much the approach of woman-
kind, ever to have the chance to study the sex.
‘On the contrary, Turgénief’s heroines are so
life-like, that under each portrait his readers
have tried to recognize and name some model.
All well-informed Russians would have told
you in what palace in Warsaw dwelt Iréna of
“Smoke,” or at the first official reception would
have pointed you Mrs. Sipiagina of “ Virgin
Soil.” It certainly seems that all these delicate
creations have the irresistible seduction of real-
ity. There is not a romance, not a story, by
Turgénief, in which there does not shine forth
some feminine face, sometimes of a rather
strange grace, but singularly lifelike and touch-
ing. Natalia and her sister in “ Dmitri Rudin,”
Liza in “A Nest of Noblemen,” Elena in “On
the Eve,” Marian in “Virgin Soil,” —it would
be necessary to name them all.

What rather surprises the French reader is
not to find them always beautiful ; at least, with
that perfect and improbable beauty which our
novelists do not hesitate to give their expres-
sionless dolls. One has regular features, a
pretty foot, but her hands are too large. An-
188 IVAN TURGENIEF.

other, at first sight, seems ugly: ‘She wore
her thick chestnut hair short, and she seemed
to be fretful; but her whole person gave the
impression of something strong, passionate, and
fiery. Her feet and her hands were extremely
dainty; her little body, robust and supple, re-
minded one of the Florentine statuettes of the
sixteenth century ; her movements were grace-
ful and harmonious.” What idealized beauty
would have this living grace?

Another singularity, which shows us to what
a degree the author takes us from our own lati-
tude: in him the women have less originality
than the young girls. The indecision and fee-
bleness found in their lovers, the Rudins and
the Nedzhanofs, is paralleled by the resolute
wisdom, and—let us use the words “graceful
virility,” in them. They somewhat resemble the
Roman girls, and we expect to hear them say
in their way the “ Nox dolet” of the illustrious
Arria. But no; they have not in the least these
rather theatrical attitudes and words. It is the
Nedzhanofs who die like impatient Stoics, or
perhaps like discouraged Epicureans: Marian
continues to live, and without bustle to pre-
IVAN TURGENIEF. 189

pare for the freeing of the country which she
loves.

Women raised by noble feeling to the scorn
of death are found elsewhere than in Russia.
What is more rare, and almost impossible to
find, are these fanatical sacrifices, these renun-
ciations worthy of the primitive days of the
Church, which associate lovely maidens of six-
teen with imbecile vagabonds eaten up by hide-
ous ulcers. Turgénief might have multiplied
in his work description of pathological cases
(“Strange Stories”); but if his realism is too
artistic to delay over what is commonplace, he
is too honest to devote himself to exceptions.

The form which best brings out this sincerity
of expression is the tale. Turgénief takes little
stock in dramatic form, at least in his own case.
“T see a subject,” he used to say, “only when I
have the framework, the portrait, the dialogues,
the wanderings, of a narration.” In the drama
he felt himself bothered by the necessity of col-
lecting, abridging, curtailing, filling in; and his
psychology seemed to him warped, when pre-
sented in miniature. It is in vain that you

brought up in opposition to this modest claim
190 IVAN TURGENIEF.

the form of such and such of his stories, which
from beginning to end is an uninterrupted
scene, a dramatic dialogue.

“ That is not dramatic dialogue,” said he: he
"was and had to remain a narrator.

To find finished narration, it is sufficient,
indeed, to open at hap-hazard “The Annals of
a Huntsman.” Nothing is lacking; not char-
acter-painting, or lively course of the story, or
surprise in circumstances, or development of
the situation, or harmony of outline, or feeling
for nature, or grace of style, or value of coloring.
But one ought to have heard Turgénief, and to
have seen him in his character of story-teller,
to imagine to what degree all these qualities
in him were spontaneous. It was especially in
this that his conversation was unlike any one
else’s : it translated ideas into images, and, with-
out any attempt, created paintings which one
would never forget.

Does narration in Turgénief gain by assum-
ing the ampler proportions of the novel? Our
French taste is open to suspicion, and I hesi-
tate about replying. Our good novelists are
such clever carpenters: they construct so sym-
IVAN TURGENTEF. Ig!

metrically works so ingeniously arranged for
effect ; the interest is kept up with such skill;
the action moves along with such a certain step,
towards a logical result feared or suspected from
the very first word! We find ourselves at first
not quite so much at our ease in these Russian
novels, which are full of art, but are bare of
little artifices ; where the developments are like
the course of real life; where the characters
hesitate, and sometimes remain still; where the
action develops without haste; and where the
, author does not even think it important to come
to an end. It is sufficient for him to state facts,
and explain characters. This perfect natural-
ness, at first a trifle dubious, finally comes to
have a great charm. There is nothing which is
more able to make us reflect on the puerile
stress which we lay on the method, and on the
often to-be-regretted emptiness of our novels of
industrious mechanism.

We should not have given Turgénief his
just deserts if we forgot to praise him asa poet
worthy of all admiration. I mean, as a poet in
prose; for Turgénief was no more successful
than Gogol in making good verse. Both of them
192 IVAN TURGENIEF.

used a language that was picturesque, infinitely
expressive, full of images, and, in the case of
Turgénief more than Gogol, of perfect purity
and the greatest variety. He feels all the
beauties of nature, and expresses them with
powerful originality, or a delicate charm which
shines through even the rather thick veil of
translations. And yet what shadings escape
us, what graces are lost for us!

The Russian language has infinite resources.
If it is less exact in expressing the relations
of action and of time, it brings out the most
imperceptible circumstances of action. It out-
lines with less clearness: it paints with incred-
ible richness of coloring. It is easy to under-
stand what effects a writer who can see and can
express—a poet, in a word—is able to make
with it. Turgénief’s descriptions threw Meri-
mée into despair. One day, when he was trying
to put into French a passage where the author
had represented the peculiar sound of the rain
falling on a sheet of water, the French words
grésillement froid (cold shrivelling), destined to
translate this inexpressible noise, caused the
author of “Colomba” to hesitate. “Yet that
IVAN TURGENIEF. 193

is it,” said he, thinking better of it; “and the
thing must be said, or lose the bit of observa-
tion, which is perfectly true to nature. The
Devil take the pedants! Let us leave the
phrase.”

How far this poetic realism is from our flat
and tiresome enumerations of details heaped up
without selection! But the parallel between
the Russian realists and the French realists, to
which this subject constantly attracts us, would
carry us too far. It is sufficient to point out
the essential difference. Observation in our
realists is systematic and cold; in the _Rus- *
sians, and, above all, in. Turgénief, it is always
natural, and generally passionate. TI here is not
a novel’ by Turgénief where the pathetic has
not a large part; and sometimes this pathos,
by the simplest means, reaches heights neigh-
boring upon the sublime.

I shall only quote one example of it, taken

’ and I have no fear

from “Fathers and Sons ;’
that the reader will charge me with bad taste
in cutting out this admirable scene from this
novel, extended as it is: —

“Although Bazarof pronounced these last
194 IVAN TURGENIER.

words with a rather resolute expression, he
could not bring himself to tell his father of his
departure until they were in the library, just as
he was going to bid him good-night. He said,
with a forced yawn, —

' “¢Wait a moment. I almost forgot to let
you know. It will be necessary to send our
horses to Fyodot to-morrow for the relay.’

“Vasili Ivanovitch stood stupefied.

“«Is Kirsdnof going to leave us?’ he asked
at last.

“«Yes, and I am going with him,’

“Vasili Ivanovitch fell back stupefied.

“«You are going to leave us!’

“« Yes, I have business. Have the kindness
to send the horses.’

“«Very well,’ stammered the old man, ‘for
the relay. Very good, — only —only —is it
possible?’

“*T must go to Kirsdnof’s for a few days. I
shall come right back.’ .

“ «Ves, for several days. Very well.’

“Vasili Ivanovitch took out his handkerchief,
and blew his nose, bending over till he almost
touched the-floor.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 195

_ “*Well, be it so. It shall be done. But I
thought that you—longer. Three days—
after three years of absence. It isn’t —it isn’t
very long, Yevgéni.’

“*T just told you that I would come right
back. I must!’

“*You must? Very well: before all things,
one must do his duty. You want me to send
the horses? Very well; but we did not expect
this, Arina and I. She just went to ask a
neighbor for some flowers to put in your
room,’

“Vasili Ivanovitch did not add that every
morning at daybreak, in bare feet in his slip-
pers, he went to find Timoféitch, handing him
a torn bill, which he picked out from the bot-
tom of his pocket-book with trembling fingers.
This bill was designed for the purchase of dif-
ferent provisions, principally food and red wine,
great quantities of which the young men con-
sumed.

“«There is nothing more precious than lib-
erty ; that’s my principle. It is not well to
hinder people. One should not ’—

“Vasili suddenly stopped, and started for the
door.
196 IVAN TURGENIEF.

“«¢We shall see each other soon again, father,
I promise you.’

“But Vasili Ivanovitch did not return. He
left the room, making a gesture with his hand.
Coming into his bed-chamber, he found his
wife already asleep; and he began to pray in
a low voice, so as not to disturb her slumber.
However, she waked up.

““Ts it you, Vasili Ivanovitch ?’ she asked.

“eX es, my dear

“You have just left Yeniushka? I am
afraid that he is not comfortable sleeping on
the sofa. Yet I told Anfisushka to give him
your field-mattress and the two new cushions.
I would have given him our feather-bed too,
but I think I remember that he does not like
to sleep too easy.’

“«That’s no matter, my dear; don’t trouble
yourself. He is comfortable. — Lord, have pity
on us sinners,’ he added, continuing his prayer.
Vasili Ivanovitch did not talk long. He did
not wish to announce the tidings that would
have broken his poor wife’s rest.

“The two young men took their departure
the next morning. Every thing in the house,
IVAN TURGENIEF. 197

from early that morning, assumed a sad aspect.
Anfisushka let fall the sate that she was carry-
ing; Fyedka himself was entirely upset, and
finally left his boots. Vasili Ivanovitch moved
about more than ever. He tried hard to hide
his disappointment; he spoke very loud, and
walked noisily: but his face was hollow, and
his eyes seemed always to avoid his son. Arina
Viasievna wept silently. She would have en-
tirely lost her self-control if her husband had
not given her a long lecture in the morning.
When Bazarof, after having repeated again and
again that he would come back before a month
was over, finally tore himself from the arms
that held him back, and sat down in the ¢éaran-
tds ; when the horses started, and the jingling
of the bells was mingled with the rumbling of
the wheels ; when it was no use to look any
longer ; when the dust was entirely settled, and
Timoféitch, bent double, had gone staggering
back to his lodging; when the two old people
found themselves once more alone in their
house, which seemed also to have become
smaller and older, . . . Vasili Ivanovitch, who
but a few moments before was waving his
198 IVAN TURGENIEF.

handkerchief so proudly from the steps, threw
himself into a chair, and hung his head on his
breast. ‘He has left us,’ he said with a trem-
bling voice, —‘left us! He found it lonesome
with us. Now I am alone, alone,’ he repeated
again and again, lifting each time the forefinger
of his right hand". Arina Vlasievna drew near
him, and, leaning her white head on the old
man’s white head, she said, ‘What’s to bé
done about it, Vasili? A son is like a shred
torn off. He is a young hawk: it pleases him
to come, and he comes; it pleases him to go,
and he flies away. And youand I are like little
mushrgoms in the hollow of a tree: placed be-
side each other, we stay there always. I alone
do not change for thee, just as thou dost not
change for thy old wife.’

“Vasili lifted his face, which he had hidden
in his hands, and embraced his companion more
tenderly than he had ever done, even in his
youth. She had consoled him in his disap-
pointment.”

‘ Were we not right in speaking here of the

|

! A Russian proverb says, “Alone as a finger.” —Zvanslator’s
nate, guoted by author.

\ °
\
IVAN TURGENIEF. 199

pathetic, and was it not well that we drew the
reader’s attention to this good old word? It
expresses an old idea, which, with no offence
to the lovers of the commonplace, is not yet
ready to perish, It is the mistake of. the
French realists,? to take coolness for strength,
and they claim to be considered very strong
men. Turgénief’s great superiority consists in
his having no pretension, not even to be trivial
and common. He does not make it a matter
of pride to stay on the hither side of the truth,

T It is only just to make exception in favor of Alfonse Daudet.
His talent is largely made up of sentiment, and even of sentimen-
tality. — Author's note,
200 IVAN TURGENIEF.

Vs

In this study of Turgénief, I do not flatter
myself that I have pointed out all the aspects
of a character so varied, —that I have shown all
the traits of anature so complex. Yet it would
be a serious lack if I did not explain Turgénief's
relationship to the writers of his country, or if
I neglected the great number of criticisms
which he has passed, in his letters to his
friends, in regard to the literary movement
of the last thirty years.

He characterizes the epoch to which he be-
longs. It is still, in his opinion, an epoch “of
transition.” He deplores the lack of union,
the want of solidarity, inthe men. who -in
Russia hold “this weapon, — the _pen ; ; and who
might; by concentratiig their efforts, triumph
over so many obstacles against which, in their
isolation, they run a-muck and bruise them-
IVAN TURGENIEF. 201

selves. “Each one sings his own song, and
follows his lonely path.”

He speaks without too much feeling about
his enemies, unless he finds a settled aversion
for their work, and for their conception of art.
“Tam sorry for Tchernuishevsky’s dryness, his
tendency to crudeness, his unceremonious treat-
ment of living writers; but I find nothing in him
corpse-like. I see a living fountain spouting.”
To be sure, he has little to praise in the man
of whom he thus speaks; but malice, arising
from personal attacks, could not draw him far
from the truth. ‘These are spring waters,”
said he in regard to certain injurious writings
directed against him. “They will run off, and
no trace of them will be left.”

It is not the same with him when teachings
wound him, and when the literary form disgusts
him. After having loved Nekrdsof, he goes so
far as no longer to recognize any talent in him,
so shocked, so disgusted, is he by his inten-
tional brutalities. His verses “leave behind
them an after-taste which makes me nause-
ated.” “What a son of a dog!” he says in
another place. ‘“ He is a vulture, ravening and
202 IVAN TURGENIEF.

gorging.” But Nekrdsof * died before him ; and.
he modifies, he explains the judgment which
he had passed upon him. “No matter if the
young have been infatuated with him, this has
done no harm. The chords set in vibration by
his poetry (if you can give the name of poetry
to what he wrote) are good chords. But when
Ste

them that they are right in placing Nekrasof

 

, addressing these young people, tells

above Pushkin and Lermontof,? and tells them
so with an imperturbable smile, I find it hard
to restrain my indignation, and I repeat the
lines of Schiller :—

‘T have seen splendid crowns of glory woven for most

common brows.’ ”

His early sympathy for the novelist Dosto-
yevsky 3? was soon changed to dislike, owing to

1! Nikolai Alekseyévitch Nekrdsof, born in December, 1821, editor
of the Sovremennik from 1847 till 1866. Afterwards, when the Sovre-
mennik was suppressed, he edited the Otetchestvennui Zapiski till
his death, which took place in January, 1877. He was eminently
Russia’s popular poet. — N. H. D.

2 Mikhail Yuryevitch Lermontof, the author of the great poem
Demon, and other verses inspired by the Caucasus, was born in 1814,.
and died in 1841.

3 Feddor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky was born in 1822 in Mos-
cow, and died in March, 1881. His life reads likea romance. Fora
IVAN TURGENIEF. 203

their differences of opinion. The sharp fea-
tures in the character of the author of “ Crime
and Punishment” were not slow to disgust
Turgénief. He could not be brought back by
the reading of works, the clearly marked tend-
ency of which is sometimes to put a check
upon his own. He was not sparing of admira-
tion for the “ Recollections of a Dead House.”
“The picture of the banya (bath) is really
worthy of Dante. In the character of the vari-
ous people (that of Petrof, for example), there is
much fine and true psychology.”

But when Dostoyevsky’s faults grow more
pronounced ; when his qualities become extrav-
agant, and themselves turn to mannerisms;
when this keenness, once so fine and delicate,
loses itself in subtleties; when the writer’s
sensitiveness changes into supersensitiveness ;
when his imagination goes beyond the bounds of
reason, and gloats over the pursuit of the hor-
rible, — Turgénief does not hide his disgust, his
scorn. “God, what a soursmell! What a vile

short sketch of it, and also for the translation of the scene from his
Lapishi iz Mertvava Doma, so praised by Turgénief, see appendix.
—N.H.D.
204 IVAN TURGENIEF.

hospital odor! What idle scandal! What a
psychological mole-hole!” *

Turgénief prefers as he debars, he loves as
he detests; that is to say, with a passion which
is contagious, and carries the reader with him.
One should see with what pleasure he receives
the works of the satirist Soltuikof, better known
and more appreciated under the om de guerre
of Shchedrin. What a feast it was for him,
when a new “Letter to my Aunt” appeared!
With what joy he applauded its satirical fea-
tures which were “powerful even to gayety”!
Soltuikof seems disturbed at the flood of hatred
which he stirs up. “If you only had a title of
hereditary nobility, nothing of the sort would

I A brilliant Russian lady, now in this country, writes to the trans-
lator as follows: “Iam _ glad indeed that you escaped the transla-
tion of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ You would never find any readers
for such a book in this country. I could never read any of Dosto-
yevsky’s books through. It made me sick, My nerves could not bear
the strain on them. I don’t believe in pathology in literature. And
yet another of my American acquaintances, who is thoroughly versed
in Russian, ... tried to translate ‘Crime and Punishment,’ but had
not time to do it. He says he never read, in any language, any thing
so powerful as Prestuplenie i Nakazanie. Generally speaking, your
countrymen have too healthy a censtitution to appreciate such a novel.
Let it turn heads among the pessimists in France and Russia, the
natives of effete Europe.” — N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 205

have happened to you. But you are Soltuikof-
Shchedrin, a writer to whom it will have been
given to leave a deep and permanent impress
on our literature: then you will be hated, and
you will be loved also; that only depends on the
person.”

The most striking example of this generosity
of Turgénief’s is shown us by the spectacle of
his relations with his great rival Tolstot. From
the moment when Tolstoi’s first book appeared,
Turgénief, already famous, distinguishes the
young author, welcomes him as a new star, and
feels impelled by an irresistible desire to love
him. “My heart goes out to you as towards
a brother.” “Childhood and Youth” appear.
Turgénief’s admiration is expressed in this fash-
ion: “When this young wine shall have fin-
ished fermenting, there will come forth a drink
worthy of the gods.”

Life separates them; the most diverse mental
tendencies still further increase this separation.
There is even, at one time, an inopportune
meeting, conflict, violent rupture, almost tragic,
since a duel narrowly escaped being the result.
There are noticeable in Turgénief, from that
206 IVAN TURGENIEF.

moment, movements of vexation. The admira-
tion which he was the first to arouse in Tol-
stoi’s favor turns, becomes fashionable, and goes
to commonplace unreason: still he continues
to be glad that ‘War and Peace” is praised to
the skies; “but it is by its most dubious merits
that the public want to regard it as unequalled.”
In his opinion, there are not such good reasons
for falling into ecstasies about “Anna Karé-
nina.” “Tolstoi this time has taken the wrong
track; and that is due to the influence of Mos-
cow, of the Slavophile nobility, of orthodox old
maids, to the isolation in which the author
lives, to the impossibility of finding in Russia
the requisite degree of artistic liberty.”

But excessive strictures are rare in him; and
how richly they are compensated by the gener-
ous crusade, which, from the year 1878, Tur-
génief undertakes for the sake of popularizing
Tolstoi in France, and of building him a pedes-
tal which at the present time threatens to rise
higher than his own! If, unfortunately for
French readers, a “ Russian lady” had not got
ahead of him, he would have translated the
masterpiece which he liked the best, which
IVAN TURGENIEF. 207

seemed to him to give the highest idea of Tol-
stoi’s great powers, — “ The Cossacks.”

In last resort, he contents himself with the
most active propaganda in favor of another
translation, that of “War and Peace.” His
correspondence shows him to us, going about
carrying the book to Flaubert, to Taine, to
Edmond About, to those who are capable of
enjoying this foreign dish without further
advice. He hopes that their articles will en-
lighten those who need to be told in order to
get the taste of it. His illness alone turns him
away from this occupation which I have no
need of qualifying: it is too characteristic.

At the hour of death, Turgénief’s last thought
turns to Tolstoy. I beg the reader to go back
to that admirable letter, to that short literary
will, in which the dying author salutes, and calls
back to the arena from which he is just depart-
ing, his great rival in talent and in glory.

It would be very strange, if having lived long
in France, and having made precious literary
friendships, Turgénief had not mentioned names
particularly interesting for French readers. He
speaks much in his letters of the contempora-
208 IVAN TURGENIEF.

neous realistic school, and he judges it favora-
bly, especially at its first beginning. He does
more than enjoy the Goncourts and Zolas. He
makes arrangements for them with the direct-
ors of Russian journals or reviews ; he endeav-
ors to have one or two thousands of francs more
paid for their manuscripts, by giving them to
be translated into Russian before they are pub-
lished in France.

Especially for Zola did he use his mediatorial
influence. He seems very happy to help him;
nevertheless, he does not fail to note with his
delicate and imperceptible irony certain amus-
ing traits of character. “As far as Zola is
concerned, you told me that you would pay
more for his manuscript than Stasulevitch. I
have informed Zola. . .. His teeth have taken
fire at it.” ‘In his last visit to Paris, Stasu-
levitch, having made Zola’s acquaintance, gilded
him from head to foot, on the one condition
that Zola should belong to him alone. So the
European messenger (Vyestnik Yevropuz) seems
in Zola’s eyes like the fabulous hen with the
golden eggs, which he must guard like the
apple of his eye.”
IVAN TURGENIEF. 209

The friendship, made of admiration and
sympathy, between Turgénief and Flaubert, is
well known. It is painted in Turgénief’s letters
in truly expressive lines: “I have transiated one
of Gustave Flaubert’s stories, It is not long,
but of incomparable beauty. It will appear in
the April number of ‘The European Messenger.’
Perhaps two translations of it will appear. I
recommend it to you in advance. I have en-
deavored, so far as in me lay, to reproduce the
colors and tone of the original.” Flaubert
dies. Turgénief is so moved that he breaks
with all his habits. He, so sober, so disliking
noise, wire-pulling, puffing, puts himself at the
head of ademonstration in the Russian journals;
and he opens a subscription for a monument to
his friend. He speaks with genuine disgust of
the low interpretations to which this interven-
tion on his part gave rise. His enemies affect-
ed to see in this something like the return of
an old actor, who had left the stage, and was
tormented by yearning for the scenes.

It would not be well to dwell too strongly on
Turgénief’s judgment in regard to Victor Hugo.
Turgénief was a true poet, but when he wrote
210 IVAN TURGENIEEF.

in verse he never rose above: mediocrity. He
knew it, and he criticised this part of his work

~~wery_severely. The quality of his verses is
explained’better when it is seen how narrowly
and unfairly he judges La Légende des Siécles.
The epic grandeur and originality of this work
escape him: its swing is too powerful, and it
wearies him; its brilliancy is too intense, and
it blinds him. He judges Victor Hugo as a
poet of thirty years ago — Pushkin, if he had
come to life— might have done: he did not
much rise above the Byronian horizon."

He is, however, more just towards Swin-
burne, the English Hugo. But here, again, his
criticism is superficial: favorable as it is, one
can see that he has not had time to find his
reasons, and touch bottom.

The critical faculty is evidently less keen
in Turgénief than in others of his friends, —

* This explains, perhaps, why he did not appreciate Nekrdsof.
Indeed, Turgénief, though his literary judgments are always inter-
esting, must be taken with a grain of salt: like a true poet, he was
not a critic. On the other hand, Tchernuishevsky, whose critical
judgments Turgénief affected to despise, was a born critic, and his
literary prognostications were greatly in advance of his time. See
Appendix. — N. H. D.
IVAN TURGENIEF. 211

Shchedrin, for example. He it was who caused
the scales to fall from Turgénief’s eyes, and .
revealed for him what he himself felt some-
what confusedly as to the often artificial and
conventional character of our realists. “I
would have kissed you with delight, ... to
such a degree what you say about the romances
of Goncourt and Zola hits the case, and is true.
As for me, it seemed so confusedly, as though
I had a heavy feeling over the epigastrium. I
have just this moment uttered the Azh/ of
relief, and seen clearly. . . . It cannot be said
that they have not talent, but they do not
follow the right way: they are already in-
venting too much. Their literature smacks
of literature, and that is bad.”

Although he was warned, Turgénief was not
the man to wish to put others on the lookout.
The success of another did not fill him with any
envy. On the other hand, the disappointment
of those who were dear to him caused him real
pain. After the failure of one of George Sand’s
dramas, he wrote this charming word: “If I
had met her, I should not have said any thing
of the fiasco of her poor piece: like a respectful
212 IVAN TURGENIEF.

son of Noah, I turn away my eyes, and hide thé
nakedness of my grandam.”

He had recovered from his boyish see
siasm for the work of the illustrious novelist.
“T cannot any longer hold by George Sand, any
more than by Schiller,” he wrote in 1856. But
in place of admiration for the diminished and
collapsed merits of the writer, there was sub-
stituted, especially in latter years, a touching
worship for the truly virile virtues of the
woman.

This is the way he speaks of her, on the day
of her death, in a letter meant for publication :
“It was impossible to enter into the circle of
her private life, and not become her adorer in
another sense, and perhaps in a better sense.
Every one felt immediately that he was in
presenée of an infinitely generous and benevo-
lent nature, in which all the egotism had beén
long and thoroughly burned -away by the ever-
ardent flame of poetic enthusiasm and faith in
the ideal; a nature to which all that was human
became accessible and dear, and from which
exhaled, as it were a breath of cordiality, of
friendliness, and above all that, an unconscious
IVAN TURGENIEF. 213

aureole, something sublime, free, heroic. Be-
lieve me, George Sand is one of our saints.”

We cannot better finish this review of names
loved by Turgénief than by letting the reader
rest on this luminous portrait of George Sand.
In the virtues which Turgénief ascribed to her,
‘+ it not allowed us to find many of his own?
LYOF TOLSTOI.
I..

Count L. N. Totstoi was born on the 28th
of August, 1828 (O.S.), at Yasnaya Polyana, a
village near Tula, in the Government of Tula.
He reckons among his direct ancestors one of
the best servitors of the Tsar Peter the Great,
Count Piotr Tolstot. Early left an orphan, he
studied at the University of Kazan, entered
successively the departments of Oriental lan-
guages and of law, got tired of both, left the
university, returned to his paternal estate, and
one fine day set out for the Caucasus, where
his eldest brother, Nikolai Tolstot, was serving
with the rank of captain. He quickly became
an officer, took part in the guerilla warfare in
Circassia, returned to be shut up in Sevastdpol,
underwent the siege, was greatly distinguished
by his bravery, and resigned at the conclusion

of peace.
215
216 LYOF TOLSTOV.

Count Lyof Tolstoi’s works have not been
all published in the order in which they were
written. “The Cossacks,” published after the
“Military Scenes,” and after “Childhood and
Youth,” it seems was written, in part, during
his stay in the Caucasus. The romantic por-
tion of the. work may have been thought out
towards the period when the book appeared,
but the impressions which fill the book are the
first which the writer took pains to note down.
It is well to emphasize this fact from the very
first moment: in the study of Tolstoi’s works,
we can make it a starting-point in our inves-
tigation of the steps traced in the evolution
accomplished by his mind.

The “Military Sketches,” collected into a
volume in 1856, were produced in the form of
articles in the Sovremennik (“ The Contem-
porary”). These tales bear the following sub-

titles : “Sevastépol in December,” “ Sevastd-
pol in May,” “The Felling of the Forest,”
“The Incursion.” They paint at once the

energy with which the French invasion was
resisted, and the monotony of the siege, more
terrible than its dangers. The book narrowly
LYOF TOLSTOL 217

escaped remaining in the censor’s hands: this

suspicious and petty critic was offended by the
most beautiful pages. There is, for example,
an admirable passage where the soldiers, in
order to escape the irksomeness whereby they
have been overcome in the long days, listen
with truly infantile excitement to the reading
of fairy-stories. According to the censor’s
opinion, it was a bad example. The author
should have depicted the soldiers as engaged
in reading some serious work, capable of exert-
ing a good influence on their moral state, on
their spirit of discipline. .“The attention of
the army should be called only to useful litera-
ture.” Fortunately the book escaped this roll-
ing-mill, and roused the Russian public to
enthusiasm.

As regards this album of impressions noted
with incomparable vivacity of observation,
vigor of tone, and energy of touch, Count
Lyof Tolstot gave another example, which is
like a first confession, in his “Childhood and
Youth.” The material of this biography is
family life brought into the exact environment
which the Russian nature, when very closely:
a

218 LYOF TOLSTOL

observed and very poetically described, can
furnish, On one side external impressions,
very accurately and very powerfully retained ;
on the other, profound reflections upon self,
and a very keen view in regard to the most
secret and the least explored regions of con-
sciousness: these are the two sides of Tol-
stoi’s talent; these, from the very beginning
of his literary career, are the two elements
which will combine to form the great novels
of the writer’s maturity, “ War and Peace” and
“ Anna Karénina.”

These masterpieces having been once fin-
ished, Tolstoi turned aside from fiction to apply
himself to pedagogy. The great painter of men
becomes the instructor of children; the creator
of heroes tindertakes the mission of populariz-
ing the alphabet.

At the present time we see him passing
through a new transformation, and from peda-
gogue becoming preacher. He propagates a
new dogma; or, rather, he is on his way to
increase the number of Russian sectaries who
seek in the Gospels a solution of the social
problem.
LYOF TOLSTOL. 219

Soldier, literarian, agriculturist, popular edu-
cator, and prophet of a new religion, —Count
Lyof Tolstot has been all these in succession.
But the secret of these transformations is no
longer far to seek: he has explained it to us in
his latest work, entitled “ My Confession,” the
publication of which has been forbidden in Rus-
sia by the ecclesiastical censor. The work is
read in spite of the interdiction, and it makes
converts ; copies are hawked about; it will not
be slow in following the fortunes of “ My Reli-
it will be printed abroad in some sheet

’

gion:’
edited by exiles, and will be translated, doubt-
less, in France.

Let us find in this ‘Confession
mentary on the strange existence which we

”

the com-

have sketched only in broad lines.

Every man has, so to speak, a moral physi-
ognomy; and this physiognomy, like the face
itself, is more or less characteristic. In Count
Lyof Tolstof, this characteristic is the need of
a fixed principle, of a well-established rule
of conduct. This principle has changed, and
more than once changed, the formula which
expresses the sum of his acts, and explains
220 LYOF TOLSTOF.

them, justifies them, which becomes enlarged,
transformed, entirely reversed; but what re-
mains immutable is his attachment to some
formula, his absorption in the article of faith.
Count Tolstoi’s soul is, before all things, the
soul of a believer.

He begins by believing in the ego. He
started with a sort of Darwinian conception of
the world, of the struggle of individuals, with
the conflict of egoisms. For Tolstoi, the ideal
at this first period of his life was individual
progress. The aim of existence was to get
above other individuals, and to subjugate them
in some degree by his own superiority. “I
tried at first to cultivate the will in me; I laid
down rules which I compelled myself to fol-
low. Physically I strove towards perfection
by developing, with all sorts of exercises, my
strength and my skill, and by wonting myself
by privations of every sort, to be neither
wearied nor disheartened by any thing.” He
pitilessly analyzes the feelings which he had
at this time; after the fashion of La Rochefou-
cauld, he tells us to what a degree he was the
dupe, the victim, of self-love. Under the pre-
LYOF TOLSTOL. 221

text of discovering the progress made by the
ego, and of advancing it towards perfection, “I
gave in, above all, to the desire of finding that
I was better not in my own eyes, not even
in the eyes of God, but above all, but solely, in
the eyes of others, in the judgment of the
world. ... And even this desire to seem
better to other men quickly yielded to the
single desire of being stronger than all others.”
All these manifestations of individual force so
much esteemed by men, and called “ambition,
passion for power, cupidity, pleasure, pride,
wrath, vengeance,” — Tolstot also admired
them, coveted them, and finally realized them
to such a degree as to rouse admiration and
envy. “Just as in my life I offered homage to
strength and to the beauty of strength, so in my
works I most often sang all the manifestations
of individual force; and yet I pretended to love
truth, and boasted of it! In reality I loved
only force, and when I found it without alloy
of folly, I took it for truth.” We shall see in
studying “The Cossacks” to what a degree
Tolstoi’s first ideal, followed and realized espe-
cially during his stay in the Caucacus, is
222 LYOF TOLSTOI.

reflected in this work, which is the actual
product, if not the immediate outcome, of his
residence there.

At the age of twenty-six Tolstof changes his
environment: he leaves the army and the bas-
tions of Sevastépol, and passes directly into
the circles of St. Petersburg where the famous
writers are gathered. He is welcomed, /éed,
placed at the very first in the front rank. He
changes his whole manner of existence; but
he changes it in the name of a new faith, the
faith in the “mission of the men of thought.’”’
This mission consists in teaching other men.
“Teaching them what? I had not the slightest
idea myself. But I was paid for it in ready
money. I had a magnificent table, a sumptuous
dwelling. I had women, I had society, I had
glory. What I taught could not help being
very good.” At the end of two or three years
of this existence, Tolstot begins to doubt the
infallibility of his literary faith: he applies to
the settling of the question his dissolvent analy-
sis. He bethinks himself to discuss also the
moral worth of the priests of this faith, of the
writers, ‘They were almost all immoral men;
LYOF TOLSTOL. 223

and the great majority were bad men, of no
character, and in no respect less so than the
boon companions of yore, of the time when my
life was only a round of gayety and disorder.”
A sort of misanthropy seizes Tolstot as the
result of his inquiry. A new Alceste, he hotly
tears himself away from the perverse environ-
ment of literary people, and begins to hunt up
and down the world for the support of a new
conviction.

After having visited foreign lands, interviewed
philosophers, questioned the men of “the van-
guard,” Tolstot returns to his country, per-
suaded that progress must be realized, not
within himself, but outside of himself. He
becomes farmer, judge of the peace, magistrate,
instructor; he founds a pedagogical review, and
starts a school. “I got upon stilts to satisfy
my desire for teaching.” In spite of its simple
and calm appearance, this existence let all the
inward trouble, all the moral anguish, remain.
“T left every thing, and I departed for the
steppe. I went forth among the Bashkirs to
breathe the pure air, to drink ums, and to lead
an animal life.”
224 LYOF TOLSTOF.

On his return from his visit to the Bashkirs,
Tolstot marries. The joy of family life at first
takes all his will, absorbs all his reflective pow-
ers. “For a long time his life is centred in
his wife and in his children: its is entirely
monopolized by the anxiety of increasing their
well being.” At the end of fifteen years, he
finds that he is still the dupe of selfish illusion,
that this sacrifice to the.greatest advantage of
his family has simply turned him aside from
the search after the real meaning of life. Is
not his present existence, in fact, full of contra-
dictions? Long ago he has become convinced
that literary activity is vanity, and yet he
continues to write. What impels him to it?
“The seduction of glory, the attraction of large
pecuniary remuneration.” What moral princi-
ple is there at bottom of all that? Here begins
a period of perplexity, of despondency, of bitter
and morbid scepticism. The two questions,
“Why?” and “ What is to come?” force them-
selves more and more upon his mind. By
reason of attacking the same problem, like
dots on the same ‘bit of paper, they finally
“make a huge black blot.” And Tolstoi’s
LYOF TOLSTOL. 225

scepticism goes over from theory into practice:
it is nihilism in the truest sense of the word.
“Before I undertake the charge of my property
at Samara, the education of my son, my literary
work, I must know what is the good of doing
it all. As long as I could not know the rea-
son, I could do nothing. . . . Well, suppose I
shall come to possess ten thousand acres and
three hundred head of horses, what then?
Suppose I become more famous than Gogol,
Pushkin, Shakspere, and all the writers in the
world, what then? I found no reply.” At this
moment of strange trouble, Tolstoi seriously
considers the question of suicide.

How did he succeed in escaping the entangle-
ment of scepticism? He takes the back track
in his ideas in regard to humanity. He had
long believed, “like so many other cultivated
and liberal minds, that the narrow circle of
savanis and wealthy people to which he be-
longed constituted his entire world. As to the
thousands of beings who had lived, or were liv-
ing still, outside of him, were they not animals
rather than men? I can scarcely realize to-
day, so strange do I find it, that I should have
226 LYOF TOLSTOS.

fallen into such a mistake as to believe that
my own life, that the life of a Solomon, that the
life of a Schopenhauer, was the true or normal
life, while the life of all these thousands of
human beings was a mere detail of no account.”
Fortunately for Tolstoi, the taste for country
life, and his intercourse with the field-hands,
brought him to divine, that, “if he desired to
live and comprehend the meaning of life, he
must find this meaning, not among those who
have lost it, who long to get rid of life, but
among these thousands of men who create their
life and ours, and who bear the burden of both.”
Having found only the leaven of doubt or nega-
tion among the men of his own society, he goes
to ask the germs of faith, the elements of reli-
gion, among the poor, the simple, the ignorant,
pilgrims, monks, vaskolniks, peasants. In them
alone he finds agreement between faith and
works. “Quite contrary to the men of our
sphere, who rebel against fate, and are angry
at every privation, at every pain, these believers
endure sickness and sorrow without any com-
plaint, without any resistance, with that firm
and calm conviction that all must be as it: is,
LYOF TOLSTOL 227

or could not be otherwise, and that all this is a
blessing. The more enlightened we are, the
less we comprehend the meaning of life: we
see only cruel mockery in the double accident
of suffering and death. With tranquillity, and
more often with joy, these obscure men live,
suffer, and approach death.” Seeing these sim-
ple souls so unanimous in their interpretation
of existence, so obstinately bent on seeking the
good by means of calm labor and patience
capable of enduring any trial, Tolstoi again
begins to feel love for men; and he endeavors
to imitate these models. After ten years of
initiation into the holy life, he reaches the
most perfect renunciation. No longer to think
of self, and to love others only, —that is the
moral scheme which can alone reconcile us to
existence, and reveal to us the good concealed
under this apparent evil. The question is,
therefore, not to think well, as Pascal said, but
to live well. And who shall tell us what it
is to live well? “The thousand who create
life, and get from it all their faith.”

This expression, “create life,” must be under-
stood in all its senses. In the moral sense, it is
228 LYOF TOLSTOL.

explained only by its contrary. What do the
wise men, the Solomons, the Sakyamunis, and
the Schopenhauers do? They destroy life;
they present it to us as an absurdity and as an
evil. The calmness with which the humble, the
simple, the pariahs of society, support existence,
shows the falseness of the assertions of the
thinker; and that which the philosophers in
their supercilious speculation claim to anihilate,
the modest practice of these virtuous men
re-establishes, creates in a certain degree.
Once fixed on the rock of this faith, which
seemed to him unassailable, Count Tolstoi felt
that it was his cuty to study its dogma and
formulate its credo. He wrote “My Religion.”
Later we shall return to this work, in which
not only the propensities of the author's mind
are revealed, but also the tendencies of a con-
siderable part of the Russian nation. It is
enough for us to note here the fundamental
article of this religious law, to which Count
Tolstoi assents with all his heart, like thou-
sands, nay millions, of his compatriots: “Resist
not him that is evil.” This saying of Jesus
sums up for him all duties, and gives us the
LYOF TOLSTOS. 229

secret of all the virtues. We shall see in detail
the applications of this principle to the conduct
of individual and social life; for the present, let
us content ourselves with calling the reader’s
attention to the path followed by the man whom
we are studying. He started with this prin-
ciple, —the exclusive development of the ago.
In practice, this principle led him to conflict, to
violence, and to hatred. He ended with this
principle, —the absolute sacrifice of the ego. In
practice, this principle leads him to a life of
abnegation, of gentleness, and of love.
Between these two extreme limits of his de-
velopment, we have seen all the mental states
through which Tolstot has passed. These vary-
ing dispositions will be found in his literary
work. It would be running systemization into
the ground to desire to show the writer going
through this development, side by side with
the man. But it is only just to remark to what
a degree Tolstoi’s earlier writings, his ‘“Ka-
zaki,” for example, express his first ideal, that
of the epoch in which he was taken up exclu-
sively with force, and when he worshipped it
in himself, giving it the name of truth. Later
230 LYOF TOLSTOL

on in “Anna Karénina,” one of his favorite
characters, Levin, will closely resemble Tolstot
changed into a farmer, and already, in his draw-
ing towards the rural populace, advancing to-
wards the abandonment of all egotism, towards
the spirit of sacrifice, towards that simplicity
of virtue personified by the peasant Feddor in
the story of “Anna Karénina,” and the soldier
Platon Karataief in “War and Peace.”
LYOF TOLSTOL 231

Il.

Count TotsrToi’s literary life is divided very
sharply into three periods; or, if the expression
be preferred, his powerful talent, original from
the very first, has passed through three phases.
He began by writing works which are mainly
the working up of reminiscences or illustra-
tions of personal impressions. In the “War
Sketches,” in “Childhood and Youth,” in “The
Cossacks,” the writer confines himself to narra-
tion. Of these three writings, the one that
best shows Tolstoi’s talent in the first part of
his career is the romance entitled “Kazaki,”
which, to use Turgénief’s words, is “an in-
comparable picture of men and things in the
Caucasus.” In a detailed analysis of this
masterpiece, we shall find the definition of
Tolstoi’s manner at the time of his forceful
youth.

The second period is that of ripe age; it is
232 LYOF TOLSTOL

filled by the two great novels “ War and Peace,”
and “Anna Karénina.”” The writer's manner
has singularly broadened; even the dimensions
of the frame-work of the fiction have taken an
almost exagcerated aspect. “War and Peace”
makes not less than cighteen hundred pages.
“Anna Karénina” appeared in the “Russki
Vyestnik,” not in the course of months, but of
years. It is true that between two parts of the
work the author stopped, as though he had lost
interest in its publication. But the public did
not lose its interest by waiting; and when, after
more than half a year, the narrator resumed the
broken thread of his story, his readers found
themselves, as it were, dazzled by the return of
the brilliant characters of the romance, after
this long and dismal eclipse.

In the novels of this second period, argument
forces its way in under cover of fiction. Thus,
in “Anna Karénina,” which is the story of an
adultery, Tolstoi has not only tried to present
us with a very accurate picture of aristocratic
customs in Russia; he has not only wished to
show as the centre and powerful fascination in
this series of pictures, the very subtle, very
LYOF TOLSTOs 233

penetrating, very accurate study of a soul
wounded by love, the wound of which becomes
more and more painful under the effect of the
friction and worriments following her first fault:
but he has also wished to attack, to settle in
his own way, a problem in the social order;
he wished to express his opinion about mar-
riage, about separation, about divorce, about
celibacy, about unions freely agreed upon and
religiously maintained.

“War and Peace,” likewise, is a sort of sem-
military, semi-domestic epos; or, if you like, it
is a broad study of Russian life, and especially
of aristocratic life, whether in the camps,
whether in the parlors, whether in the resi-
dences of the proprictors during the first quar-
ter of this century, and more especially at the
time of the invasion. But within this ample
scope the author expresses his theories on mili-
tary art, his private opinions on the state of
war and on the state of peace, his philosophic
doctrine of destiny, or his religious fatalism.
Some of the characters in “ War and Peace”
seem at certain times to give a prophetic hint
of the dogma which Count Tolstoi will adopt a
234 LYOF TOLSTOL

little later. In Pierre Bezukhof are seen the
aspirations towards the ideal which the author
of “My Religion” will soon be preaching to
men,

If his teaching at this time encroaches on
the romance, still it understood how to use mar-
vellously well that vehicle for dissemination
wherever the Russian language is spoken; and
we shall see, in analyzing them, that the two
works of Tolstoi’s second manner: show a power
and a brilliancy that are truly Shaksperian.
But the mysticism, traces of which are found in
these works, will develop in their author to such
a degree as to make him look upon a novel as
an object of scandal, as a “flood of oil thrown
on the fire of erotic sensuality.” He will there-
fore renounce the inventions of romance; he
will sacrifice fiction, which now he calls “licen-
tious ;” he will not take up the pen, except to
perform the work of a doctor or an evangelist ;
he will write “ My Confession,” “ My Religion,”
the “Commentary on.the Gospels.” Of these
three works which illustrate Count Lyof Tol-
stoi’s third manner, the reader will be interested
especially in knowing about the first two. He
LVOF TOLSTOLS. 235

will even find that we have already said enough
about “My Confession,” and he will take it
kindly if we reserve merely “My Religion” for
analysis. In return, he will allow us to dwell
upon it, and to speak of it entirely at our ease.

Before entering upon the study of “The Cos-
sacks,” it will not be idle to run quickly over a
little story which might serve in place of an
introduction to a translation of this romance.
This story, consisting of only a few pages, is
entitled “Recollections of a Scorer.”! It is the
story of a rich young man, who, having full con-
trol of his fortune, is led by laziness in a short
time to degradation and ruin. Nekliudof falls
into the society of debauchees and professional
gamblers. They pluck him, and ruin him. At.
his first appearance in this society, he has a
feeble nature, but not vulgar. He had some
honor: disgusted by the lowness of one of the
gamblers, he demands reparation, calls him a
coward when he refuses to fight, and compels
him to leave the club forever. He had a sense
of shame: on the day following a most debasing
night, when he had been made intoxicated and
initiated into all the. depths of debauchery, he

' Zapiski Markera.
236 LYOF TOLSTOL

bursts into tears, declaring that he will never
forgive either himself or his companions in the
orgie. Passion for gambling keeps him bound
to them; he sinks so low that soon he plays,
not only with his habitual partners, but with the
servant who fills the functions of scorer. One
by one he descends all the steps of a sickening
and abject degradation. He is ruined, and dis-
appears."

He returns one fine day, enters the club, asks
for writing materials, and, having finished his
letter, summons the scorer: “I would like to
try one more game with you.” He gains.
“ Haven’t I learned to play well? Hey?” —
“Very well.” —“Now go and order my car-
riage.” “He started to walk up and down the

* Count Tolstoi himself apparently narrowly escaped a similar
‘fate. His brother-in-law induced him to give up gambling ; but, after
he went to Teheran, he fell into his old habits, and incurred such
debts that he was unable to pay them. He tells how full of despair
he was at the thought of a certain note falling due when he had noth-
ing wherewith to meet it, He began to pray ; and, as though in answer
to his prayer, he received a playfully sarcastic letter from his brother,
enclosing the dreaded note which a brother officer had generously
refused to press or even collect. Yashvin’s passion for the gaming:
table, in Anna Kar€nina, is also a reminiscence of this wild-oats period
in Count Tolstoi’s life. All true fiction must be fact. —N, H. D.
LYOF TOLSTOS. 237

room. Not suspecting any thing, I went down
to call his carriage; but there was no carriage
there. I went up-stairs again; and, as I ap-
proached the billiard-room, I thought I heard a
slight noise, like a knock with a cue. I went in.
I noticed a strange smell. I looked around:
what did I see? He was stretched out on the
floor, bathed in his own blood... a pistol
near him. I was so terror-struck that I could
not make a sound. He gave a few signs of life;
he stretched out his legs, gave the death-rattle,
and all was over.”

If this young Russian had possessed a strong-
er nature or less enfeebled elasticity, he would
have done like Olénin, the hero of.“ The Cos-
sacks,” or like Tolstoi, who is himself repre-
sented under that name. He would have torn
himself from his habits; he would have started
for the Far East: he would have been certain
to find there enough new impressions to refresh
his weary brain; enough manly occupations or
vivifying pleasures to strengthen his nerves,
and build up his muscles; enough perils and
accidents or proofs of every kind to regen-
erate his soul, purify it from the tares of vice,
238 LYOF TOLSTOL

and again raise the wheat of more than one
virtue.
 Tolstot was not the first of these superficially
blasé emigrants who went off to Asia to find
a powerful diversion from irksomeness, from
the disgust of an idle and disorderly existence.
Pushkin had pointed out the road for him; and
the author of “The Gypsies” had himself fol-
lowed the traces already marked through the
desert by the drztchka which carried Griboyé-
dof, and the ox-cart which brought him back.’
“On the high river bank,” says Pushkin, “I
saw before me the fortress of Herhera. Three
torrents, with roar and foam, come tumbling
down the banks. I had just crossed the river.
Two oxen, hitched to an aréa, were climbing
the steep road. A few Georgians accompa-
nied the avba. ‘Where from?’ I asked them.
‘From Teheran.’ — ‘What are you carrying?’
— ‘Griboyéd.’ It was the body of the assassi-
* Aleksander Sergeyévitch Griboyédof was born in January, 1795,
and died in 1829. He studied law at first, but at the age of seventeen
entered the army, and afterwards the college of foreign affairs, the
service of which took him to Persia and Georgia, where a part of his

great comedy, The Misfortune of having Brains (Gore ot Uma), was
written, — N. H. D.
LYOF TOLSTOL 239

nated Griboyédof, which they were taking back
to Tiflis.”

More fortunate than Griboyédof, Tolstot will
come back alive, and, like Pushkin, will be able
to describe this adventurous existence; but he
will describe it without embellishments, above
all without exalting it. He will let the people
whom he finds there, and whom he studies en-
tirely at his leisure, appear in all the bold relief
of their natures. He will not take away the
strange grace and the perfume of the wild-
flower from this nature in which he feels a
voluptuous delight.

The evolution of the romance is rapid and
fascinating. We are at Moscow. The night
is done. The busy city is waking little by
little. The indolent youth are finishing their
evenings. At the Hotel Chevallier a light, the
presence of which is against the rules, filters
through the blinds. A carriage, sledges, and
a travelling ¢voika, are before the door, near
which the porter, muffled in his shuda, and a
grumbling lackey with pale, drawn features, are
waiting.

In the dining-room three young men are fin-
240 LYOF TOLSTOS.

ishing a farewell supper. One of them, in short
shuba, strides up and down the room, cracking
almonds in his strong, thick, but well-cared-for
hands. At first glance we feel moved by sym-
pathy for him: there is such an expression of
life in his smile, in his heated chéeks, in his
brilliant eyes, in his fiery gestures, and in his
animated voice. He is off for the Caucasus, in
the capacity of yunker.*

Olénin found himself, without family and
without curb, at the head of a great fortune,
which at twenty-four he has already half
wasted. The dominant trait of his character
is scorn for all authority. Yet he "remains
capable of every impulse, even of the most
generous. He has experimented with social
relations, with service of the State, with farm-
ing occupations, with music, with love. He
feels that he is d/asé, but he believes that he
is capable of beginning life anew. He is not
one of those men “who, born for the bridle,
put it on once, and never take it off till the day
of their death.” He has the spirit and the
vivacity which impel him to pick up and cast
far from him all the weight of servitude.

Cadet, or ensign.
LYOF TOLSTOS 241

After having followed a whole net-work of
unknown and obscure streets, after having felt
a softening of the heart during this drive, not
about his friends, not about his mistresses, but
about himself, as though his tears were homage
rendered to all that he felt that was still good
and beautiful and strong and hopeful in him,
Olénin suddenly finds himself before the wide,
snow-bound plain. He turns his mind to the
past. He thinks about his farming, about his
debts, about his follies ; and he comes to the con-
clusion that he is, “in spite of all, a very, very
clever young man.” Having made the first
relay, he endeavors to bring about equilibrium
in his budget, so as to pay up his creditors in
the briefest possible time ; and, his conscience
being now eased, he falls asleep. He dreams
of Circassian beauties, of battles, of glory, of
passionate love, of some wild beauty tamed,
civilized, and freed by his hand. His tailor
Capelli, whom he owes nearly seven hundred
rubles, comes across this gilded dream, which
’ is rudely interrupted by the second relay. His
journey is broken or filled only by these halts,
by tea served at the station, by watching the
242 LYOF TOLSTOM.

rumps of the horses, by a few words with his
valet Vanya, by a certain number of indefinite
dreams, and, most of all, by the nights of sound
sleep, such as is granted to youth alone.
According as Olénin advances towards the
Caucasus, calm takes possession of his soul.
The evidences of civilization which he sees on
the route are a trial to him. At Stavropol he
is disagreeably impressed to find fashicnable
attire, cabs, and round hats. But as soon as
he is beyond the city the country assumes and
retains a wild and warlike character. In ‘the
territory of the Don the air becomes already
so mild that he has to ride without his furs.
Nothing is so delightful as this unexpected
spring. But here is something better: danger
begins. At any moment they may be attacked
by bandits. Then the mountains rise on the
horizon. The first impression, at twilight, and
from the distance, and through the clouds, is
disappointing ; but the next morning at early
dawn, in the clearness of the sky, they take a
new and superb aspect. ‘From this moment,
all that he saw, all that he thought, all that he
felt, took on the new and sternly majestic char-
LYOF TOLSTOT. 243

acter of the mountains. All his recollections of
Moscow, his shame and his regret, all his idle
dreams about the Caucasus, departed, never to
return.”

It is on the banks of the Terek that Olénin
is going to dwell, to struggle, to love, to hate, —
in a word, to live, —for a number of seasons.
It is this river, therefore, that Tolstot begins to
describe for us, with its heaps of grayish sand,
and its border of reeds on the right bank, with
its low, steep left bank, gullied and crowned
with oaks or “rotten plane-trees.” On the
right are the villages of the Tcherkes, on the
left the standésas (stations) of the Kazaki. “In
old times the majority of these stanitsas were
on the very bank; but the Terek, moving
annually north of the mountain, has washed
them away, and now only the traces can be
seen of thickly-overgrown ancient ruins, aban-
doned gardens, pear-trees, lindens, and poplars,
woven together with mulberries and wild vines.
No one dwells there now; and on the sand only
the tracks of stags, wolves, hares, and pheas-
ants, which love these places, can be seen.”

A delicious impression of buoyant air and
244 LYOF TOLSTOV.

joyous light fills Olénin’s heart as soon as he
sets foot in the Novomlinskata s¢azztsa, in the
midst of the Kazak tribe of Grebna. His
arrival in the clear twilight, when the whitish
mass of the mountains stood out distinctly
against the brilliant rays of the setting sun,
is described with a vivacity of coloring which
deliciously translates emotions never to be for-
gotten. “Young girls in tucked-up petticoats,
with switches in their hands, ran, merrily chat-
tering, to meet the cattle hurrying home in a
cloud of dust and gnats from the steppe. The
satiated cows and buffaloes scatter through the
streets, followed by the Kazak children in their
variegated Tatar tunics. Their loud conversa-
tion, merry bursts of laughter, and shouts are
commingled with the lowing of the cattle.
Here an armed Kazak on horseback, having
leave of absence from his outpost, rides up to
a cottage, and, leaning down from his horse,
raps at the window; and in a moment the
pretty: young head of the Kazak girl appears,
and one hears their gay, affectionate talk. Here
comes a ragged, high-cheeked Nogai laborer
back with reeds from the steppe. He turns
LYOF TOLSTOL. 245

his creaking avéa into the captain’s broad,
clean dvor, and throws off the yokes from the
shaking heads of the oxen, and talks in Tatar
with the esaw/, Around the puddle which fills
nearly the whole street, and by which people,
all these years, have forced their way, crowding
against the fence, a bare-legged Kazak girl is
picking her way, bending under a bundle of
fagots, and lifting her skirt high above her
white ankles; and a Kazak horseman, return-
ing from the chase, laughingly shouts out, ‘Lift
it higher, wench!’ and he aims at her. The
Kazak girl drops her skirt, throws down her
wood. An old Kazak, with turned-up trousers
and bare gray breast, on his way home from
fishing, carries his silvery fish, still flopping in
the net, and, in order to take a shorter path,
crawls through his neighbor’s broken hedge,
and tears a rent in his coat on the thorns.
Here comes an old woman dragging a dry
branch, and the blows of an axe are heard
around the corner. Kazak children shout as
they whip their tops wherever there are level
places in the streets; women crawl through the
fences so as to save going round. The pungent
246 LYOF TOLSTOS.

smoke of burning dung rises from all the chim-
neys. In every dvor is heard the sound of the
increased bustle that precedes the silence of
the night.”

Amid these new faces, there is one whom
Olénin catches a glimpse of the very first
thing: it is the girl to whom he is going to
lose his heart. How she comes upon the scene,
this wild young maiden, with her noble features,
her statuesque form, her gloomy and burning
eyes, with her red lips, her golden complexion,
her supple and nervous muscles, her turbulent
blood, her savage heart! She comes in with
her cattle, which break their way through the
open wicket, following a huge buffalo-cow driven
wild by the gnats of the steppe. “ Marianka’s
face is half concealed by a kerchief tied round
her head: she wears a pink shirt, and a green
beshmet, ‘or petticoat.” She hides under the
pent-house of the dvor; and her voice is heard
as she gently wheedles the buffalo-cow, which
she is about to milk: “ Now stand still! Here
now! Come now, mdtushka!” Wow could
Olénin escape the impression of “the tall and
stately figure,...her strong and virginal
LYOF TOLSTOY. 247

form, outlined by the thin calico shirt,” of those
beautiful black eyes, which at first will shun
him, but which later will gaze at him “with
childish fright and savage curiosity.” Love
will be born all the more easily from the fact
that Marianka is the daughter of the people
with whom Olénin is quartered, and that he
will find her in his path at every step.

But this feeling is not destincd to be met
with return. If Marianka is Olénin’s ideal of
maidenly beauty, this civilized Russian cannot
arouse in the young girl’s heart any feeling of
admiration, and, in consequence, no love. He
is not ill-favored, or a weakling, or foolish,
stupid, or cowardly; but he has not the trium-
phant beauty, or the marvellous vigor, or the
ever-watchful shrewdness, or the pitiless cour-
age, of the young Kazak, Lukashka. What
woman would not love the latter? He is so
tall and so well shaped; he wears his soldier’s
rig so proudly, his torn: kaftan, his woollen cap
knocked in behind; he has such elegant
weapons, and such unrivalled skill in the use of
them! There is nothing sweet, nothing tender
about him; but the ardor and the life of all the
248 LYOF TOLSTOV.

passions show on his face, with its black brows,
with its falcon eyes, with teeth of dazzling
whiteness. He appears to us for the first
time at the Kazak post, near the Terek. His
great hands are laying snares and traps for the
pheasants, and he is whistling. His comrade
(Nazarka), brings him a live pheasant, not
daring to kill it. “‘Give it here!’ Lukashka
took a small knife from under his dagger, and
quickly cut the pheasant’s throat. The bird
struggled, but did not have time to spread its
wings before its bleeding head bent over and
fell,”

Whatever character Tolstot gave these young
figures of Marianka and Lukashka, he does not
find that they express all that ideal of strength
and power with which at this time infatuated.
Accordingly he calls up the image of a more
striking savagery, in the person of the old Ye-
roshka, the colossal huntsman with his voice
of thunder, his animal habits, his ogre-like ap-
petites, and his childlike character. “Over his
shoulders was thrown a ragged woven szipzin,
and his feet were shod in buck-skin porshni, or
sandals, fastened by cords, which were twisted
LYOF TOLSTOL 249

about his legs. On his head was a rumpled
white fur cap. On his back, over one shoulder,
he carried a koduzlka [an instrument to catch
pheasants], and a sack with pullets and dried
meat, to bring back the falcon; over the other
shoulder a dead wild-cat was swinging by a
strap; behind him, fastened to his belt, were
a bag containing bullets, powder, and bread,
a horse-tail for keeping off the gnats, a big
dagger in a torn sheath, stained with blood,
and two dead pheasants.” This giant has, for
distinctive traits, the discreet and silent way in
which he walks in his soft sandals, and the odor:
which he exhales, “a strong, but not unpleasant
odor mingled of fresh wine, of vodka, of powder,
and of dried blood.” He has an inexhaustible
fund of anecdotes, about his past life, his hunt-
ing, his exploits, his horse-thefts. Yet he is
only a child, compared to what his father was,
who carried on his back a four-hundred-pound
wild boar, and drank at a draught two buckets
of vodka. He likes to repeat this saw of a
Western man, whom he knew: “We shall all
die, the grass will grow on our grave, and that:
is all.” He is stout and hearty for his seventy
250 LYOF TOLSTOS.

years, although a witch had ruined him a little
with her spell. On the chase, in the woods, he
does not cease to whisper, God knows what
mysterious monologue. When he returns, if he
finds some host at whose table he can sit, and
if he can only have wine furnished according to
the measure of his thirst, he gets drunk, until
he falls stiff on the floor. Hunting scenes,
scenes of love, scenes of ambuscade or of com-
bat, go to make up almost exclusively the mat-
ter of all this work. But all these scenes are so
variously true, and so profoundly the result of
experience, that the romantic thread designed
to connect them seems almost needless. What.
reader, however, would have the courage to dis-
engage it? I should like, for my part, to give
by way of analysis, and by short quotations, an
idea of the most powerful scenes here pictured.
I will present them in the order in which they
come.

Here we are in ambush, on the banks of
the river: “They were hourly expecting the
Abreks —as the hostile Tchetchens were called
—tocross and attack them, from the Tatar side,
especially during the month of May, when the
LYOF TOLSTOL. 251

woods along the Terek are so dense, that a man
on foot has difficulty in breaking through, and
when the river is so low that it can in many
places be forded.” The Kazak Lukashka is gaz-
ing at the sky, with its flashing of heat light-
ning. He spreads down his kaftan at the foot of
the reeds. “Occasionally the reeds, without any
apparent reason, would all begin to wave and to
whisper to each other. From below, the waving
feathers of the sedge looked like the downy
branches of trees, against the bright back-
ground of the sky.” He listens to all the
noises of the night, the murmur of the reeds,
the snoring of the three Kazaks who have come
with him to keep his secret guard, the buzzing
of the gnats, and the rippling of the water, from
time to time a far-off shot, the fall of a part of
the bank washed away, the splash of some big
fish, the crashing of the underbrush as some
animal forced its way through. ‘Once an owl,
slowly flapping its wings, flew down the Terek;
over the heads of the Kazaks, it turned and flew,
towards the forest, with faster flapping wings,
and then fluttering settled down in the branches
of an old ¢chinar (plane tree). At every such
252 LYOF TOLSTOS.

unusual sound the young Kazak pricked up his
ears eagerly, snapped his eyes, and slowly ex-
amined his gun.”

Suddenly (it is now almost daybreak) a log
with a dry branch floating in the river attracts
his attention. He immediately notices that the
log, instead of going according to the will of the
current, and floating down stream, is crossing
the river. Here follows several minutes of
strange excitement: the whole inner drama
which is enacting in this young savage’s soul is
expressed with so much truth and force, that
you come to follow with him the voice of the
ferocious instinct which controls him. He puts
his gun to his shoulder and waits, while his
heart is violently beating at the thought that
he may miss his human game; finally he draws
a long breath and shoots, muttering, according
to the Kazak custom, the “In the name of the
Father and the Son.” The tree trunk, rocking
and rolling over and over, swiftly floats down
the stream, freed from the weight which it
carried.

And when the Kazaks come hurrying down,
both on foot and on horseback (the first thing,
LYOF TOLSTOVs. 253

in case of a surprise, was to send for re-enforce-
ments), what a scene is that where the lucky
marksman plunges into the water to go and
bring his fish from the sandbank, and flings the
corpse on the bank “like a carp”! What barba-
rous coloring in the exclamations of the specta-
tors! ‘How yellow he is!” says one. “He
was evidently one of their best jigdts,” says
Lukashka: “his beard is dyed and trimmed.”
While they are on the spot, the chief claims the
jigit’s gun, one Kazak buys the kaftan for a
ruble, another promises two gallons of vodka
for the dagger.

But the marvellous fragment of this broad,
animated, boldly lighted canvas is this group,
this contrast between the living man trium-
phant in his nakedness, and the corpse lying on
the ground, naked also, but rigid and terrible to
see under the strange coloration and the discon-
certing expression of death. “The cinnamon
colored body, with nothing on but wet, dark-
blue cotton drawers, girdled tightly about the
fallen belly, was handsome and well built;
the muscular arms lay stiffly along the sides ;
the livid, freshly shaven round head, with the

a
254 LVOF TOLSTOS.

clotted wound on one side, was thrown back;
the smooth sunburned forehead made a sharp
contrast with the shaven head; the glassy eyes
were still open, showing their pupils, and
seemed to look up beyond them all; a good-
natured and shrewd smile seemed to hover on
the thin and half-open lips under the reddish,
half&cut mustache. The small bony hands
were covered with hair; the fingers were
clinched, and the nails had a red tinge.
Lukashka was not yet dressed; he was still
wet; his neck was redder, and his eyes were
brighter, than usual; his broad cheeks trem-
bled; and from his white and healthy body
there seemed to rise into the cool morning air
a visible vapor.”

As a reward for this expedition, the Kazaks
who took part in it are permitted to go and
spend the day at the village. The victorious
Lukashka steps up to Marianka with the same
feeling of faith in his strength and in his skill
as he had had the evening before while lying in
wait for the enemy. He asks her for some of
the sunflower seeds which she has; she offers
him her apron. He comes close to her, and
LYOF TOLSTOV. 255

whispers a request of her: she replies, “I shall
not go! I have said so.” He follows her by
the house, and there he urges her to love him.
She laughs, and sends him off to his married
mistress. He cries, “Suppose I have a sweet-
heart, the Devil take her.” She does not '
reply, but breaks the switch which she has in
her hands. At last, “I will marry certainly,
but don’t expect me to commit any follies for
you, never!” He tenderly woos her. She
leans against him, kisses him on the lips, calls
him a sweet name, and, after pressing him
warmly to her, suddenly tears herself from his
arms and runs away. “You will marry,” he
says to himself, “but the only thing that I
want is that you love me!” He went off to
find Nazarka at Yamka’s; “and, after drinking
a while with him, he went to Duniashka’s,
where he spent the night.”

In this struggle for existence, and in this
battle for the possession of the beauty whom
both love, why should not Olénin be worsted
by Lukashka? The principal obstacle to the
triumph of the son of civilization comes from
his intellectual advantages and from his moral
256 LYOF TOLSTOL

perfection. Do the best he can, he can never
get rid of all his prejudices. He will be able
only to approach that barbaric ideal which his
rival without effort realizes by his natural gifts.
In Marianka’s eyes he could have only bor-
rowed virtues, only the graces of a plagiarist.

Olénin cannot change his nature by chan-
ging his habits ; still more he cannot succeed by
formulating a theory of life, in conforming to it
in all respects the practical facts of existence.
The contradictions which result from this con-
flict between the past and the present, between
long-settled ideas and present convictions, is
strongly brought out by Tolstof in many pas-
sages in the novel. Here is one example: The
first time that the young Russian goes alone
pheasant-hunting, he gets tired, and lies down
on the ground in the midst of the forest.
Myriads of gnats settle down upon him. The
torment of it nettles him, discourages him. He
is on the point of retracing his steps; an effort
of the will keeps him where he is. Finally
the feeling of pain is diminished, and at length
it seems to him almost agreeable. “It even
seemed to him that if this atmosphere of gnats
LYOF TOLSTOV. 257

surrounding him on all sides, this paste of
gnats which rolled up under his hand when he
wiped his sweaty face, and this itching over his
whole body were missing, the forest would
have lost for him its wild character and its
charm.”

From this reflection he passes to others;
and, lying “in the old stag’s bed,” he thinks
about his whole surrounding, —the trees, the
wild vine, the frightened pheasants, the com-
plaining jackals, the gnats buzzing and dancing
amid the leaves. “About me, flying among the
leaves, which seem to them immense islands,
the gnats are dancing in the air and humming,
— one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand,
a million gnats; and all these, for some rea-
son or other, are buzzing around me, and each
one of them is just as much a separate exist-
ence from all the rest as I am.” It began to
seem clear to him what the gnats said in their
humming. “Here, here, children, here is some
one to eat,” they sing, and settle down upon
‘him. And now this taught him that he was
not a Russian nobleman, a person in Moscow
society, a friend ora relative to this and that .
258 LYOF TOLSTOVs.

person. It came to him that he was just a
mere gnat, a mere pheasant, a mere stag, like
those around him. The conclusion which he
draws from this is quite different from what
would be expected. Instead of saying, “Let
us struggle like these beings, and like them let
us live to triumph, or let us triumph to live,”
Olénin throws himself down on his knees, and
beseeches God to let him live to accomplish
some great deed of devotion; for “ happiness,”
he says, “consists in living for others.”

What did Tolstot mean to insinuate? That
Olénin was illogical, or that he lacked sincerity?
It will be enough for him to find himself in
Marianka’s presence to forget his vow, and to
sacrifice his morals to his instincts.

How much happier the Kazak Lukashka is
in having only instincts, and in not entangling
them, in not fastening them down in this bird-
lime of moral considerations! This is what
Tolstot seems to have wished to be understood
in a marvellous scene, an analysis of which
cannot give either the bold design or the
sombre coloring or the proportions worthy of
an epos. It is the wholly Homeric parley
LYOF TOLSTOL. 259

about the ransom of the corpse. The brother
of the dead man and his murderer are face
to face: the former tall, stalwart, with red-
dish trimmed beard, with an air of royalty
under his ragged kaftan, honoring no one with
a glance, not even looking at the corpse, and
sitting on his crossed legs, with a short pipe in
his mouth, doing nothing except occasionally
giving an order in a guttural voice to his com-
panion the interpreter; the latter with diffi-
culty restraining the exultation into which he is
thrown by the promise which has just been
made of giving him the cross, and, in spite of
his face reddened with pleasure, striving to pre-
serve an impassive attitude, and whittling a
stick of wood, out of which he will make a
ramrod.

The Tchetchenets has merely asked, as he
takes his departure, where the murderer is ;
and the interpreter points out Lukashka. “The
Tchetchenets looked at him for a moment, and
then, slowly turning away, fixed his eycs on the
other bank. His eyes expressed, not hatred,
but cold disdain.” They get into the boat ; they
rapidly push through the stream. Horsemen
260 LYOF TOLSTOS.

are waiting for them; they put the dead body
across a saddle on a horse, which shies. Lu-
kashka is told what a curt threat the Tchetchen-
ets made as he went away. “ You have killed us,
but we will crush you.” Lukashka bursts out
laughing. “Why do you laugh?” asked Olénin,
“If they had killed your brother, would you be
glad?” The Kazak looked at Olénin, and
laughed. He seemed to have comprehended
his idea, but he was above all prejudice. ‘“ Well,
now, mayn’t that happen? Isn’t this neces-
sary? Haven’t they sometimes killed some of
our men?”

The time passes. Instead of drinking, of
playing cards, of flirting with the Kazak women,
of all the time calculating his chances of pro-
motion, like the majority of the Russian yuz-
kers in the Caucasus, Olénin plunges into the
solitudes of the woods, and gathers indelible
impressions. His love for Marianka has im-
perceptibly developed until it presents all the
phenomena of a genuine passion. He has even
blurted out a few hints of his affection, which a
strange timidity or a scruple of candor keeps
him from putting into more direct form; but at
LYOF TOLSTOL. 261

night he comes to the door of the room where
the young girl is sleeping, in order to listen to
her breathing.‘ What shall he do? To take
her for his mistress would be “horrible; it would
be murder.” To marry her would be worse.
“Ah! if I could become a Kazak like Lu-
kashka, could steal horses, could drink tchikhir
wine, could sing songs, shoot people, creep
under her window at night when drunk, with-
out any thought of what I am, or why I exist,
that would be another matter. Then we might
understand each other; then I might be happy.
... What is the most terrible and the most
delightful thing in my position is the feeling that
I understand her, and that she will never under-

! M. Dupuy, in his condensation of the story, loses the perspective.
Olénin taps lightly on the window. “He ran to the door, and actually
heard Marianka’s deep sigh and her steps. He took hold of the latch,
and shook it softly. Bare, cautious feet, scarcely making the boards
creak, drew near the door. The latch was lifted: the door was pushed
ajar. There was a breath of gourds and marjoram, and suddenly
Marianka’s full form appeared on the threshold.” But the prospec-
tive interview is broken by the appearance of Lukashka’s friend
Nazarka, who has to be bought off. The next day Olénin writes a
letter, which, being more like a diary, he. does not send, “because no
one would understand what he meant to say.” In this letter occurs
the passage which M. Dupuy quotes. — N. H. D.
262 LYOF TOLSTO“L

stand me. It is not because she’ is below me
that she does not understand me: no, she could
not possibly understand me. She is happy. She,
like nature itself, is beautiful, calm, and abso-
lutely self-contained.” What is to be done, then?
Give her up? Sacrifice himself? What folly!
Live for others? Why? It is the fate of men
to love only the ego; that is to say, in this
case, to conquer Marianka, “and live her life.”
Olénin then makes himself drunk like a Kazak;
‘and, in the madness of intoxication, he offers to
marry the young girl. She perceives clearly
that that is only the wine that speaks: she
drives the wooer away, and escapes him.

Yet she feels somewhat moved in conse-
quence of this offer; and on the day of the
stanitsa festival she is rude to Lukashka,
though she has already become his acknowl-
edged “bride.” But a tragic event is about to
bring forth abundantly the feeling which fills
this young soul to overflowing. All Marianka’s
deep love for Lukashka will suddenly gleam
out with unexpected brilliancy, like the gloomy
sheet of the Terek in the flashes of the storm.

The Kazaks have started out on an expedi-
LYOF TOLSTOL 263

tion against the Abreks. Olénin follows the
band which is directed, but not commanded, by
Lukashka. The engagement takes place. The
Abreks are sitting in a swamp at the foot of
a hillock of sand. The Kazaks approach them
behind a cart loaded with hay. At first they
do not reply to the enemy’s shots. They wait
till they are within five paces from the Abreks,
then they rush upon them. Olénin joins them.
“Horror came over his eyes. He did not see
any thing distinctly, but perceived that all was
over. Lukashka, white as a sheet, had caught
a wounded Tchetchenets, and was crying, ‘Do
not kill him. I will take him alive.’ The Tchet-
chenets was the red-bearded Abrek, the brother
of the one whom he had killed, he who had
come to ransom his body. Lukashka was twist-
ing his arms. . Suddenly the Tchetchenets tore
himself away, and his pistol went off. Lukashka
fell. Blood showed on his abdomen. He leaped
to his feet, but fell back again, swearing in
Russian and Tatar. Still more blood appeared
on him and under him. The Kazaks hurried
up to him, and began to loosen his belt. One
of them—it was Nazarka—for some time
264. LYOF TOLSTOV.

before coming to him could not sheathe his
shashka. The blade of the shkashka was cov-
ered with blood.”

“When Olénin came back to Marianka, and
wanted to speak of his love for her, he found
her grieving. She looked at him silently and
defiantly.

“Olénin said, ‘ Mariana, I have come.’.. .

“«Stop,’ she said. Her face did not change
in the least, but the tears poured from her eyes.

“«What is the matter? What are you crying
for?’

“«Why?’ she repeated in a hoarse, deep
voice. ‘They have been killing Kazaks, and
that’s what the matter is!’

“*«Tukashka?’ asked Olénin.

“*Go away. I don’t want to see you.’

“Mariana, said Olénin, coming nearer to
her.

“«You will never get any thing from me!’

“* Mariana, don’t say so!’

“*Go away, you hateful man!’ cried the
young girl, stamping angrily, and_ starting
towards him with a threatening gesture. Such
anger, scorn, hatred, were expressed in her
LYOF TOLSTOL. 265

face that Olénin instantly saw that he had
nothing more to hope for.”

He therefore goes away. The scene of his
farewell with the old uncle Yeroshka has that
exquisite pathos wheré smiles are mingled with
tears. As a friendly gift at this solemn mo-
ment of separation, the old Kazak gives the
young Russian some advice which will save
his life in battles. He casts ridicule on the
customs of the orthodox soldiers. ‘When you
have to go into battle, or everywhere, —I am
an old wolf, you see, who has seen every thing,
— when they fire at you, don’t go into a crowd
where there are many men. You see, when
your fellows are a bit afraid, they all crowd
together; and though it’s more sociable in a
crowd, it is more dangerous, because a crowd
gives a good mark. . . . I say sometimes, when
I look at your soldiers, “I wonder at ’em. How
stupid! They go straight on, all in a mass;
and, what is worse, they wear red. How can
they help getting killed?” And he breaks into
tears as he kisses this young, “ever-wandering
fool;” but he manages to extort from him a
gun, to keep as a remembrance of him,
266 LYOF TOLSTOL

“Olénin looked round. Dyadya Yeroshka
and Marianka were talking, evidently about
their own affairs; and neither the old Kazak
nor the young girl were looking at him.”
(With these simple but pathetic words, the
story ends.)
LYOF TOLSTOL. 267

III.

AN analysis mingled with characteristic quo-
tations might be able to give some slight idea
of the romance “ Kazaki,” might give the
reader a hint of its interest, its color, and, its
flavor of originality. An analysis of “ War and
Peace” can have no other aim, no other pre-
tension, than to point out Tolstoi’s design in
this colossal work, and separate the moralist’s
tendencies from the story itself, which every
one will want to read, and read again, in detail.

In “War and Peace,” amid a multitude of
thoroughly interesting figures, there are three
heroes who in some measure occupy the fore-
ground, and who stand out clearly against a
background of great variety, carefully studied,
and peopled with living beings. These three
characters are Andréi Bolkonsky, Nikolat
Rostof, and Pierre Bezhukhof. The last men-
tioned is not at first glance the one who is
268 LYOF TOLSTOV.

most attractive in outward appearances; but it
is the one whose moral nature is most curious,
the one in whom the author has expressed his
own inmost views, the one who, in his eyes,
best illustrates the striking faults and the fun-
damental virtues of a Russian nature. Bezu-
khof’s qualities are exactly those of the men
of the Slav race: he is good, gentle, loyal, com-
passionate; his faults are indolence, apathy,
fickleness in his tastes, incapability of following
a given course, inaptitude in realizing his own
volitions.

Thus after having given his word not to at-
tend a soirée at Prince Anatol Kuragin’s, Pierre
Beztkhof goes there, becomes intoxicated, then
with the aid of another gay spirit, Dolokhof,
fastens a police-agent to the back of a tame
young bear, and throws them both into the
river. Dolokhof is degraded; Pierre escapes
with a few months’ exile from the capital. In
the same way Bezukhof is perfectly convinced
that Elen Kurdgina’s beauty and the dazzling
whiteness of her shoulders do not hinder her
from being dangerous on account of her
coquetry; he has heard mysterious rumors
_LYOF TOLSTOL. 269

concerning her equivocal relations with his
brother, the last of the debauchees; he is per-
fectly convinced that it would be foolish to the
last degree to marry this admirable character,
and that the best way of not committing this
folly is to give up seeing her charming face,
her seductive snowy complexion. Unhappily
for him, her marble shoulders, neck, and bosom,
one evening, came close to his poor near-
sighted eyes, and all “is so near to his lips that
he had scarcely to bend a hair’s breadth to
impress them upon it.’ Pierre Bezukhof does
not depart more: he allows himself to be mar-
ried, partly through infatuation, partly through
feebleness.

The marriage almost from the very first turns
out ill. The rake Dolokhof has returned, and
never leaves Bezukhof’s house. Pierre long
puts up with a situation, the meaning of which
he does not suspect: the inevitable anonymous
letter comes to open his eyes. At first he
refuses to believe what he has been told;
but at the club where he meets Dolokhof, it is
sufficient for him to find himself face to face

with his wife’s lover, for his jealousy to burst
270 LYOF TOLSTOL

forth with a flash like a discharge of electricity.
The first pretext gives Pierre cause for a quarrel,
and a duel follows. Dolokhof isa crack marks-
man: he has no sort of feebleness. Pierre
Beztkhof is near-sighted, awkward: he has
never fired a pistol in his life. But, as if by
judgment of God, it is Dolokhof who falls.

Returning home, Pierre Bezukhof tries vainly
to sleep, so as to forget all that has just passed.
He cannot close his eyes. ‘He got up, and
began to pace up and down the room with un-
even steps. Now he thought of the early days
of their marriage, of her beautiful shoulders,
of her languishing, passionate gaze; now he
pictured Dolokhof standing by her, handsome,
impudent, with his diabolic smile, just as he
had seen him at the club dinner; now he saw
him pale, shivering, vanquished, and sinking on
the snow.

«« And, after all, I have killed her lover,” he
said to himself; ‘yes, my wife’s lover! How
could that be? ‘It happened because you mar-
ried her,’ said an inward voice. ‘But in what
respect am I to blame?’ — ‘You are to blame
because you married her without loving her,’
LYOF TOLS10£. 271

continued the voice; ‘you deceived her, since
you willingly blinded yourself.’ At this in-
stant, the moment when he said with so much
difficulty, ‘I love you,’ came back to his
memory. ‘Yes, there was the trouble. I felt
then that I had not the right to say it.’”

If any one wishes to be assured of the pas-
sage which I have just quoted, he must open
“My Religion,’ and there read the commen-
tary on adultery, and the condeinnation of
divorce according to the books of Matthew
(xix.), Mark (x.), Luke (xvi.), and Paul’s First
Epistle to the Corinthians. According to Tol-
stoi, marriage is indissoluble. Nothing, not
even a wife’s unfaithfulness, authorizes a man to
repudiate her; and, if he puts her away, he can-
not marry another without himself committing
the crime of adultery. We shall see this theory
more clearly brought out in the romance of
“Anna Karénina;” but even here Tolstot
makes his hero Beztkhof conform to it. He
will not allow him to claim the hand of another
woman until the day when Elen’s unexpected
death shall have broken the bond which he had
imprudently allowed to be tied. He exalts this
272 LYOF TOLSTOL.

imprudence into a crime. He thinks that the
chief culprit was he who did not fear to con-
tract a loveless marriage, or to seck in this
marriage mere gratification of pride and lust.

But Pierre acknowledges his fauit to no pur-
pose: his conscience will not speak as soon as
his wrath is again stirred up by his wife's impu-
dent cynicism and truly mad provocations, Elen
comes into her husband’s library in a rich and
brilliant dishabille, with her calm and imposing
air, “though on her slightly prominent forehead
a deep line of fury was drawn.” She reproaches
her husband for the scandal which he has
caused, twits him as though he were an imbe-
cile, and declares that the man of whom he was
jealous was a thousand times his superior. She
claims that she has the right to berate him;
“for I can say up and down that a woman with
such a husband as you who would not have a
lover would be a rare exception, and I have
none.” Pierre, as he listens, feels a moral
discomfort, which torments him, the sting of
physical pain.

“«We had better part,’ he said, in a choking

voice, :
pr
LYOF TOLST OV. 273

Part? BysalierfGins, on condition that you

give me enough of your fortune,’ replied Elen.

“Pierre leaped to his feet, and, losing. con-
trol of himself, flew at her.

“¢T will kill you!’ he cried; and seizing a
piece of marble from the table, he made a step
towards Elen, brandishing it with a force
which even startled himself.

“The countess’s face was frightful to see:
she yelled like a wild beast, and fell back.
Pierre felt all the fascination, all the intoxica-
tion, of fury. He threw the marble on the
floor, breaking it into fragments, and advanced
towards her with uplifted arms.

“¢Get out,’ he cried, in a voice of thunder,
which sent a thrill of terror throughout the
house. God knows what he would have done
at that moment had Elen not fled.

“A week later Pierre left for Petersburg,
having made over to his wife the full control
of all his property in Russia proper, which
constituted a good half of his fortune.”

In going from Moscow to Petersburg, Bezu-
khof stops at Torzhok for relays, but horses
are not to be had. He spends the night at the
\
* 2
274 pyOF TOLSTOE

post-station. The bitterest FeMwBLLNS crowd...

upon his mind. “What is wrong? what is
right? Whom must you love? whom must
you hate? What is the end of life?” “Every
thing within him and without seemed to him
confused, uncertain, distasteful; but this very
feeling of repugnance gave him an irritating

sense of satisfaction.” At this moment a stran-
ger arrives, an old man, whose “grave, intelli-
gent, piercing gaze” strikes Pierre, and troubles
him, in spite of its fascination. The new-comer
knows Bezukhof by sight, and has heard of his
domestic grief. He expresses to Pierre his deep
regret at this “misfortune.” Pierre, confused
at the pity shown him, turns the conversation
to the subject of a death’s-head ring which he
notices on the stranger’s finger: he recognizes
in it the mark of Free Masonry. The conversa-
tion takes up the moral views and the religious
doctrine of those who belong to the order. The
old man urges the young man to take a differ-
ent view of life from that of looking at it with
horror; not to escape from it, but to change it.
“ How have you spent your life? In orgies, in
debauchery, in depravity, taking every thing
LYOF TOLSTOL. 275

from society, and giving nothing in return.
How have you employed the fortune that was
put into your hands? What have you done for
your fellow-men? Have you thought of your
tens of thousands of serfs? Have you ever
helped them, morally or physically? No! Is
it not true that you profited by their labor to
lead a worthless life? That is what you have
done. Have you striven to employ your abili-
ties for the good of others? No, you have
passed your life in idleness. Then you married.
You undertook the responsibility of being a
guide to a young woman. How did you acquit
yourself? Instead of aiding her to find the
path of truth, you cast her into an abyss of
falsehood and misery. A man insulted you:
you killed him. And you say that you don’t
believe in God, that you look upon your life
with horror. How could it be otherwise?”

In this programme of a new life sketched out
by the old Free Mason, we recognize the one
followed by Tolstot himself, at a certain epoch
of his life between the period of relentless
struggle, of implacable egotism, and the period
of absolute sacrifice, of humble renunciation.
276 LYOF TOLSTOL

Pierre accordingly allows himself to be initiated
into the order. I forbear to quote all the pictur-
esque details of the ceremony. The novelist,
using his rights, does not fail to throw a curious
light on the mystic customs of the Russian
aristocracy at the beginning of this century.
What concerns us to note here, is the immedi-
ate benefit which Pierre Bezikhof draws from
this first transformation of his life. The simple
prospect of devoting himself ‘to the regenera-
tion of humanity” was sufficient to put meaning
into a life which seemed to him impossible to
travel. Unfortunately, in practice, his accom-
plishments fall below his dreams. He contents
himself with giving his overseer orders con-
cerning the emancipation of his serfs, the ces-
sation of corporal punishment, the reasonable
regulation of labor, the building of hospitals and
schools. The overseer, who sees through his
master’s zaivet¢é, constantly plays it upon him,
and imposes upon him in regard to the effect
of the measures prescribed, but which he care-
fully refrains from undertaking. Pierre is not
the man to descend to the details of the reform
which he has vowed to carry out: he is, above
LYOF TOLSTOZ. 277

all, not the man to make a bold stand against
the difficulties of execution. At bottom, he
would be very sorry if they had not been con-
cealed from his sight. Accordingly he contents
himself with a few apparent results, and is very
careful not to look too closely into the lack
which these appearances cover.

Besides, his new faith receives a terrible blow
the day when he tries to make one of his
friends, Prince Andréi Bolkonsky, share in his
conviction. He encounters his bitter scepti-
cism, which is the fruit of heredity (Andréi’s
father having been a “grand seigneur,” of
sharp temper and despotic soul), but it is also
the result of the most painful collisions in life.
Like Pierre -Bezukhof, Andréi Bolkonsky had
been the husband of a woman whom he did not
pve. He always treated her like a brainless
doll, and never showed any other feeling in her
presence than lassitude. His only attitude
towards her was that of disdain. This child,
whom he did not have the patience to make
into a helpmeet, died in child-birth. His young
wife’s death has left in Andréi a sense of irre-
mediable injustice, and he loves better to blame
278 LYOF TOLSTOS

fate than himself; although at times he is seized
with such a violent wish to repair his fault, that
he is driven by it almost to express his belief
in immortality. He hesitates to utter his assent
to the dogma of the future life ; but his wounded
heart allows the exclamation to escape, “Oh, if
it were so!”

To realize the distance traversed by Count
Tolstof since the time when he put this lan-
guage into Bolkonsky’s mouth, we must look
in “My Religion,” at the place where the
writer — rather, let us say, the apostle —en-
gages in such a vigorous combat with the doc-
trine of the resurrection of the dead, which he
condemns as heresy. ‘Strange as it may seem,
it is impossible to refrain from saying that the
belief in a future life is a very low and degrad.-
ing conception, founded on a confused notiog
of the resemblance between sleep and death,
a notion common to all savage peoples. The
Hebrew doctrine (and much more the Christian
doctrine) was far above this conception.”

Prince Andréi Bolkonsky, as soon as he
enters the stage, strikes us as one of the most
distinguished examples of that Russian aris-
LYOF TOLSTOL 279

tocracy to which Tolstoi belongs, and which
he wished to make known to his readers in
“War and Peace.” He has for his dominant
features a clear, sharp, penetrating mind, and
all the elegancies of his race, including a super-
eminent pride. During the peace, and when
his best qualities are not called into action, he
wears some “affectation of indifference and
ennut.” In time of war, and when “the weight
of serious and real interests”’ will leave him no
“leisure to consider the impression which he
makes on others,” he will deserve all Kutuzol’s
praise by his solidity, his desert, and his attach-
ment to his duty. He will give offence by his
disdain, but he will win over to his side the
majority of the Russian officers; for his birth
gives him a certain superiority over his chiefs,
which they themselves tacitly acknowledge.
Finally, he has a few rare friends, whom the
distinction of his character has carried even
to passionate admiration.

Andréi Bolkonsky’s faults and virtues are
found, with more striking features, and exag-
gerated till they give an impression of humor-
ous terribleness, in his father, the old proprietor,
280 LYOF TOLSTOL

Nikolat Bolkonsky. With his powdered wig,
his withered hands, his arms of steel, his bushy,
grizzled brows, under which shine his youthful
and brilliant eyes; with his manias for mathe-
matics, for turning wooden snuff-boxes, and for
putting up buildings ; with his brusque speech,
his sardonic smile, his yellow teeth, his ill-
shaven chin, his Tatar boots of soft leather,
his arm-chair tainted with a musty odor of to-
bacco,-— this despot is not to be forgotten. He
teaches his daughter, the Princess Marya, the
sciences. Before she goes into the room where
her father is, to give him the morning greeting,
the young woman, as she leaves the vestibule,
“crossed herself, and prayed that courage would
be given her.” On the day when his son Andréi
comes to announce that he is going away to en-
ter the service, and that he leaves in his father’s
care his young wife, who is pregnant, and much
troubled by a prediction which had been made
to her after a dream, “the king of Prussia,” as
the old man is nicknamed, replies only with the
words, —
“Bad business, hey ;’ and he smiled... .
“What is bad business, father ?’
LYOF TOLSTOL.: 281

“Your wife,’ replied the old man bluntly,
accenting the word.

“¢T don’t understand you.’

“*Well, my dear fellow, you can’t do any
thing, you see ; you can’t get unmarried. Don’t
worry, ... I won’t tell any one: but—you .
know it as well as I do—-it’s the truth.” He
seized his son’s hand with his lean, bony fingers,
and pressed it, while his piercing eyes seemed
to look to the very bottom of his being. His
son answered with a silent confession, —a sigh.”

The weight of this paternal dictatorship,
which constantly crushes the Princess. Marya,
has an effect upon her which it is important
to note. She is thrown into a sort of mysti-
cism, somewhat like that which we have seen
come over Tolstoi himself. She has frequent
interviews with beggars, pilgrims, the poor in
spirit ; she listens to them, and gets instruction,
not from their coarse anecdotes about the won-
der-working Virgin whose cheeks sweat blood,
but from their resignation at the torments of
life. Thus she succeeds in forgetting her most
bitter disappointments, or at least in bearing
them with a steadfastness which no stoicism
282 LYOF TOLSTOs.

can approach. She also gets from her faith,
her gentleness in judging those who come near
her.

“Akh, Andréi,”’ she says to her brother,
“what a treasure of a wife you have! —a real
child, gay, animated. How I love her!”
Andréi had taken a seat by his sister: he did
not speak ; an ironical smile played on his lips.
She noticed it, and went on: “Her little weak-
nesses call for indulgence. . . . Who is there
without some? .. . To understand every thing
is to forgive.” And she forgives every thing,
even the most cruel insult, even the wound
inflicted on the most sensitive part of her sen-
sitive nature, —of her loving heart. The hand-
some Anatoli Kuragin comes with his father,
Prince Vasili, to ask her hand in marriage, she
being an heiress. While waiting to carry off
this dowry with a high hand, he plays, in the
Bolkonsky house, as everywhere else, his game
of seduction; and he has rendezvous with the
demotselle de compagnie, a young and pretty
French girl. Marya catches them accidentally.
She refuses the marriage which she had eagerly
anticipated. ‘“I shall be called to some other
LYOF TOLSTOV. 283

good fortune. I shall be happy in devotion,
and in making others happy.” She dreams of
seeing the man whom she loved marry the one’
who has so shamefully insulted her. “I should
be so glad to see her his wife: she is so sad,
so lonely, so abandoned! How she must love
him when he forgets her so! Who knows?
Perhaps I should have done the same.”

Andréi goes to war; and Tolstoi takes us
with him into a world of action, which he de-
scribes with rare power. We are dazzled at
first by the brilliant art with which the novelist
moves armies, carries out the combinations of
tacticians, shows the troops with their pas-
sionate dash or their senseless terrors, repre-
sents their leaders with their hesitations or
their unconscionable activity, but all alive, true,
recognizable, from the humblest of the German
officers to Napoleon the great captain. We
are singularly struck by certain of his pre-
ferred methods; like that, for instance, of being
true to fact in his painting of what is always
idealized. Napoleon has vulgarities of character
and expression, and the unexpected meeting
with them gives us at first a shock of admiration.
284 LYOF TOLSTOL

Instead of saying simply, “ What realism!” we
exclaim, “ What reality!” Yet I do not hesi-
‘tate to consider this portion of ‘War and
Peace” as inferior to others. The historian in
Tolstot inspires me with a certain feeling of
distrust: it seems to me that the painter of
battles, with his first-class ability, here and
there takes advantage of our fairness. There
is a tinsel effect in his painting; the details are
far too numerous, and there is not so much
variety among them as one would think.

What is incomparable in the war part of the
romance are the descriptions of military cus-
toms, the scenes of camp-life, the impressions
of certain hours of day and night, the reminis-
cences of evening conversations, the effects of
groups lighted up by the weird light of the
bivouac, the heart-rending aspects of the battle-
field or the hospital-wards. The marvellous
beauty of all this wealth of feelings felt and
experienced adds its glory to the more com-
monplace and less valuable woof of the his-
torical narration. Turgénief, who understood
this, noted somewhere or other this difference ;
but there are very few readers who can thus
LYOF TOLSTOS. 285

bethink themselves, and take account of their
illusions.

Wounded at Austerlitz, and taken to the
French hospital, Andréi sees Napoleon ap-
proach his bedside; that is to say, he sees the
one who, in his eyes, represents the ideal, the
superhuman man, the hero, the demigod. At
death’s door, Andréi sees all things in a light
which reduces them to their real proportions.
To him all Napoleon’s acts, all his words, all
the motives which make him act and speak,
seem empty of interest. He turns from the
sight of what is only human, and, with his eyes
fixed® solely on the medal which Marya hung
around his neck on the day of his departure, he
endeavors to believe “in that ideal heaven
which alone promises him peace.”

Scarcely recovered from his wound, Andréi
returns to his father’s home, which he reaches
in time to be present at his wife’s confinement.
There is here an admirable scene, which will
be surpassed only by the birth-scene described
in the romance of “ Anna Karénina,” All that
is dramatic, august, mysterious, in the opening
flower of maternity has been expressed by
286 LYOF TOLSTOs.

Tolstoy in these two passages. That of “Anna
Karénina” is famous. We feel nothing of
the equivocal impressions and the lugubrious
effects, which, under the pretext of realism, the
author of “La Joie de Vivre” will put into a
similar description. But a parallel between the
realism of Tolstoy and the realism of Zola
would carry us too far from our subject.

The impression left upon Andréi Bolkonsky
by the death of his wife has in no small degree
contributed to develop in him the tendency
toward dissatisfaction with life. But one day a
young girl comes into the circle of shadow, and
he instantly allows her to usurp its place.® The
memory of a luminous vision is brought into
the depths of his soul. All the apparently
sleeping springs of affection in his nature are
stirred up by the appearance of Natasha
Rostova. Chance brings Andréi to the young
girl’s paternal mansion: he falls in love with
her, and with this new love begins the renewal
of life.

The house of the Rostofs is the third of the
seignorial homes which Tolstot opens to us, and
it is the one where it is the easiest thing to for-
LYOF TOLSTOL. 287

get one’s self. Songs only are heard, merry
laughter, the chatter of fresh voices. The head
of the family, Count Rostof, is a great proprie-
tor, ostentatious, but free from arrogance, and
is carelessly hurrying to his ruin; but no one
better than he understands the duties of hospi-
tality. His wife is a sweet, good woman, ador-
ing her family, and by her family adored. There
are two sonsin the house. The youngest, Petya,
is a child at the beginning of the story; but he
will be seen in the ranks of the Russian army
before the end of the book. And Tolstof, in
describing his heroic death, will write a few
pages, the beauty and noble sadness of which,
without any sense of detriment, recall Virgil
and the episode.of Euryalus dying beside
Nisus. The elder brother, Nikolat Rostof, is
the typical young noble, born for military life,
for whom the profession of soldier is the first
in the world, who is too sound in mind, too
healthy in body, not to carry everywhere with
him his good-humor and his off-hand manners.
But he returns to camp as to a second home,
and weeps with joy to see his comrades again ;
and he has no regret when he is once more in
288 LYOF .TOLSTOL.

his tent, and he submits to the yoke and habits
of military life with the same sensation of pleas-
ure that a weary man feels when at last he has
the chance to lie down and go to sleep. Tolstot
makes use of Nikolai Rostof just as he does of
Prince Andréi, in order to make us present
with him during a portion of the deeds of war
which he wishes to relate. Rostof’s impressions
are not, however, like Bolkonsky’s: they recall
pretty closely the memories noted in the “ Mili-
tary Sketches” of Sevastdpol. It is evident
that Tolstoi, who has very largely put himself
into each of his characters, has reflected him-
self in this peculiar side in this one.

In the house of the Rostofs, there is a whole
swarm of young girls,—the prudent Viera,
methodical and tiresome; the gentle Sonya, a
poor relation, who is loved by the son, and who
worships him, even to sacrifice: she will forego
marriage with him, so that he may be rich and
happy. But a luminous face, dazzling with its
freshness, gayety, and grace, is that shown us
in Natasha, Andréi Bolkonsky’s “bride.” Na-
tasha is so beautiful, that no one can see her
without loving her. She is willing to be loved
LYOF TOLSTOS. 289

without returning it. Happy in the effect
caused by her beauty, she mistakes all her
coquettish, maidenly caprices for honest, serious
sentiments. She has imagined that she was in
love with her brother Nikolai’s friend Boris,
then with Denisof, then with Prince Andréi, all
in succession; but her passion has never yet
been really awakened. It is waiting for the
appearance of the last aspirant, the only one
unworthy of being chosen; and then it bursts
forth with frightful violence. Natasha meets
Anatoli Kuragin: she yields to the fascination
of his beauty, his boldness. He shamelessly
addresses a few coarse, flattering words to her;
and she is intoxicated by this unrefined incense
more than by delicate homage. She forgets
that she is plighted to Prince Andréi: she
allows herself to listen to words of love. She
loves ; and she loves so passionately, that, with-
out hesitation, she consents to all that her
seducer has planned to lead her to irretriev-
able ruin. She is willing to elope. A provi-
dential chance prevents her departure. Pierre
Bezukhof arrives in time to reveal to the unfor-
tunate young woman that Kuragin is married:
290 LYOF TOLSTOV.

he gives him a pretty rough experience of his
giant hand, and compels Lovelace to return
Natasha’s letters, and to pack off.

Natasha‘ falls ill with sorrow, shame, and
remorse. The doctors cannot get the better
of this moral suffering. Religion alone puts
an end to it. A lady who lives in the coun-
try near the Rostofs comes to Moscow during
Lent, and takes Natasha with her to perform
their devotions. Each morning before day-
break they set out, and go to kneel before the
Virgin, “the blackened painting of whom is
lighted up by the candles and the first rays of
the dawn.” Natasha prays with fervor, with hu-
mility. She feels that she is gradually becoming
somewhat regenerated ; and on the day when she
is to receive the communion, she finds herself
“‘at peace with herself, and reconciled to life.”

“«Count,’ asked Natasha of Pierre, as “she
paused, ‘do I do wrong to sing?’ And she
raised her eyes to his, and blushed.

“*No, Wherein would lie the hdrm? .. . On
the contrary. But why should you ask me?’

t She takes a dose of arsenic, but prompt means save her life. —
N. H. D.
onee

LYOF TOLSTOF. 291

“<*T don’t know, I’m sure,’ replied Natasha,
speaking hurriedly. ‘But it would grieve me
to do any thing which might displease you.
I saw,’ she went on, without noticing that Pierre
was embarrassed, and reddening in his turn,
‘I saw his name in the order of the day... .
Do you think that he will ever forgive me? Do
you believe that he will always be angry with
me? Do you?’

“«T think,’ continued Pierre, ‘that he has
nothing to forgive. If I were in his place’ —
And the same words of love and pity which he
had spoken to her once before were on his
tongue’s end, but Natasha did not give him
time to finish.

“«Akhk! you? That isa very different thing,’
she cried enthusiastically. ‘I don’t know a
better and more generous man than you. Such
aman does not exist. If you had not helped me
then and now, I do not know what would have
become of me.’ Her eyes filled with tears,
which she hid behind her music; and, turning
around abruptly, she began to practice her so/-
Jeggt, and to walk up and down.”

Thus begins the last romance in Natasha’s
292 LYOF TOLSTO/.

life. She loves Pierre Beztkhof, not with the
fanciful love which she felt for Andréi, nor the
mad passion which Kuragin inspired in her, but
with a pure, moral affection, founded on esteem,
on the similarity of thoughts and feelings. This
union is the only one which Tolstof wishes to
realize for Bezukhof, for it is the only kind which
seems to him legitimate. But, before it can be
accomplished, it must needs be that the man to
whom Natasha had plighted her troth should
be no longer between her and the one whom
she is to marry. Accordingly we are brought
to witness Andréi Bolkonsky’s death.

The French invasion of 1812 has roused all
the powers of Russia. From the muzhik to the
‘velmozh, every one has felt the impulse of self-
sacrifice. The Rostofs, whose second son Pe-
tya desires to go as a hussar, are surprised in
the midst of moving, by the arrival of wounded,
whom it is impossible to transport farther.
They have some of the furniture unloaded, and
arrange a train of wagons. Among the mortally
wounded whom they have thus received is Prince
Andréi, He was struck by a bursting shell on
the same day as Kuragin, and chance has so
LVOF TOLSTOS 293

brought it about that the wounded man can be-
hold on his bed of agony the man who stole
Natasha’s heart from him. This is a most
powerfully dramatic scene. It is not the only
one offered by. this part of the book. Natasha
discovers, during the journey, that Prince An-
dréi is in one of the wagons. She makes her
way out during the night, and comes to kneel by
his bedside. Natasha and the Princess Marya
meet at this death-bed. The analysis of the
wounded man’s last feelings and sensations at
the supreme moment is a marvel of divination:
the ecstasy of the evening hours, the delirium
of the moments of somnolence, are expressed
with a power of imagination which makes one
shudder.

Meantime, beside the Rostofs’ carriage walks
a man of lofty stature, in laborer’s attire. It is
Pierre Bezikhof, who also has desired to find a
chance to sacrifice himself. He did not join
the army, like Andréi Bolkonsky, Nikolai Ros-
tof, Petya, and the others. Does he think, then,
like the author of “My Religion,” that he has
no right to kill a man, even though it were an
enemy of his country? He stays in Moscow,
294. LYOF TOLSTOL

with vague projects, which Fate, that mighty
actor in the dramas of mankind, according to
the author of “ War and Peace,” prevents him
from putting into execution. He is captured by
the French, and endures a most trying nomad
captivity. But he finds among his comrades
in misfortune a poor soldier with wounded
feet, and body devoured by vermin, and from
him he learns the great secret of existence.
Platon Karataief, in spite of his pitiable exte-
rior, personifies the moral and religious ideal,
which, as we have already seen, Count Tolstor
definitely came to accept. As soon as the hero
of ‘War and Peace,” Pierre Beztkhof, has
reached this limit of his development, the story
has only to proceed of its own inertia to the
conclusion. I feel that there is no necessity
of delaying over the final scenes. The Princess
Marya, whose father is now dead, marries Niko-
lat Rostof, who had saved her life by quelling a
revolt among the serfs of Luisuia Gorui, the Bol-
konsky’s domain. Bezutkhof, at last a widower,
is free to marry Natasha.
LYOF TOLSTOL 205

IN.

As in “War and Peace,” so in “ Anna Karé-
nina,” we shall find Count Lyof Tolstoi himself
just as his own confessions have allowed us
to point him out. As in “War and Peace,”
all the chief personages will have some of his
characteristics, and Vronsky and Konstantin
Levin, in turn, represent him in some peculiar
aspect, in the same way as Nikolai Rostof,
Prince Andréi, and Count Pierre. Thus, in
the discourse where Count Vronsky proposes
a re-organization of his landed property, and
claims that it must be based on the agree-
ment between the muzhik and his former lord,
Count Tolstot propounds a theory which he
long held, but which he has since gone beyond ;
for, as we shall soon see, he has reached Com-
‘munism.

In the same way we recognize the ideas of

,

“My Religion” in Levin’s resistance of the
°

296 LYOF TOLSTOI.

patriotic oat burst, or, to use his language, the
unreflecting enthusiasm which rouses the Rus-
sian youth, and drives one of the characters of
the story, Vronsky, to enlist of his own accord
for the defence of the Serbian cause. While
protesting by his own abstention, and also by
his tirades against the Slav committees and the
enlistment, Konstantin Levin is already apply-
ing the doctrine which Count Tolstoi will for-
mulate in the maxim, “Do not engage in war,”
and on which he will make the following com-
ment: “Jesus has shown me that the fifth
temptation that deprives me of my welfare is
the distinction made by us between our com.
patriots and foreign nations. I must believe
in that. Consequently, if in a moment of for-
getfulness I experience a feeling of hostility
against a man of another nationality, I must
not fail to recognize, in my thoughtful mo-
ments, that this feeling is false. No longer,
as formerly, can I justify myself by the superi-
ority of my people to others ; by the ignorance,
the cruelty, or the barbarity of another people.
I cannot refrain, at the first opportunity, from
endeavoring to be more affable to a foreigner
LYOF TOLSTOs 207

than to one of my countrymen.” And if Vron-
sky behaves differently from Konstantin Levin,
it is not because Tolstot wishes to offset the
conduct of the one to the views of the other.
In reality, it is not from conviction, it is from
despair, that Vronsky enlists. He goes away
so as to forget, amid the excitement — or, as
Pascal said, the dtvertissement — of a soldier’s
life the impression of the inward drama which
has disturbed his soul to its foundation, and
which, by a fatal, but unexpected, conclusion,
has just bespattered him with blood.

The romance of “Anna Karénina” is the
history of an adulterous amour: the climax
of the amour is suicide. Is this suicide in
the novelist’s mind a moral penalty? That
would be a wholly barbarous conception, a sort
of divine judgment such as would have been
‘imagined by a story-teller in the Middle Ages,
and Tolstot seems to have wished to forestall
such a vulgar interpretation of his narrative.
There are in the romance other criminal
amours, and it is without any sign of punish.
ment that the wholly immoral relationship be-
tween the Princess Betsy and her lover leads
298 LYOF TOLSTOL

them to scandalous conduct. On the other
hand, the passion which unites Anna Karénina
and Vronsky is a sincere, profound, almost
solemn passion, in spite of the illegality of their
behavior. The hearts of these two lovers are
culpable but lofty. Besides, the more sympathy
the author of the romance shows in their presen-
tation, the more powerful is the lesson which
he desires to draw from their moral torment.
All the plan and all the interest of the work
are here. What agonies of remorse this illegal
union, so passionately desired, brings upon the
guilty woman! What deep mortifications and
what vulgar discomfitures, what deadly humil-
iations and what prosaic irksomeness, spring
from this false situation, and ultimately make it
so odious, so painful, that way of escape has
to be found by an act of madness in a moment
of despair!

Yet never were more conditions united to
facilitate this union outside the law. Vron-
sky’s rank is too lofty for him to fear public
opinion: he makes it, as it were, a point of
honor to defy it, and he instals his mistress in
his splendid domain as though she were his
LYOF TOLSTOL. 299

legitimate wife. Without much apparent diffi-
culty, he makes his friends and his family treat
his Zéaison with respect. Anna Karénina, on
her part, loves Vronsky with a perfect passion,
which is only intensified and not chilled by the
feeling of sacrifices undergone. All that she
asks from her lover in return is to be loved by
him. She has made it a point of honor on her
part to refuse the advantages of a divorce which
her husband, Alekséi Karénin, at first offers to
have pronounced against himself. She refused
from a double reason of delicacy: she did not
wish to add this gratuitous insult to the wrongs
of which she is guilty towards this disagreeable,
but upright, man; above all, she does not wish
that a suspicion of calculation should cast its
shadow over the feeling which she has towards
the count.

. A divorce, however, would put an end to
many sentimental doubts causing misunder-
standings, and to many subtleties of behavior
resulting only in collisions. Vronsky demands
the divorce with all the strength of his gener-
ous pride. Anna Karénina scouts the idea of
it with such jealous anxiety as a naturally noble
300 , LYOF TOLSTOL

woman can feel in preserving the remains of
her dignity, which a shock of passion has
thrown down and broken to fragments like a
costly vase. This antagonism creates between
the two lovers a secret source of bitterness.
There are other latent troubles. By her mar-
riage, Anna Karénina has a son from whom
she is separated, whom she worships; and the
slightest remembrance of him causes her heart
to thrill with that same strange feeling which is
the precursor of motherhood. In consequence
of her amour with Vronsky, she has a daughter.
By a singular anomaly she does not love the
child of the man whom she loves: she is vexed
with her daughter for occupying in some meas-
ure a place usurped, for monopolizing with her
the maternal cares which it seems to her that
the other child so grievously needs. If as a
mother she has her whimsical but touching fits
of jealousy, as a woman she has other fears,
the absurdity of which does not prevent them
from being very painful. She spends her time
and gnaws her heart in trying to divine her
lover’s attitude towards her. She knows that
for her sake he has renounced a most brilliant
LYOF TOLSTOL 301

future; she is afraid that she cannot fill his ob-
jectless existence ; she sees in each attempted
return to any occupation, to any distraction
whatsoever, a proof of weariness, a confession
of irksomeness, a sign of regret.

Vronsky, who has made absolute renuncia-
tion without thought of return, at last begins
to suffer from this distrust: the more it grows,
the more disappointment and secret vexation
he feels. Here the loftiness of character
which attaches him to his mistress, and which
has made it easy for him to brave every thing
for her, turns against the unfortunate woman,
and impels him to resist the efforts which she
makes to get fuller possession of him, It is
easy to imagine what will be the outcome of
this incessant struggle. Each day the angles
become sharper, feelings become more touchy,
actions rankle more painfully; these two be-
ings, starting on the bright and free pinnacles
-of love, have descended, without being them-
selves aware of it, into the dark and _ suffo-
cating regions of hate. The result of this
inevitable decay of passion is made not less
cruel, but more evident, by a wholly external
302 LYOF TOLSTOV.

complication. The divorce which ‘at one time
Alekséi Karénin had offered, he refuses when
his wife, weary of such suffering, at last de-
cides to ask him for it. Here it is that the
future author of “My Religion” appears with
his precise theory of the immorality of divorce.
The group of mystics to which the deserted
husband has been led to ask consolation of a
religious kind declare, through the mouth of the
Countess Lidia Ivanovna, that Alekséi Karénin
cannot accede to his wife’s wishes, and grant
her liberty, without falling himself into a state
of mortal sin.

From the day when they learn of his refusal,
Anna Karénina and Vronsky, in spite of them-
selves, rush straight towards separation. Anna,
in her dread of it, precipitates it. WVronsky is
nettled at her ever increasing restlessness ; and
before what seems to him pure ingratitude, he
affects an indifference which he does not feel.
Discussions, once rare, come in quick succes-
sion, and become quarrelsome. This daily con-
flict brings about an explosion, followed by a
rupture.

Vronsky leaves her. He goes to his mother,
LYOF TOLSTOL. 303

the natural enemy of his mistress. As soon as
she is alone, Anna Karénina feels as though
torn in every fibre of her being: he must come
back; she will fall on her knees before him;
she will humiliate herself like a naughty child.
She has written him to return, but she has not
the strength to wait for him; she hurries to
meet him, and stops at an intermediate station,
when by a telegram she informs him of her
arrival, The train arrives. Only the count’s
valet appears, bringing a note in which Vronsky
dryly announces that he is coming back. The :
tone of the note is interpreted by Anna as a
new proof of the death of a love which in her
alone has grown with time and possession. She
tells herself that there is no more reason to live,
and a series of fatal circumstances unite at this
critical moment to hasten her to her death.
She wishes to escape the inquisitive eyes of
the loiterers at the station, who are struck by
her strange behavior: she leaves the platform,
and steps down upon the track. She remem-
bers the terrible accident which a train-hand
had met with at Moscow on the very day of
her first meeting with Vronsky. A sort of
304 LYOF TOLSTOS.

reflex action takes place in her brain: a freight-
train is coming along ; she goes to meet it.

“She looked under the cars, at the chains
and the brake, and the high iron wheels; and
she tried to estimate with her eye 1 the distance
between the fore and back whee. and the
moment when the middle would be in front of
her.

“«There,’ she said, looking at the shadow of
the car thrown upon the black coal-dust which
covered the sleepers, ‘there in the centre he
“will be punished, and I shall be delivered from
it all, —and from myself.’

“Her little red travelling-bag caused her to
lose the moment when she could throw herself
under the wheels of the first car: she could not
detach it from her arm. She awaited the sec-
ond. A feeling like that she had experienced
once, just before taking a dive in the river,
came over her, and she made the sign of the
cross. This familiar gesture called back to her
soul memories of youth and childhood. Life,
with its elusive joys, glowed for an instant be-
fore her, but she did not take her eyes from the
car; and when the middle between the two
LYOF TOLSTOZ. 305

wheels appeared, she threw away her red bag,
drawing her head between her shoulders, and,
with outstretched hands, threw herself on her
knees under the car. She had time to feel
afraid. ‘Where am I? What am I doing?
Why?’ thought she, trying to draw back; but
a great, inflexible mass struck her head, and
threw her upon her back. ‘Lord, forgive me
all!’ she murmured, feeling the struggle to be
in vain. A little weuzhzk was working on the
railroad, mumbling in his beard. And the can-
dle by which she read, as in a book, the fulfil-
ment of her life’s work, of its deceptions, its
grief, and its torment, flared up with greater
brightness than she had ever known, revealing
to her all that before was in darkness; then
flickered, grew faint, and went out forever.”
Certainly when one reads this brutally fright-
ful dénouement in the light of the motto of the
book, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” one
might be tempted to interpret Jesus’ word in
its Judaic sense. Yet it would be a serious
mistake. It is very certain that this sudden
and tragic end in the novelist’s. mind was meant
for Anna Karénina’s deliverance: out of pity
306 LYOF TOLSTOL

for her, he granted. her the favor of death.
Death alone could put an end to the torment
of this soul, and this torment began with the
sin. Here is the true punishment of guilty
love: all the illusion which exalted the senses,
as long as they are pastured in “love’s shadow,”
as one of Shakspeare’s characters calls it, van-
ishes as soon as one is sated of love itself.
“What had been for Vronsky for nearly a year
the only and absolute aim of his life, was for
Anna a dream of happiness, all the more en-
chanting because it seemed to her unreal and
terrible. It was like a dream. At last the
waking came; and a new life began for her, with
a sentiment of moral decadence. She felt the
impossibility of expressing the shame, the hor-
ror, the joy, that were now her portion. Rather
than put her feelings into idle and fleeting
words, she preferred to keep silent. As time
went on, words fit to express the complexity
of her sensations still failed to come to her,
and even her thoughts were incapable of trans-
lating the impressions of her heart. She hoped
that calmness and peace would come to her,
but they held aloof. Whenever she thought
LYOF TOLSTOTF. 307

of the past, and thought of the future, and
thought of her own fate, she was seized with
fear, and tried to drive these thoughts away.

«By and by, by and by,’ she repeated, ‘when
I am calmey.’

“On the other hand, when during sleep she
lost all control of her imagination, her situation
appeared in its frightful reality: almost every
night she had the same dream. She dreamed
that she was the wife both of Vronsky and of
Alekséi Aleksandrovitch. And it seemed to
her that Alekséi Aleksandrovitch kissed her
hands, and said, weeping, ‘How happy we are
now!’ And Alekséi Vronsky, he, also, was her
husband. She was amazed that she could be-
lieve such a thing impossible; and she laughed
when she seemed to explain to them that every
thing would simplify itself, and that both would
henceforth be satisfied and happy. But this
dream weighed on her spirits like a nightmare,
and she always awoke in a fright.”

That is the moral punishment. What keen
psychology! What an admirable commentary,
and what a powerful interpretation of the “sur-
git amari aliquid!” And it is not only her
308 LYOF TOLSTOV.

punishment as a woman which Tolstot has de-
scribed, it is also.-her punishment as a mother,
when the separation, long postponed by the
husband’s own will, becomes indispensable to
the two paramours, both of whom have returned
from the doors of death, and returned more
morbidly, more hopelessly, in love with each
other than ever before.

During the first part of this separation, Anna
Karénina had wonted herself to think that it
was her duty to give up all that had hitherto
gone to make her happiness, and to leave in
her husband’s hands as a compensation, such
as it was, all the elements of her past happiness
which she had-exchanged for another kind. “TI
give up all that I love, all that I appreciate
most in this world,—my son and my reputa-
tion!” She succeeds for some time in lulling,
in deceiving, the maternal sentiment, in-substi-
tuting in place of her affection for her son her
tender and constant care for the daughter, the
child of her /aison with Vronsky. But Vron-
sky is obliged suddenly to leave Italy where
they have been together; he and Anna reach
Petersburg; the mother is again in the neigh-
LYOF TOLSTOV. 309

borhood of the house where her son is living;
she wishes to enter it, to see him; she begs for
permission, and it is harshly refused; she de-
termines to go to her husband’s at any cost, and
make her way to the child by bribing the ser-
vants. The reader will not blame me for quot-
ing this admirable scene.*

“She went.to a neighboring shop and _ pur-
chased some toys, and thus she formed her plan
of action: she would start early in the morning
before Alekséi Aleksandrovitch was up; she
would have the money in her hand all ready to
bribe the Swiss and the other servants to let her
go up-stairs without raising her veil, under the
pretext of laying on Serozha’s bed some presents
sent by his god-father. As to what she should
say to her son, she could not form the least idea:
she could not make any preparation for that.

“The next morning, at eight o’clock, Anna
got out of her hired carriage and rang the door-
bell of her former home.

' M. Dupuy adds, that he borrows “the inelegant but expressive
translation of this scene” from the Fournal de Saint Pétersbourg.
In the present case, as in nearly all other quotations in the book, the
originals have been used, which will account for greater or less varia-
tions from the literal version of the French text, — N. H. D.
310 LVOF TOLSTOL.

“*Go and see what is wanted! It’s some
baruina, said Kapitonuitch, in overcoat and
galoshes, as he looked out of the window and
saw a lady closely veiled standing on the porch.
The Swiss’s assistant, a young man whom Anna
did not know, had scarcely opened the door
before Anna thrust a three-ruble note into his
hand. ‘

“* Serozha — Sergéi Aleksiévitch,’ she stam-
mered ; then she went one or two steps down
the hall.

“The Swiss’s assistant examined the note,
and stopped the visitor at the inner glass door.

“Whom do you wish to see?’ he asked.

“She did not hear his words, and made no
reply.

“Kapitonuitch, noticing the stranger’s con-
fusion, came out from his office and asked her
what she wanted.

“*T come from Prince Skorodumof to see
Sergéi Aleksiévitch.’

“<«He is not up yet,’ replied the Swiss, look-
ing sharply at the veiled lady.

« Anna had never dreamed that she should be
so troubled by the sight of this house where
LYOF TOLSTOL. 311

she had lived nine years. One after another,
sweet and cruel memories arose in her mind, and
for a moment she forgot why she was there.

“«Will you wait?’ asked the Swiss, helping
her to take off her skubka. When he saw her
face, he recognized her, and bowed profoundly.
‘Will your ladyship* be pleased to enter?’ he
said to her.

“She tried to speak; but her voice failed
her, and with an entreating look at the old
servant she rapidly flew up the stairs. Kap-
itonuitch tried to overtake her, and followed’
after her, catching his galoshes at every step.

“*Perhaps his tutor is not dressed yet: I will
«speak to him.’

“Anna kept on up the stairs which she knew
so well, but she did not hear what the old man
said.

“*This way. Excuse it if all is in disorder.
He sleeps in the front room now,’ said the
Swiss, out of breath. ‘ Will your ladyship be
good enough to wait a moment? I will go and
see. And opening the high door, he dis:
appeared.

« Vasha prevoskhoditelstvo ; literally, Your Excellency.
312 LYOF TOLSTOL.

“ Anna stopped and waited.

“*He has just waked up,’ said the Swiss,
coming back through the same door.

“And as he spoke, Anna heard the sound
of a child yawning, and merely by the sound of
the yawn she recognized her son, and seemed
to see him alive before her.

“*Let me go in—let me!’ she stammered,
and hurriedly pushed through the door.

“ At the right of the door was a bed, and on
the bed a child was sitting up in his little open
~ nightgown; his little body was leaning forward,

and he was just finishing a yawn and stretching
himself. His lips were just closing into a sleepy
smile, and he fell back upon his pillow still.
smiling.

“«*Serozha!’ she murmured as she went

- towards him.

“Every time since their separation that she
had felt an access of love for the absent son,
Anna looked upon him as still a child of four,
the age when he had been most charming.
Now he no longer bore any resemblance to him
whom she had left: he had grown tall and thin.
How long his face seemed! How short his
LYOF TOLSTOL. 313

hair! What long arms! How he had changed!
But it was still the same, —the shape of his
head, his lips, little slender neck, and his broad
shoulders.

“*Serozha!’ she whispered in the child’s
ear.

“He raised himself on his elbow, turned his
frowzy head around, and, trying to put things
together, opened wide his eyes. For several
seconds he looked with an inquiring face at his
mother, who stood motionless before him. Then
he suddenly smiled with joy; and with his eyes
still half-closed in sleep, he threw himself, not
back upon his pillow, but into his mother’s arms.

“«Serozha, my dear little boy!’ she stam-
mered, choking with tears, and throwing her
arms around his plump body.

“¢Mamma!’ he whispered, cuddling into his
mother’s arms so as to feel their encircling
pressure. Smiling sleepily, he took his hand
from the head of the bed and put it on his
mother’s shoulder and climbed into her lap,
having that warm breath of sleep peculiar to
children, and pressed his face to his mother’s
neck and shoulders.
314 LYOF TOLSTOV.

“«T knew,’ he said, opening his eyes; ‘to-day
is my birthday; I knew that you would come.
I am going to get up now.’

“ And as he spoke he fell asleep again. Anna
devoured him with her eyes. She saw how he
had changed during her absence. She would
scarcely have known his long legs coming
below his nightgown, his hollow cheeks, his
short hair curled in the neck where she had so
often kissed it. She pressed him to her heart,
and the tears prevented her from speaking.

“«What are you crying for, mamma?’ he
asked, now entirely awake. ‘What makes you
cry?’ he repeated, ready to weep himself.

“«T? T will not cry any more — it is for joy.
It is all over now,’ said she, drying her tears
and turning around. ‘Mz/ go and get dressed,’
she added, after she had grown a little calmer,
but still holding Serozha’s hand. She sat down
near the bed on a chair which held the child’s
clothing. ‘How do you dress without me?
How’ —she wanted to speak simply and gayly,
but she could not, and again she turned her
head away.

““«T don’t wash in cold water any more; papa
LYOF TOLSTOSs. 315

has forbidden it: but you have not seen Vasili
Lukitch? Here he comes. But you are sitting
on my things.” And Serozha laughed heartily.
She looked at him and smiled.

““Mamma! dushenka, golibtchika!’ [dear
little soul, darling], he cried again, throwing
himself into her arms, as though he now better
understood what had happened to him, as he
saw her smile.

“«Take it off,’ said he, pulling off her hat.
And seeing her head bare, he began to kiss her
again.

“What did you think of me? Did you
believe that I was dead?’

“«T never believed it.’

“«You believed me alive, my precious?’

“*T knew it! I knew it!’ he replied, repeat-
ing his favorite phrase; and, seizing the hand
which was smoothing his hair, he pressed the
palm of it to his little mouth, and began to
kiss it.”

“Vasili Lukitch, meantime, not at first know-
ing who this lady was, but learning from their
conversation that it was Serozha’s mother, the
woman who had deserted her husband, and
316 LYOF TOLSTOS.

whom he did not know, as he had not come
into the house till after her departure, was in
great perplexity. Ought he to tell Alekséi
Aleksandrovitch? On mature reflection he
came to the conclusion that his duty consisted
in going to dress Serozha at the usual hour,
without paying any attention to a third person
—his mother, or any one else. But as he
reached the door and opened it, the sight of
the caresses between the mother and child, the
sound of their voices and their words, made
him change his mind. He shook his head,
sighed, and quietly closed the door. ‘I will
wait ten minutes longer,’ he said to himself,
coughing slightly, and wiping his eyes.

“There was great excitement among the ser-
vants; they all knew that the davuzna had come,
and that Kapitonuitch had let her in, and that
she was in the child’s room; they knew, too,
that their master was in the habit of going to
Serozha every morning at nine o’clock: each
one felt that the husband and wife ought not to
meet, that it must be prevented.

“ Kornéi, the valet, went down to the Swiss
to ask why Anna had been let in; and finding
LYOF TOLSTOs. 317

that Kapitonuitch had taken her up-stairs, he
reprimanded him severely. The Swiss main-
tained an obstinate silence till the valet declared
that he deserved to lose his place, when the old
man jumped at him, and shaking his fist in his
face, said, —

“*Dat Vot! you would not have let her in
yourself? You've served here ten years, and
had nothing but kindness from her, but you
would have said, “Now, go away from here!”
You know what policy is, you sly dog. What
you don't forget is to rob your master, and to
carry off his raccoon-skin shudas /’

“*Soldier!’ replied Kornéi scornfully; and
he turned towards the nurse, who was coming
in just at this moment. ‘What do you think,
Marya Yefimovna? He has let in Anna Arkad-
yevna, without saying any thing to anybody,
and just when Alekséi Aleksandrovitch, as soon
as he is up, will be going to the nursery.’

“«What a scrape! what a scrape!’ said the
nurse. ‘But, Kornéi Vasilyevitch, find some
way to keep your master, while I run to warn
her, and get her out of the way. What a
scrape!’
318 LYOF TOLSTOL

““When the nurse went into the child’s room,
Serozha was telling his mother how Nadenka
and he had fallen when sliding down a hill of
ice, and turned three somersaults. Anna was
listening to the sound of her son’s voice, looking
at his face, watching the play of his features,
feeling his little arms, but not hearing a word
that he said. She must go away, she must
leave him: this alone she understood and felt.
She had heard Vasili Lukitch’s steps, and his
little discreet cough, as he came to the door,
and now she heard the nurse coming in; but
unable to move or to speak, she remained as
fixed as a statue.

“*Baruina! Golibtchika!’ [mistress, dar-
ling], said the nurse, coming up to Anna,.and
kissing her hands and her shoulders. ‘God
sent this joy for our birthday celebration! You
are not changed at all.’

“* Ach! nurse [xyanya], my dear: I did not,
know that you were in the house,’ said Anna,
coming to herself.

“TI don’t live here; I live with my daughter.
I came to give my best wishes to Serozha,
Anna Arkadyevna, golubichika,’
LYOF TOLSTOL. 319

“The nurse suddenly began to weep, and to
kiss Anna’s hand.

“ Serozha, with bright, joyful eyes, and hold-
ing his mother with one hand and his nurse
with the other, was dancing in his little bare
feet on the carpet. His old nurse’s tenderness
towards his mother was delightful to him.

“«Mamma, she often comes to see me; and
when she comes’ —he began; but he stopped
short when he perceived that the nurse whis-
pered something in his mother’s ear, and that
his mother’s face assumed an expression of fear,
and at the same time of shame.

“ Anna went to him.

“«My precious!’ she said.

“She could not say the word ‘farewell’
[proshchdi]; but the expression of her face said
it, and he understood.

“My precious, precious Kutik!’ she said,
calling him by a pet name which she used when
he was a baby. ‘You will not forget me; you’
— but she could not say another word.

“Only then she began to remember the words
which she wanted to say to him, but now it was
impossible to say them. Serozha, however,
320 LYOF TOLSTOL.

understood all that she would have said: he
understood that she was unhappy, and that she
loved him. He even understood what the nurse
whispered in her ear: he heard the words ‘al-
ways at nine o’clock;’ and he knew that they
referred to his father, and that his mother must
not meet him. He understood this, but one
thing he could not understand: why did her
face express fear and shame? . . . She was not
to blame, but she was afraid of him, and seemed
ashamed of something. He wanted to ask a
question which would have explained this cir-
cumstance, but he did not dare: he saw that
she was in sorrow, and he pitied her. He
silently clung close to her, and then he whis-
pered, ‘Don’t go yet! He will not come yet
awhile.’

“His mother pushed him away from her a
little, in order to see if he understood the mean-
ing of what he had said; and in the frightened
expression of his face she perceived that he not
only spoke of his father, but seemed to ask her
how he ought to think about him.

“«Serozha, my dear,’ she said, ‘love him; he
is better than I am; and I have been wicked
LYOF TOLSTOL. 321

to him. When you have grown up, you will
understand.’

“«No one is better than you,’ cried the child,
with sobs of despair; and, clinging to his moth-
er’s shoulders, he squeezed her with all the
force of his little trembling arms.

“«* Diushenka, my darling!’ stammered Anna;
and, bursting into tears, she sobbed like a child,
even as he sobbed.

“ At this moment the door opened, and Vasili
Lukitch came in. Steps were heard at the
other door; and, in a frightened whisper, he
exclaimed, ‘ He is coming,’ and gave Anna her
hat.

“Serozha threw himself on the bed, sobbing,
and covered his face with his hands. Anna
took them away to kiss yet once again his tear-
stained cheeks, and then with quick steps hur-
ried from the room. Alekséi Aleksandrovitch
met her at the door. When he saw her, he
stopped and bowed his head.

“Though she had declared a moment before
that he was better than she, the swift glance
that she gave him, taking in his whole person,
awoke in her only a feeling of hatred and scorn
322 LYOF TOLSTOL.

for him, and jealousy on account of her son,
She hurriedly lowered her veil, and, quickening
her step, almost ran from the room. She had
entirely forgotten in her haste the playthings
which, on the evening before, she had bought
with so much love and sadness; and she took
them back with her to the hotel.”

In such scenes, in such moral analyses, as
these, it is necessary to look for the meaning
and the drift of “Anna Karénina.” There is
also in the conduct of the husband, the states-
man, Alekséi Karénin, a constant lesson and
significance which it would be easy to verify
with “My Religion” in hand. He is punished
for having sacrificed every thing to his ambi-
tion, even the love and the care of her whom
he took to be his wife. He does not fight a
duel with Vronsky because he lacks courage,
but, above all, because religion lays it upon him
as a duty not to strive to kill his neighbor.
He hates his guilty wife, even to the point of
' wishing for her death, and of feeling disappoint-
‘ment when he finds her alive after the travail
which she dreaded so keenly; but his heart
. softens at her delirium, at the words of repent-
LYOF TOLSTOL. 323

ance which she speaks at the moment which
she thinks is her last: he forgives her. From
the day when he has tasted the divine sweet-
ness of mercy, he is another man: he has
found the meaning of life. Henceforth he will
apply the doctrine of Jesus: “‘I offer my other
cheek to the smiter; I give my last cloak to
him who has robbed me; I ask only one thing
of God, that he will not take from me the joy
of forgiving.’ .. . Karénin rose: sobs choked
his voice. Vronsky rose too, and standing with
bowed head and humble attitude, looked up at
Karénin without a word to say. He was
incapable of understanding Alekséi Aleksan-
drovitch’s feelings ; but he felt that such mag-
nanimity was above him, and _ irreconcilable
with his conception of life.”
324 LYOF TOLSTOL

V.

THE astonishment felt by Vronsky at hearing
Karénin’s words, we also have some right to
feel in reading Tolstoi’s work entitled “My
Religion.” This work is a socialistic and com-
munistic interpretation of the gospel. The
censorship has put an end to the publication
and sale of it; but it cannot prevent the manu-
script from passing from hand to hand; and,
when it shall have succeeded in destroying it,
it will be forever unable to suppress the state
of mind of-which this work is only a manifesta-
tion, and which will possibly be before long the
state of mind of a whole people.

It is possible now, if it ever was, by looking
towards Russia, to find in the spectacle of the
moral phenomena there going on an answer to
the question, “ How are dogmas born?”

It was remarked long ago “that all the great
convulsions of a nation are followed by an
LYOF TOLSTOFL 325

increased tendency towards mysticism: this is
manifested in Russia more than elsewhere.
For example, after the invasion in 1812, a sort
of sectarian eruption followed the patriotic
fever. The muzhik had bravely burned his
harvest, and had taken arms to drive out the
foreigner. He had done a man’s work, and had
been given to understand, that, as soon as the
enemy were out of the way, the grateful country
would recognize him as a son and give him his
freedom. The French, burned out by fire, cut
down by frost,’ retire, sowing the path of their
journey back with corpses. But the hour of
liberty does not yet strike. The affairs of
Europe must be put in order before taking hold
of the muzhik’s. After the treaties have been
signed, after the armies have gone home, the
rights of the mushzk remain neglected, and his
complaints are stifled. His despair is seen in.
emigrations, in deeds of violence, in his affilia-
tion with existing sects, in the formation of
a new social and religious dogma. At that

! The Russians, after the retreat of the French, conferred the
epaulets on Jack Frost: it was said that General Jorozof won the
victory for them. —.N. H. D.
326 . LYOF TOLSTOL

moment we see arise for the first time the
bogomél, or praying men.

In the last quarter of the century, Russia
has experienced a storm more tremendous than
that of the invasion of 1812: it might be said
that the face of the country was transformed
by the upheaval in the condition of the people.

The single reign of Alexander II. saw such
facts accomplished as the abolition of serfdom ;
the redivision of the land; above all, the in-
crease in the taxes, which has touched the peo-
ple in a very different way from all the reforms.
The dominating influence of wealth has grown
more and more; a great net-work of railroads
has extended over the country; the maxim
of laissez faire and laissez passer has made
its way into the Russian village. None of
these changes has fully succeeded, or, in better
words, none has succeeded as yet. In periods
of transition, it is the feature of inconvenience
that, above all, attracts attention, and more
often than not causes the advantageous to be
overlooked. Now, here, the ill has often sur-
passed the good. Thus in the regulation of
landed property, the insufficiency of the lots
LYOF TOLSTO/. 327

of land granted the smuzhzk, and the lack of pro-
portion between the revenue and the tax im-
posed, have quickly brought the small cultivator
back into dependence upon the great proprie-
tor, and serfage has re-appeared in disguise.

As to the administrative reforms, the zemstvo,
the tribunal, the school, all this has scarcely
made any impression upon the people except
as bringing an increase in the tax, expressed
by the immemorial formula so much per soul.
The taxes coming in much less than the in-
crease in the rates, extreme measures have
to be taken to obtain the payment of them.
The muzhik has only one way of escaping
prosecution, and that is to give himself over,
body and soul, to the usurer. In short space
of time the misery is universal. A single man
gets rich at the expense of all the others: it is
the 2ulak (the fist), the monopolist.

Bread is lacking in many places. In its
place they eat, not cake, but preparations of
straw, bark, or grass, all that which is called by
the expressive term cheat-hunger.* It is plain

1 The word podspérye might be rendered by the much less expres-
sive periphrasis “the swccedanea of bread.” — Author's note.
328 LYOF TOLSTOL.

to see that the muzhiks, reduced to these ex-
tremities, lose their interest in a society which
treats them a little less kindly than if they
were common cattle. All that they know of
public affairs is that it is necessary to pay
the tax. The most palpable advantage which
they get from the time spent in discussing the
common interests is the bumper of vodéa with
which discussions are kept alive: thus they for-
get themselves for a few hours.

Then, in hatred of the present, minds turn
back to the past, and, above all, yearn eagerly
for the future. The peasant’s waive imagina-
tion is consoled by his dreams; the ardor of
his desires is spent in Utopias. The idea of
SJvee lands haunts these enthusiastic minds.
The story is secretly whispered about of the
promises made by the Shah of Persia to emi-
grants who will come and settle in his domin-
ions: his subjects shall pay no taxes and have
no superiors. Solid masses of people set out
suddenly, and depart for “the country of the
white waters.” There it is that the popular
ideal is to be realized. Many outlaw them-
selves without leaving their residences, and re-
LYOF TOLSTOLs. 329

fuse to answer any of their obligations towards
the commune or the mzr Others take refuge
in the neighboring forest, go and settle in the
desert, in the steppe. A considerable number
go on pilgrimages to the holy places. Finally,
there are those who go to swell the class of
true Nihilists ; that is to say, people who make
their lives even a bold negation of all that is
accepted, affirmed, around them, —the class of
wanderers, or that of occults.

The attitude of these refractory men and
women strikes the people, and is not slow to
inspire them with a respect which is thus
explained. The Russian people’s heads are
stuffed with legends. One of the widest spread
is that of the centenarian who lives in the
desert, taking no other food than a consecrated
wafer once a week ; and, though he has not the
slightest notion of the alphabet, yet he reads
the Holy Book, the book with the leaves of gold,
where is found the answer to every question,
the rule for all conduct. We see now how
reality and legend can come to be confounded.
In the lonely hut where this hermit dwells
apart, fitted as he is ordinarily by his intelli-
330 LYOF TOLSTOL

gence and his will for the exceptional part
which he is going to perform, he allows him-
self endlessly to reflect on all sorts of subjects.
He ruminates at his leisure, in the solitude,.
over all the difficulties of the life from which
he has torn himself away. He gropes after his
definition of things good and of things evil; he
slowly builds up his solemn casuistry.

The peasants one after another take the road
to his hermitage. They are sure of bringing
away good advice about disputed cases. Their
cases include every subject, — family affairs,
commune affairs, church affairs. Every thing
is discussed, exposed to the cenobite’s criticism,
to his interpretation. It is a matter of course
that religious questions fill a large part in this
programme, worked up by the anxieties of the
throng, and the prophetic explanations of the
hermit. But the programme also takes up eco-
nomic or social questions. It prepares for the
coming of anew law. This law is the outcome
of a duty, and this duty is summed up in the
formula, “To live according to justice;” or,
in other words, “according to the will of God.”

The schisms formed, as we have just seen, are
LYOF TOLSTOV. 331

those of unimportant people. They have noth-
ing in common with those which the irksome-
ness of living develops, in similar lines, in
Russia, among the upper classes of the nation.
Quite contrary to the sects born in the aristoc-
racy, the schisms among the common people
take their rise in the need of existence. They
serve the instinct which impels the creature to
seek not only life, but the best form of life.
That is why they act so powerfully on the
masses ; that is why they cross time and space,
making proselytes, apostles, martyrs.

The surprising thing is that the rich and
aristocratic Count Tolstot should become the
apostle of such a religion. Like the sectaries
of the rustic class, he builds a complete reli-
gious, political, and social system upon a new
interpretation of the Gospels.

His religion, properly speaking, takes as its
foundation the maxim of the Evangelist, “ Re-
sist not the one that is evil.’ And it is not in
an allegorical sense, it is by the letter, that
these words of Jesus must be understood. The
law laid down by Jesus’ disciples is precisely
the opposite of that of the disciples of this
332) LYOF TOLSTOL.

world, which is the daw of conflict. This doc-
trine of Jesus, which is sure to give peace to
the world, is contained wholly in five command-
ments :—

1. Be at peace with everybody. Do not
allow yourself to consider any one as low or
stupid.

2. Do not violate the rights of wedlock. Do
not commit adultery.

3. The oath impels men to sin. Know that
it is wrong, and bind not yourselves by any
promise.

4. Human vengeance or justice is an evil.
Do not, under any pretext, practise it. Bear
with insults, and render not evil for evil.

5. Know that all men are brothers, the sons
of one father. Do not break the peace with
any on account of difference of nationality.

By putting this doctrine into practice, man can
realize a happiness in life, and there is no hap-
piness in life except in this path. There is no
immortality. The conception of the resurrec-
tion of the dead, according to Tolstoi, is the
greatest piece of barbarism.

The political doctrine derived from this reli-
LYOF TOLSTOL. 333

gious doctrine admits of no tribunals or armies
or national frontiers.

The social doctrine to which we must be led
by this religious and political dogma is the sup-
pression of property, and the proclamation of
communism. Man is not put into the world
that others should work for him, but that he
himself should work for others. He alone who
works shall have daily bread.

The most dangerous enemy of society is the
Church, because it supports with all its power
the errors which it has read into its interpreta-
tion of Jesus’ doctrine. In place of this false
light of Church dogma, which misleads believers
and lets them “go into the pit,” must be sub-
stituted the light of conscience; one’s whole
conduct must be irradiated by it, by submitting
each of his acts to the approbation of the judge
which we feel within us, “in our inner tribunal.”

To succeed in leading the life which con-
science may approve, what is, above all, neces-
sary? “Do not lead a life which makes it so
difficult to refrain from wrath, from not com-
mitting adultery, from not taking oaths, from
not’ defending yourself by violence, from not
334 LYOF TOLSTOL.

carrying on war: lead a life which would make
all that difficult to do.” Do not crush at pleas-
ure the very conditions of earthly happiness ;
do not break the bond which unites man to
nature: that is to say, lead lives so as to
enjoy “the sky, the sun, the pure air, the earth
covered with vegetation and peopled with ani-
mals ;”” become a rustic instead of being the
busy, weary, sickly urban. Return to the
natural law of labor, — of labor freely chosen
and accomplished with pleasure, of physical
labor, the source of appetite and sleep. Have
a family, but have the joys of it as well as the
cares: that is, keep your children near you;
do not intrust their education to strangers; do
not imprison them; do not drive them “into
physical, moral, and intellectual corruption.”
Have free and affectionate intercourse with
all men, whatever their rank, their nationality.
“The peasant and wife are free to enter into
brotherly relations with eighty millions of work-
ing-men, from Arkhangel to Astrakhan, without
waiting for ceremony or introduction. A clerk
and his wife find hundreds of people who are
their equals; but the clerks of higher station
LYOF TOLSTOS 335

do not recognize them as their equals, and they
in their turn exclude their inferiors. A wealthy
man of society and his wife have only a few
score families’ of equal distinction, all the others
are unknown to them. The cabinet minister
and the millionnaire have only a dozen people
as rich and as important as they are. For
emperors and kings, the circle is still narrower.
Is it not like a prison, where each prisoner in
his cell has relations only with one or two
jailers?” Finally, live in a community, in
hygienic conditions, with moral habits, which
bring you the nearest possible to that ideal
which is the very foundation of happiness,
health as long as you live, death without
disease, when existence has reached its limit.
The higher one rises in the social scale, the
farther one departs from this ideal. The picture
which Tolstoi paints of the physical pains and tor-
tures of the wealthy and of the aristocratic, of
those whom he calls “the martyrs of the religion
of the world,” is remarkably vigorous. Rous-
seau’s declamation against the pretended benefits
of civilization here finds a powerful interpreter.
Does that mean that Tolstoi declaims? No
336 LYOF TOLSTOL

one is more in earnest. It is not only in words
that he declares war on the organization of
society recognized and defended by the govern-
ment of his country. He puts the doctrine
into practice; he is ready to suffer all things to
affirm the cause of Jesus. His refusal to take
an oath, which is one of the articles of his
creed, has already brought upon him a condem-
nation from one of those tribunals which he
himself condemns in the name of the maxim of
the Gospels, “Judge not.” It is not credible
that the old hero of the wars of the Caucasus
and Crimea compels his son to refuse military
service, as was done once by the son of
Sutaief, the raskolutk of Tver. He would
have liked to strip himself of his property, in
order to conform to the socialistic dogma for-
bidding inheritance and property. He was
hindered only by the fear of trampling: upon
the liberty and the conscience of others. But
amid the luxury of his family Count Tolstoi
lives the life of a poor man. He has dropped
his pen as a novelist. Clad like a muzhik, he

' At last accounts, the reports about Count Tolstoi’s vagaries
were found to be idle exaggerations : he is living on his estate, like a
reasonable man, studying Greek and Hebrew, and writing short
stories. — N. H. D.
LYOF TOLSTOL 337

wields the scythe or drives the plough; between
seedtime and harvest, he preaches his evangel.

‘ Ido not wish either to spread or to confute
his teaching: for me it is sufficient to have
given the reader an idea of it. Let him not
show the characteristic behavior of a French
reader; let him not hasten to see in Count
Tolstoi’s latest attitude a sign of aberration.
This attitude in his country is shared by a mul-
titude of men. The single religious sect of
Shalaputui (Extravagants), preaching and prac-
tising a communistic gospel like Tolstot, has,
within a score of years, won over all the com-
mon people, all the rustic class, of the south
and south-west of Russia. Judicious observers,
well-informed economists, foresee the complete
and immedate spread ‘of the doctrine in the
lower classes throughout the empire." The
day when the work of propagation shall be
finished, the raskolniks of a special socialistic
dogma will be counted: their number will

1 In 1882 a Russian writer, Mr. Abramof, published, in The
Annals of the Country, a very curious study of the Shalaputui,
Turgénief was greatly struck by it. He said in regard to it: “There
is the peasant getting up steam; before long he will make a general

up-turning.” — Author's Note.
338° LYOF TOLSTOL

suffice to show their power. That day, if they
take it into their heads to act, will only have —
using the popular expression — “to blow” on
the old order of things, to see it vanish away.
APPENDIX.

As M. Dupuy does not pretend to give any
thing more than a hasty v¢éswmé of biographical
facts, the reader may like to have for reference
a more definite and fuller account of the lives
of the three great authors whose literary work
has been analyzed. The main authority which
I have consulted has been P. Polevoi’s ‘‘ History
of Russian Literature, in Sketches and Biog-
raphies” [/storiya Russkoi Literaturui f Otcher-
kakh « Biografyakh, fourth edition, published in
1883.] Some of his dates differ slightly from
those commonly accepted. How far a man’s
judgment is to be accepted who writes with the
fear of the censor in his eyes, is a question; but
there are a few quotations in Polevot which are
surprising ih their liberality. The work is a
valuable compound of literary fact and criti-
cism, and it is illustrated with capital woodcuts.

Nikolat Vasilyévitch Gogol-Yanovsky was

339
340 APPENDIX.

born on the 31st of March, 1809 (N.S.), in the
little town of Sorotchintsui, in the Government
of Poltava. His father, Vasili Afanasyévitch
Gogol, was the son of a regimental clerk: at the
time when the Zaporog Cossacks were still in
existence, this position was considered highly
respectable. Only two generations separated
Gogol from the time of the Cossack wars; and
his grandfather, the regimental clerk, used to
relate to his family a great many stories of that
time. Gogol was surrounded from his earliest
childhood by a life that was hardly freed from
its medizval, warlike, half-wild character. It
was full: of fresh recollections of the olden
times, of legends and war-songs; it was a life
in which religious fervor was intermingled with
a swarm of popular prejudices. Gogol’s grand-
father was a lively representative of the just
vanishing past, and not in vain does Gogol
speak about him often in his Vetchera na Khu-
toryé (Evenings at the Farm). Gogol was in-
debted to his grandfather for at ledst half of his
Malo-Russian tales. ‘“ My grandfather,” he says,
in his sketch in his Vetcher Nakanunya Ivana
Kupdla (“The Eve of Ivan Kupalo’s Day”).
APPENDIX. 341

“My grandfather (may he prosper in heaven!
may he eat in the other world little wheaten
rolls, with poppy seeds and honey!) was able
to tell stories in a wonderful way. When he
told stories, I would sit the whole day without
moving from my place, and never cease to lis-
ten... . It was not so much the marvellous
tales of the olden time, about the invasions of
the Zaporozhtsui (Cossacks) and the Poles, about
the brave deeds of the old heroes (Polkova,
Poltor-Kozhukh, and Sagaidatchnui), that inter-
ested us, as the legends about some olden deed,
which used to make the shudders run down my
back, and my hair stand on end. Sometimes
my fear would be so great from them, that
every thing would appear to me like God knows
what monsters.”

While his grandfather was a representative
of the vanishing past, his father, Vasili Afanas-
yévitch, appeared as the representative of mod-
ern times. He was a well-read man and full of
experience, was fond of literature, subscribed to
magazines, and at the same time was endowed
with a gift of relating stories, and of enhancing
them with Malo-Russian humor. His farm,
7

342 APPENDIX.

Vasilyevka, was the centre of society for the
district. Among the varied festivals in this
farm, Gogol’s father used often to get up pri-
vate theatricals. At these spectacles they used
to give Kotlyarevsky’s just published comedy
Natalka Poltavka (“The Girl from Poltava”’),
and Moskal Tcharivnik (“The Charming Mus-
covite’). Thus Gogol was early attracted to
the stage.

Gogol’s father wrote, in imitation of Kotlyar-
evsky, several comedies which were played at
Vasilyevka. Gogol was taught to read at home
by a hired seminarist. Afterwards he was taken,
with his younger brother Ivan, to Poltava, where
he was taught by one of the teachers of the
gymnasium. While the children were at home
on their vacation, Ivan died; and Gogol was not
sent back to Poltava, but remained for some
time at home. Meantime, the governor of
Thernigof, the prokuror (attorney-general) Ba-
zhanof, informed Gogol’s father about the open-
ing at Niézhin, of a gymnasium for higher
learning, founded by Prince Bezborodko, and
advised him to place his son in the boarding-
school connected with the gymnasium. This
APPENDIX. 343

was done in May, 1821. Gogol entered as a
paying pupil, and at the end of a year he re-
ceived the government scholarship. It cannot
be said that Gogol was much indebted to this
gymnasium of the higher education, or that
he gained there any solid knowledge of any
kind whatsoever, even in the very elementary
branches. He studied his lessons very super-
ficially ; but as he had a good memory he got
a smattering of the lectures, and, by studying
hard just before the examinations, he was pro-
moted in due time. He especially disliked
mathematics, and he had a very slight incli-
nation even for the study of languages. After
graduation he could not read a French book
without a dictionary. Against German and
English he had a curious spite. He used to
say, in jest, that he did not believe that Schiller
or Goethe knew German; “surely they must
have written in some other language.”

The slight progress made by Gogol in the
modern languages was more than rivalled by
his backwardness in the classic tongues. “He
studied with me three years,” says Kulzhinsky,
Gogol’s Latin teacher at the Niézhin gymna-
344 APPENDIX.

sium, in his “Reminiscences,” “and he could
not learn any thing except the translation of
the first sentence of the “Chrestomathie” by
means of Koshansky’s grammar, ‘ Universus
mundus plerumque distribuitur in duas partes,
coelum et terram’ (for which he was nicknamed
universus mundus). During the lectures, Gogol
used to hide some book or other under his desk,
paying heed neither to ca@/um nor terram. 1
must confess that neither under me nor under
my colleagues did he learn any thing. The
school taught him only some logical formality
and directness of understanding and thought;
and, more than that, he learned nothing with us.”

Not even the Russian language was accu-
rately learned by Gogol in the gymnasium of
the higher sciences, according to the testimony
of his biographer. “His school letters,” says
he, ‘‘can be distinguished by the absence of all
rules of orthography. To make them plainer,
I used to arrange the punctuation-marks as it
was necessary; I used to change the capital
letters, of which he was very extravagant; and
I often corrected his blunders in the endings
of adjectives.”
APPENDIX. 345

The only thing that Gogol acquired in the
gymnasium was the art of drawing, and his
letters to his relatives prove that he took great
pleasure in spending much time in this art.

As he was towards the bottom of his class in
his studies, he was at the same time greatly
distinguished by his love of mischief; and he
was a great favorite with every one. His com-
rades were especially drawn to him by his inex-
haustible humor. Even in childhood could be
seen in him his spontaneous wit; and at the
same time, no one could copy’ or imitate a
character as well as the little Gogol.

He was an indefatigable reader. He espe-
cially liked Pushkin and Zhukovsky. His par-
ents subscribed to the Vyestnik Yevropui
(“Messenger of Europe’’), and the reading of
this and the almanacs aroused in him a desire
to write. At first this came in the form of
parodies. While he was at Niézhin, a certain
scholar showed some signs of poetical passion ;
and Gogol collected this fellow’s verses, and
put them in the form of an almanac, which he
called Parnassky Navoz (“ Manure from Parnas-
sus”), These parodies suggested to him to
346 APPENDIX.

publish a serious written journal, and his enter-
prise cost him great trouble. He had to write
articles on all subjects, and then copy them,
and, what was more important, to make a vol-
ume out of them. He spent whole nights try-
ing to decide upon his titlepage, on which was
ornamented the name of his journal “The Star”
(Zuyesdd). It was all done stealthily, without
the knowledge of his friends. Early in the
month, the journal made its first appearance.
In “The Star” were published Gogol’s story,
“The Tverdislavitch Brothers,” which was an
imitation of contemporary fiction, and some of
his poems. In Gogol’s lofty style, which he
now affected, he also wrote a tragedy, “The
Murderers” (Razboiniki) and a ballad, “Two
Little Fish” (Dué Ruzbkz), touching on the
death of his brother. He also wrote at this
time “Hans Kiichel-Garten,” a rhymed idyl,
which tells how an ideal young man leaves his
sweetheart through his thirst for grandeur, but,
after vain wandering, returns again to his home,
and shares with his love happiness under a straw
thatch. Gogol’s comic talent, however, in spite
of his belief in a lofty style, began to find means
APPENDIX. 347

of expression. Thus, among other things, he
wrote a satire on the inhabitants of the town
of Niézhin, under the title “Something about
Niézhin; or, no Law for Fools,” in which he
depicts the typical people of the town. It was
divided into five parts, —‘ The Dedication of
the Church in the Greek Cemetery,” “The
Election to the Greek Magistracy,” “ Swallow-
ing-all Fair,” “The Dinner to the Predvoditel
of the Nobility,” and ‘‘ The Coming and Going of
the Students.”

On returning once to the gymnasium after
his vacation, Gogol wrote a comedy in Malo-
Russian, which was played in his father’s thea-
tre; and thus he made his débu¢ as a director
and actor.

Blackboards served as scenes, and the insuffi-
ciency of costumes was made up by imagination.
Then the schoolboys clubbed together, and got
scenery and costumes, copying what Gogol had
seen in his father’s theatre, the only one that he
had ever attended. The direction of the gymna-
sium, wishing to encourage the study of French,
introduced pieces in that tongue; and the re-
pertory of the little school theatre soon was
348 APPENDIX.

composed of comedies by Moliére, Florian, Von
Vizin, Kotzebue, Kniaznin, and Malo-Russian
authors. The townspeople heard about the:
theatre, and it soon became very popular; and
a few years ago people were still living in
Niézhin who could remember how successfully
Gogol took the 7é/e of old women.

Towards the end of his course, Gogol and his
comrades subscribed quite a sum of money, and
bought a library, which contained the works of
Delvig, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, and other distin-
guished contemporaries, and subscribed to sev-
eral journals. Gogol was made librarian. He
was so indefatigable that he made every person
who took a book finish it, and so careful of their
cleanliness that he used to wrap up the fingers
of his readers in paper.

Gogol graduated in 1828, with the rank of the
fourteenth /chzn. « Even at this time he was very
religious, as can be seen in his correspondence
with his relatives. ‘After the death of his
father, in 1825, he writes to his mother, ‘ Don’t
be worried, my dearest mdmenka. I have borne
this shock with the strength of a Christian. It
is true, at first I was overwhelmed with this
APPENDIX. 349

terrible tidings. However, I did not let any-
body see that I was so sorrowful; but, in my
own room, I was given over mightily to unrea-
sonable despair. I even wanted to take my life.
But God kept me from it. And towards even-
ing, I noticed only sorrow, but not a passionate
sorrow; and it gradually turned into an uneasy,
hardly noticeable melancholy, mingled with a
feeling of gratitude to Almighty God. I bless
thee, holy faith! In thee only I find a source
of consolation and compensation for my bitter
grief.’” 3

At the same time he was a fiery enthusiast ;
he imagined himself a great benefactor of his
fatherland. For this reason he felt inclined to
a governmental situation. He wrote his mother
in 1828 that he was not understood: some, he
said, took him to be a genius; others, to be a
stupid. He tried to be one of the romanti-
cists ; and, like all of those budding geniuses,
he thought that he had a great deal to put up
with from people. In the same letter he writes
his mother how much ungratefulness, coldness,
vexation, he had been obliged to bear without
complaint and without grumbling. He writes

°
350 APPENDIX.

one of his friends that the people of Niézhin,
not excepting “our dear instructors,” have
heaped upon our genius the pressing heaps of
their earthiness, and crushed us.” Two features
of Gogol’s life at this time are interesting as
showing his development, —a tendency to as-
ceticism, which led him to a stern self-restraint,
turning all the pleasures and interests of his
life to a spiritual and intellectual sphere. “My
plan of my life,” he writes to his mother in
1829, “is wonderfully Stern and exact. Every
kopek has its place. I refuse myself even very
extreme necessities, with a view of being able
to keep myself in the position which I am aow,
so that I can satisfy my desire of seeing and
feeling the beautiful (prekrdsnoe). With this
view I lay up all my annual allowance, except
what is absolutely necessary.”

In 1829 Gogol first went to Petersburg, where,
in spite of his vivid dreams of success and glory,
he found the hard realities of life, and met with
discouraging failures. He wrote his mother:
“Everywhere I met with disappointments ; and,
what is strangest of all, I met them when I least
expected them. Men entirely incapable, with-
APPENDIX. 351

out any letters of introduction whatever, easily
succeeded where I, even with the aid of my
patrons, failed.” He also fell in love with a
girl of high rank ; and in his letter to his moth-
er he speaks about it, but does not mention her
name: “For God’s sake, don’t ask her name.
She is very, very high. . . . No, itis not love: I,
at least, never heard of such a love. Under the
impulse of madness and horrible torments of
the soul, I was thirsty to intoxicate myself only
with the sight of her, only the sight of her I
looked for. To look upon her once more was
my only desire, which grew stronger with an
unspeakable, gnawing anguish. I looked upon
myself with horror, and I saw all my horrible
situation, Every thing in the world was strange
to me, life and death were equally intolerable,
and my soul could not account for its impulses.”

His mental state arising from all these dis-
‘appointments became so serious that he went
abroad with money that his mother sent him to
pay a mortgage on their estate, and told his
mother to take his portion of the estate in ex-
change for it. He went to Liibeck by sea, staid
there a month, took a few baths, and returned.
352 APPENDIX.

to Petersburg without seeing any thing more of
Europe. At all events, he returned, sobered,
refreshed, and strengthened, in September, 1829,
In April, 1830, Gogol found a very insignifi-
cant place in the ministry of Appanages. The
whole outcome of this year of servitude was
the knowledge of tying up papers, and a vivid
memory of various types of Zchinovntks which
he used to advantage in his works later on.

In 1829 he wrote his poem “Italy,” and sent
it anonymously to the publisher of Suz Otet-
chestva (Son of the Fatherland.) Soon after-
wards he published “ Hans Kiichel - Garten,”
which had been written while he was in the
gymnasium. It was signed A/of, and brought a
review full of unmerciful ridicule. This review
cut Gogol so keenly that he immediately with-
drew the story from circulation. Buying up all
the copies that he could get hold of, he hired a
room in a hotel, and made a grand holocaust of
them. The last tendencies of his immature, imi-
tative romanticism went up with the incense of
the fire and smoke. He soon saw that a new
spirit was invading Russian literature: histori-
cal novels were becoming fashionable. So Gogol
APPENDIX. 353

writes to all his friends and relatives in Malo-
Russia to send him every possible scrap about
the history of that region, about the habits,
manners, customs, legends, games, songs, of the
Cossacks. “It is very, very necessary for me,”
he would add. He was working over his “ Even-
ings on the Farm near Dikanka.” In February,
1830, there appeared anonymously in the Ofe?-
chestvennute Zapiski one of Gogol’s tales, enti-
tled “ Bassavriuk; or, Ivan Kupala’s Eve.” In
1831, in “ Northern Flowers,” appeared a chap-
ter of his historical novel “ Hetman,” signed
with four zeros. In the first number of the
“Literary Gazette” he published a sketch from
his Malo-Russian story, Strashnut Kaban (The
Terrible Boar). He also wrote serious articles
and translations.

In March, 1831, he was made teacher of Rus-
sian in the Patriotic Institute. Here, instead of
teaching Russian, he taught history, geography,
and international history; and when he was
called to account for his vagaries, and was asked
when he was going to teach the Russian lan-
guage, he smiled, and said, ‘“‘ What do you want
it for, gentlemen? The main thing in Russian
354 APPENDIX.

is to know the difference between yé and yat
[two similarly sounding, but differently written,
letters], and that I perceive you know already,
as is seen by your copy-books. No one can
teach you to write smoothly and gracefully.
This power is granted by nature, but not by
instruction.”

Indeed, Gogol himself, to his dying day, was
not able to spell correctly. He cared more for
the spirit than the form. The publication of
“Evenings on the Farm,” especially the sec-
ond series, which are marked by the purest
humor, without a shade of melancholy, imme-
diately placed him in the front rank of the
authors of his day; and this was the happi-
est epoch of his life. Soon afterwards he be-
gan to feel a re-action. In 1833 he wrote to
Pogddin: “ Let my stories be doomed to obliv-
ion till something really solid, great, artistic,
shall come out of me. But I stand idle, motion-
less. I don’t want to do any thing trivial, and
I can’t think of any thing great.” He then
betook himself to historical investigation, and
determined to write the history of Malo-Russia
and of the Middle Ages. He laid out the
APPENDIX. 355

work on a colossal scale. He wrote to Mak-
simof, “I am writing the history of the Middle
Ages, and I think it will fill eight volumes, if
not nine.” He never finished these histories,
but his study of Malo-Russia led him to the
composition of his great epos “ Taras Bulba.”
There happened to be a vacancy in the uni-
versity of St. Vladimer in Kief. Some one
suggested Gogol, and he was invited to apply.
He came, he saw, and he conquered the man in
whose hands the appointment lay, by his won-
derful flow of brilliant conversation; but he
brought no documents. He was requested to
come again, with his documents and application.
Again he appeared, and again he dazzled by his
wit; but when he was asked for his documents
he pulled from his inside pocket his certificate
of graduation from the gymnasium, which gave
him the right to a ¢chéz of the fourteenth class,
and an application for the chair of Ordinary
Professor. He was told that it was impossible,
with such credentials, for him to be given any
thing more than the chair of adjunct. Gogol was
obstinate, and absolutely refused to take that
position. Shortly after, he was appointed pro-
356 APPENDIX.

fessor at Petersburg, where he gave the one lec-
ture which was so beautiful. ‘We awaited the
‘next lecture with impatience,” says Ivanitsky,
who was a pupil at that time; ‘Gogol came in
very late, and began with the phrase: ‘Asia
was a volcano- belching forth people.’ Then
he spoke a few words about the emigration of
nations; but it was so dull, lifeless, and desul-
tory that it was tedious to listen to him, and we
could not believe that it was the same Gogol
who had spoken so beautifully the week before.
Finally he mentioned a few books where we
could read up the subject, and bowed and left.
The whole lecture lasted twenty minutes. The
following lectures were of the same stamp; so
that we became entirely cool to him, and the
classes became smaller and smaller. But once,
—it was October,—while walking up and
down the hall of assembly, and waiting for
him, suddenly Pushkin and Zhukovsky came
in. They knew, of course, through the Swiss,
that Gogol had not yet come; and so they
only asked us in which room he would read.
We showed them the auditorium. Pushkin and
Zhukovsky looked in, but did not enter. They
APPENDIX. 357

waited in the hall of assembly. In quarter of
an hour the lecturer came; and we, following
the three poets, entered the auditorium and sat
down. Gogol took his chair, and suddenly,
without any: warning, began to read the history
of the Arabians. The lecture was brilliant,
exactly in the manner of the first. Word for
word it was published in the ‘ Arabesques.’
It was evident that he knew beforehand the
intention of the poets to come to his lecture,
and therefore he prepared himself to treat
them like poets. After the lecture Pushkin
said something to Gogol, but the only word I
heard was ‘fascinating’ (svlekdtelno). The
rest of his lectures were very dry and tedious.
Not one historical personage caused any lively
and enthusiastic discussion. ... He looked
upon the dead nations of the past with dreary
eyes, as it were; and it was doubtless true
that it was tedious to him, and he saw that it
' was tedious to his hearers. He used to come
and speak half an hour from his platform, and
then leave for a whole week and sometimes
for two. Then he would come again and re-
peat the same proceeding. Thus went the
time till May.”
358 APPENDIX.

He gave up his thoughts of the nine-volume
history of the Middle Ages; and of this year
of disappointment there remained only a few
articles in the “ Arabesques,” and the sketches
of a tragedy entitled “Alfred,” which show
that he had not a trace of talent for tragedy.
In 1835 he resigned, and devoted himself
entirely to literature.

About this time he began to develop a great
passion for the supernatural, which is best illus-
trated in his sketch “Vii.” It is an interesting
fact that the poet Pushkin, whose influence over
Gogol] was considerable, suggested to him the
subject of “Dead Souls.” He also told him
the story which he afterwards worked up into
the “Revizor.” Pushkin himself at one time
intended to use both of these subjects. Gogol
attended the first production of the “ Revizor”’
on the stage, and was greatly disgusted. He
trained the actors, however, giving them the
meaning of every inflection, and showing what
gesticulation was needed. “All are against
me,” he wrote to M. S. Shchepkin in 1836, “all
the decent ¢chinovniks are shouting that I hold
nothing sacred, since I dared to speak so about
APPENDIX. 359

people who are in the service. The police are
against me, merchants are against me, literary
men are against me: they berate me, yet they
go to see the play. At the fourth act it is im-
possible to get tickets. Had it not been for
the mighty protection of the emperor, my play
would never have been put on the stage; and
people even now are doing their best to have it
suppressed. Now I see what it means to be a
comic, writer. The least spark of truth, and all
are against you, — not one man, but all classes.
I imagine what it would have been if I had
taken something from Petersburg life, with
which I am even more acquainted than provin-
cial life. It is very unpleasant for a man to
see people against him whom he loves with
brotherly affection.”

Gogol wrote another comedy, entitled “The
Leaving of the Theatre after the Production of

‘a New Comedy.” It was founded on the vari-

ous criticisms of his ‘‘ Revizor,’”’ but it was not
very successful. In 1836 Gogol went abroad.
He lived the most of the time in Rome, though
he wandered all over Europe, and occasionally
returned for short visits, renewing his acquaint-
360 APPENDIX.

ance with his old friends. Like Turgénief,
while he was in Russia he was disgusted with
the state of affairs, but when he left there his
soul began to turn with intense yearning for
his native land. In 1837 Gogol wrote “ Dead
Souls.” He said in his “ Confessions of an Au-
thor,” “I began to write ‘Dead Souls’ with-
out laying out any circumstantial plan, without
deciding what the hero should be. I simply
thought that the bold project, with the fulfil-
ment of which Tchitchikof was occupied,- would
of itself lead me to various persons and charac-
ters, that the natural impulse in me to laugh
would create many scenes which I intended to
mingle with pathetic ones. But I was stopped
with questions at every step, why and where-
fore? What must express such and such a char-
acter? What must express such and such a
phenomenon? Now I had to ask: What must
be done when such questions arise? Drive
them off? I tried, but the stern question con-
fronted me. As I felt no special love for this
character or that, I could not feel any love for
the work to bring it out. On the contrary, I felt
something like contempt: every thing seemed
APPENDIX. 361

strained, forced ; and even that which made me
laugh became pitiable.”

Charles Edward Turner, English lector in
the University of St. Petersburg, says in his
“Studies in Russian Literature:” “In the year
1840 Gogol came to Russia for a short period,
in order to superintend the publication of the
first volume of the “Dead Souls,” and then
returned to Italy. With the appearance of this
volume we may date the close of his literary
career; for though in 1846, at which period he
again settled in Russia, he published his “ Cor-
respondence with my Friends,” the work can
only be regarded as the production of a dis-
ordered and enfeebled intellect. . . . Describ-
ing his final illness and death in 1852, he says,
“One of his last acts was to burn the manu-
script of the concluding portion of ‘The Dead
Souls,’ and to write a few sad lines in which
he prays that all his works may be forgotten
as the products of a pitiable vanity, composed
at a time when he was still ignorant of the
true interests and duties of man.” At the
end of his article on Gogol he says, “What
ultimately became of Tchitchikof, we do not
362 APPENDIX.

know; for, as has been already stated, the con-
cluding portion of his adventures was destroyed
by Gogol in a fit of religious enthusiasm. A
certain Dr. Zahartchenko of Kief thought fit
to publish, in 1857, a continuation of Gogol’s
inimitable work. The stolid complacency which
alone could encourage an obscure and talent-
less novelist to undertake such a task is in
itself a sufficient standard of the success he
could achieve; and his book must be regarded
with the same mingled feeling of astonishment
and pity an Englishman would experience on
having put before him a continuation of Thack-
eray’s “Denis Duval” or Dickens’s “ Mystery
of Edwin Drood.”

In 1848 Gogol made a pilgrimage to Jerusa-
lem, and returned to Russia by way of Odessa.
The last years of his life were passed in Mos-
cow in an ever-deepening state of fanatical
mysticism. His death, in March, 1852, was
probably due to his insane attempt to keep the
strict fast. His last days were troubled by
strange hallucinations. His life-long disorder
was an acute derangement of the nerves caused
by self-abuse.
APPENDIX. 363

As an example of Gogol’s early style, the open-
ing scene of “Taras Bulba,” which has been men-
tioned by M. Dupuy, may be read with interest :—

«Ah! turn around, little son. How funny
you look! What kind of a parson’s garment
have you got on? Is that the way you go in
your academy?’ With such words the old
Bulba met his two sons, who had been studying
in the theological school in Kief, and who just
came home to their father.

“His sons have only just dismounted from
their horses. They were a couple of hearty
fellows, who looked from under their brows
like just graduated seminarists. Their strong,
healthy faces were covered with the first downy
hair, as yet untouched by a razor. They were
very much confused at such a reception by
their father, and stood motionless, with their
eyes fixed on the ground.

“ «Hold on, hold on, children!’ he continued,
turning them around and around. ‘What a
long svttkas you’ve got on! Those are fine
svitkas. Nu, nu, nu, such svitkas as these were
never yet seen! Well, now, both of you try
to run; I'll see if you don’t trip up.’
364 APPENDIX.

“Don’t you make fun of us, don’t you make
fun of us, father!’ at last said the eldest of-
them.

“<«Fu, what a dandy you are! Why not
laugh?’

“«Simply because [Da tak]; I suppose, you
are my father; yet, if you keep on making sport
of us, by Heaven, I’ll give to you!’

“*Akh/ a fine kind of a son you are. What’s
that you say to your father?’ said Taras Bulba,
falling back a little in surprise.

“«Yes, though you are my father. I don’t
regard anybody, or have any respect for any-
body, who insults me.’

““*How do you want to fight with me, — with
fists?’

“«Tt makes no difference to me.’

“«Nu! let us fight with fists,’ said Bulba,
rolling up his sleeves.

« And the father and son, instead of saluting
each other after their long separation, began to
beat each other angrily.

“«The old man must be crazy,’ said the pale,
thin, and kindly mother, who was standing on
the threshold, and who has not yet had a chance
APPENDIX. 365

to embrace her beloved children. ‘By Heaven,
he is crazy! Here the children have come
home. For more than a year he has not seen
them, and now he is doing, God knows what!
To fight with fists!’

“‘Yes, he fights gloriously,’ said Bulba,
stopping. [ZZ Bogu /) ‘Capital! . . . So, so!’
he continued, adjusting himself a little. ‘There
won’t be any need of trying. He will make a
good Kazak.— Wz, how are you, little son?
Give us a kiss.” And the father and son began
to kiss each other.

“Excellent, little son; pound everybody
just as you have thrashed me; don’t give in to
anybody. Yet you have on a funny rig. What
kind of a rope is that hanging down ?— And,
you dog, what are you there for with your hands
by your sides ?’ said he, addressing the younger
one. ‘Why don’t you thrash me, you son of a
dog?’

“*Now he is talking nonsense again,’ cried
the mother, at the same time throwing her
arms around the younger one. ‘And what
nonsense gets into his head! How can a child
beat his own father? As thouglf that was all
366 APPENDIX.

he had to tend to now. He is a little child;
he has travelled such a long way, he must be
tired’ (this child was more than twenty years
old, and exactly a Sazhkex, almost seven feet
high). ‘He must need to rest now, and have
something to eat; and yet he compels him to
fight!’

“««Fy! you are a little dandy [smazuntchik],
I see,’ said Bulba. ‘Don’t listen, little son, to
your mother: she is a Java [woman], she
doesn’t know any thing. What kind of petting
do you want? Your petting is the clear field
and a good horse; that is your petting. And
do you see this sabre? That is your mother.
All they are stuffing your heads with is non-
sense: the academy and all those little books
—primers and philosophies—are the Devil
knows what. I spit at it all. I am going to
send you away next week to the Zaporozhe.
That is the school for you. It is there ‘only
where you will learn reason.’

“«Won’t they stay at home with us but one
week ?’ asked the thin old mother pitifully, with
tears in her eyes. ‘Poor fellows, they won't
have time to enjoy themselves. They won't
APPENDIX. 367

get any good out of their own home, and I
sha’n’t look at them half enough.’

‘That'll do, that’ll do, dld woman! A Kazak’s
got something better to do than spend his time
with women [dadas]. Hurry up, and put on the
table every thing you’ve got, —poppy-seed cake
[pampuskek], gingerbread, and such like; pud-
dings we can get along without. But fetch us
a whole ram for dinner, and then whiskey ; and
let's have more whiskey than any thing else:
not the kind with different kinds of stuff in it,
—raisins, and other such things, —but straight
whiskey, the unadulterated, such as’ll hiss like
the devil!’

“Bulba took his sons into the small room.
Every thing in the room was arranged accord-
ing to the taste of that time; and that time
was about the sixteenth century, when the idea
of the union had just begun to be discussed.
Every thing was clean and whitewashed. The
whole wall was adorned with sabres and guns.
The windows in the room were small, with round
panes of ground glass, such as can be found
at the present time only in old churches. On
the shelves, which occupied the corners of the
368 APPENDIX.

room, and which were made triangular in shape,
were standing earthen pitchers, blue and green
bottles, silver cups, gilded wine-glasses, of
Venetian, Turkish, and Circassian workman-
ship, which had found their way into Bulba’s
room in different ways,—third and fourth
hand, a very ordinary thing in those bold days,
The linden benches around the whole room, the
huge table in the middle of it, the stove occupy-
ing half of the room, like a fat Russian mer-
chant’s wife, and adorned with tiles with designs
of cockerels, —all these things were very famil-
iar to our two young fellows, who used to walk
home almost every year to spend their vacation ;
they used to walk because they had no horses,
and because it was not customary to allow
scholars to go on horseback. They had only
the long forelocks which every Kazak who
carries weapons felt that he had a right to pull.
Bulba, just as they were about to leave school,
sent them from his stud a pair of good horses, :
«Well [zz], little sons, before all let us have
some whiskey. God bless you! to your health,
my little sons; yours, Ostap, and yours, Andrit!
May God grant you be always successful in
APPENDIX. 369

battle, that you may beat the Busurmans (Ma-
hometans), beat the Turks, beat the Tatars,
and when, the Poles begin to do any thing
against our religion, beat the Poles too! Mu/
hold up your glass. Is the whiskey good? And
what is whiskey in Latin? That’s it [¢o-zo], little
son. The Latuzntsuz [Latins] were fools; they
did not know there was such a thing as whiskey
in existence. What was the name of that fel-
low who wrote Latin verses? I don’t know
much of reading and writing, and therefore I
do not remember. Wasn’t it Horatsii?’

“<«That’s a fine father,’ said the older son,
Ostap, to himself. ‘The dog knows every
thing, but he makes believe that he doesn’t.’

“*T don’t believe the arkhimandrit allowed
you even to smell whiskey,’ continued Bulba.
‘Well, now, little sons, tell the truth: did they
lash you with cherry and maple sticks over the
back, and everywhere else? Or maybe, being
as.you are so mighty smart, they used straps
on you! I reckon that, besides Saturdays, they
used to thrash you on Wednesdays and Thurs-
days too,’

“Father, there’s no need of bringing up all
370 APPENDIX.

that,’ said Ostap, in his usual phlegmatic voice.
‘What’s past is gone.’

“Now we shall pay everybody off,’ said
Andrii, ‘with sabres and bayonets. Just let
the Tatars come in our way!’

“That is good, little son. By Heavens,
that’s good! If that’s the case, I shall go
along with you. By Heavens, I'll go! What
_ the devil is the good of staying here! What!
must I look after the grain and swine-herds,
or to fool with my wife? I stay at home for
her sake? I am a Kazak. I do not want it!
Well, even supposing there is no war, I am
going with you to the Zaporozhe. We'll have
a good time. By Heavens, I’m going!” And
the old Bulba, little by little, grew excited, and
finally became entirely fierce. He got up
from the table, and, trying to look dignified,
stamped his foot upon the ground. ‘To-mor-
row we'll go! Why put it off? What in the
devil should we sit here for? What good does
this hut do us? What do we want all these
things for? What’s the good of these pots?’
And, while saying this, Bulba began to smash
and throw about the pots and the bottles.
APPENDIX. 371

“The poor old wife, who was long wonted to
such tricks of her husband, looked on sorrow-
fully as she sat on the bench. She did not
dare to say a word; but after hearing this reso-
lution, so terrible to her, she could not refrain
from tears. She looked up at her children, from
whom such a quick separation threatened her ;
and no one could describe the whole speechless
force of her sorrow, which seemed to quiver in
her eyes and in the tremblingly compressed
lips.

“Bulba was terribly stubborn. He was one
of those characters which could spring up only
in the rough sixteenth century, and especially
in the half-nomadic Eastern Europe, when
ideas were both right and wrong as to the
possession of lands which were a disputed and
undecided property. At that time, the Ukraina
was in this state. The everlasting necessity
of defending the border against three different
nations, —all this added a sort of free and
broad character to the actions of its sons,
and it trained in them a stubborn spirit. This
stubbornness of spirit was imprinted with full
strength in Taras Bulba. When Batori rai8ed
372 APPENDIX.

regiments in Malo-Russia, and roused in them
that warlike spirit which at first marked only
the inhabitants of the Rapids, Taras was one
of the first colonels; but at the first opportu-
nity he quarrelled with all the others, because
the booty obtained from the Tatars by the
united forces of the Polish and Cossack armies
was not equally divided between them, and
because the Polish army received a greater
share. He, in the presence of all, resigned his
rank, and said, ‘When you colonels don’t know
your own rights, then let the Devil lead you by
the nose. And I am going to recruit my own
regiment; and whoever will attempt to take
away what belongs to me, I shall know how
to wipe off his lips.’ And, in fact, in a short
time he collected from his father’s estate quite
a good number of men, made up of both farm-
laborers and warriors, who gave themselves up
entirely to his wish. He was generally a great
hand for taking part in invasions and raids; he
heard with his nose, as it were, where and in
what place an uprising was taking place. Like
snow upon the head, he would appear on his
hotse. ‘Mz, children, what is it? How is
APPENDIX. 373

it? Who is to be beaten? What is the rea-
son?’ was what he generally asked, and then
took a hand in the affair. First of all, he
would sternly analyze the circumstances, and
he would take a hand only in cases when he
saw that those who seized the weapons had
really a right to do so; and this right, according
to his opinion, was only in the following cases.
If the nation in the neighborhood had been
carrying off cattle, or cutting off a portion of
land; or if the commissioners had been putting
on heavy taxes, or had not respected their
elders, and had spoken in their presence with
their hats on; or if they had left the Christian
religion, —in such cases it was inevitably neces-
sary to take up the sabre; but against the
Busurmans, Tatars, and Turks, he considered
it just to use the weapon any time, in the name
of God, Christianity, and Kazatchestvo (Cos-
sackdom). The position of Malo-Russia at that
time, having no system whatever, and being in
perfect uncertainty, brought into existence many
entirely separate partisans. Bulba led a very
simple life; and it would have been impossible
to distinguish him from any ordinary Kazak in
374 APPENDIX.

the service, if his face had not preserved a ccr-
tain expression of command, and even grandeur,
particularly when he used to make up his mind
to defend something.

“ Bulba comforted himself beforehand with the
thought of how he should appear now with his
two sons, and say, ‘Just look what nice fellows
Ihave brought to you.’ He thought about how
he should take them to the Zaparozhe, to that
school of war of the Ukraina of that day, how
he should introduce them to his comrades, and
superintend their’advance in the science of war
and making raids, which he considered at that
time one of the first qualities of a knight. At
first he intended to send them off alone, because
he deemed it necessary to give himself up
to the enlistment of a new regiment which
demanded his presence; but at the sight of his
sons, who were well built and hearty, all his war-
rior-spirit suddenly awoke in him, and he made
up his mind to go along with them on the fol-
lowing day, though the necessity of this was
only his stubborn will.

“Without losing a minute, he began to give
orders to his esau/, whom he called Tovkatch,
APPENDIX. 375

because he was really like some kind of a cold-
blooded machine: during battle he would pass
indifferently along the enemy’s ranks, sweep-
ing them down with his sabre as though he was
mixing dough, like a boxer clearing his way.
The orders were to the effect that he should
stay on the farm till orders came for him to set
out to the war. After this, he went around the
village, giving orders to some of his people
to accompany him, to water the horses, to feed
them with wheat, and to saddle his own horse,
which he used to call Tchort, or the Devil.
‘Nu, children, now we must’ go to sleep, and
to-morrow we shall do what God may instruct
us todo. Don’t give us any bedding! We don’t
need any bedding: we shall sleep in the dvor!’
“The night had just embraced the heaven;
but Bulba always retired early. He made him-
self comfortable on the carpet, covered himself
up with a sheep-skin ¢z/up, because the night air
was rather fresh, and because Bulba was fond of
covering himself warmly when at home. He
was soon snoring, and his example was followed
by the whole court. Every thing that was lying
in its various corners was snoring and singing. i

~
376 APPENDIX.

Before anybody else the watchman fell asleep,
because he drank more than anybody else, in
honor of the arrival of the young lords.

“The poor mother only was not sleeping.
She leaned towards the heads of her dear sons,
who were lying side by side; with a comb she
straightened their young, carelessly disordered
locks, and moistened them with her tears. She
gazed at them with her whole soul, with all her
feelings; she metamorphosed herself into one
gaze, and she could not satisfy herself in look-
ing at them. She had nursed them with her
own breast ; she had brought them up, caressed
them, — and now only for one moment does she
see them before her. ‘My sons, my precious
sons! what will become of you? what fate
awaits you there? If only for one week more,
I might look upon you both,’ said she; and her
tears stood in the wrinkles, which had changed
her once beautiful face. And indeed she was
pitiful, like any other woman of that bold age.
She saw her husband two or three days a year,
and then for several years there would be no
tidings of him. And if she did see him, when

* they lived together, what kind of a life was hers?
APPENDIX. 377

She suffered insults, even blows. Only out of
mercy at times she felt his caresses. She was
like a strange creature in this assemblage of
wifeless knights, upon whom the dissolute Zapa-
rog life threw its stern shadow. The joyless
days of her youth flashed before her, and her
cheeks were covered with premature wrinkles.
All her love, all her feelings, all that is tender
and passionate in a woman, all turned with her
into one motherly feeling. She, with heat,
with passion, with tears, like the gull of the
steppe [step-tchaika], looked upon her children.
Her sons, her dear sons, are taken away from
her: they are taken away, never to be seen
again. Who knows? Maybe at the first battle
the Tatarin will chop off their heads, and she
would not even know where their bodies lie:
the ravening birds may pick them up; and for
every little piece of their flesh, for every drop
of blood, she would have given up her all! As
she wept, she looked straight into their eyes,
which all compelling sleep began to close, and
she thought to herself, ‘Maybe Bulba, after
having a good sleep, will postpone the journey
for a couple of days. Maybe he decided to go
378 APPENDIX.

so soon because he drank too much.’ The
moon from the height of the heaven was already
shining over the whole dvor, filled with sleeping
people, with the thick mass of willows and tall
steppe grass, in which the fence around the
yard was drowned. She was still sitting at the
heads of her dear sons, without for a moment
taking off her eyes from them, and not think-
ing of sleep.

“The horses, anticipating the dawn of day,
lay down on the grass, and ceased eating.
The upper leaves of the willows began to rustle,
and little by little the rustling stream de-
scended down over them to the very bottom.
She sat till the very morning: she was not at
all tired, and she inwardly wished that the night
might last as long as possible. From the
steppe was heard the loud neighing of a
young colt.

“Ruddy stripes brightly gleamed in the
heaven. Bulba suddenly awoke and jumped
up. He remembered very well every thing
that he had ordered the day before. ‘Mu, fel-
lows, you've slept long enough: it is time.
Water the horses. And where is the old
APPENDIX. 379

woman? [Thus he generally called his wife].
Be lively, old woman, have something for us to
eat, because there is a long journey before us.’
“The poor old woman, who was deprived of
her last hope, gloomily dragged herself to the
hut. While with tears in her eyes she was
preparing every thing for breakfast, Bulba gave
his orders, busied himself in the stable, and he
himself selected for his sons his best adorn-
ments. The seminarists were suddenly trans-
formed : instead of their old soiled boots, they
wore red leather ones with silver rings on the
heels; pantaloons as wide as the Black Sea,
with a thousand folds and pleats, were fastened
tight around the waist with a golden belt;
to the belt were attached long straps, with
tassels and other little ornaments for the pipe.
The kazakin (a little Russian garment), of gay
color, of cloth as bright as fire, was tightened
with an embroidered belt. Silver -mounted
Turkish pistols were stuck behind the belt;
the sabre clattered under their feet. Their
faces, which were a little burned by the sun, it
seemed, became handsomer and whiter; their
young black rflustaches brought out now in
380 APPENDIX.

somewhat more striking contrast their white-
ness and the healthy, robust color of youth.
They looked well under their sheepskin hats
with golden tips.

“The poor mother!. As soon as she looked
up at them, she could not utter a word, and the
tears were checked in her eyes.

“* Nu, little sons, every thing is ready!
There is no need of wasting time,’ cried Bulba
at last. ‘Now, according to the Christian
style, all of us must sit down before setting
out.’

“All of them sat down, not excepting even
the serfs, who were standing respectfully at the
door. ‘Now, mother, bless your children,’
said Bulba. ‘Pray to God that they may fight
with courage, that they may always keep the
honor of knights, that they may always stand
up for the Christian faith ; else rather may they
sink, so that their spirits perish from the world.
—Go over, children, to your mother. A
mother’s prayer saves in fire and water.’ The
mother, weak as a mother, embraced them, took
out two small holy images, put them on their
necks, all the time weeping bittérly. ‘May the
APPENDIX. 381

Mother of God — preserve you. — Don’t forget,
little sons, your mother. — Send me some little
word about you.’ Further she could not speak,

“<« Nu, let us start, children,’ said Bulba.

“At the steps their horses were standing.
Bulba mounted his devz/, who wickedly began
to back on feeling a weight of twenty puds
(nearly eight hundred pounds), for Bulba was
exceedingly heavy and fat.

“When the mother saw that her sons were
already on the horses, she hurried after the
younger one, whose face expressed more of
tenderness. She caught the stirrup, clung to
his saddle, and, with desperation in all her fea-
tures, would not let it out of her hands. Two
strong Kazaks took her gently and carried her
into the hut. But as soon as they left her, she,
with all the rapidity of a wild goat, though it
was not in accordance with her age, ran out of
the gate, and with an incomprehensible strength
stopped the horse, and threw her arms around
one of them in a sort of a mad and senseless
excitement.

“They took her away again.

“The young Kazaks rode on gloomily, but
382 APPENDIX.

kept their tears, fearing their father, who, how-
ever, on his part, was also somewhat melan-
choly, though he tried not to show it. It was
a gray day; the green fields gleamed brightly,
the birds were singing somehow in discord.
After going some distance, they looked back.
Their farm seemed as though it was swallowed
up by the earth; only two chimneys of their
humble house stood on the earth; only the tops
of the trees, on the branches of which they used
to climb like squirrels. Only the distant prairie
remained before them, that prairie which re-
minded them of the whole history of their life,
since the days when they used to ride over its
dewy grass. And now there is only the swcep
over the well, with a ¢elyega wheel attached to
its top, standing out by itself against the sky ;
already the level over which they have passed
looks, in a distance, like a mountain, and it has
covered every thing. Farewell, childhood, and
games, and all, and all, farewell.”
APPENDIX. 383

TURGENIEF.

Amonc the historical characters belonging to
Turgénief’s family were Piotr, who exposed the
character of the False Dmitri, and who in con-
sequence was executed on the Lobno Place
in Moscow; and Yakof Turgénief, the well-
known jester of Peter the Great, who, in the
year 1700, had to shear off the doyars’ beards.
Still more worthy of mention among those who
bore the name of Turgénief was his cousin
Nikolai Ivanovitch, who was implicated in the
celebrated Dekabrist conspiracy of 1825, and
was exiled by Nicholas. He wrote a large
work entitled “Russia and the Russians.” He
was a passionate advocate of the emancipation
of the serfs.

Ivan Turgénief’s father served in a regiment
of cuirassiers stationed at Orel, and there he
married Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova. His
father resigned with the rank of colonel, and
384 ‘ APPENDIX.

died in 1835. Ivan’s mother lived till she
reached the age of seventy. In 1820 the
whole Turgénief family went abroad and vis-
ited Switzerland. At Berne the little four-year-
old Ivan Sergéyevitch narrowly escaped falling
a prey to the bears. His father caught him by
the leg just as he was pitching headlong into
the pit. When the family returned to Russia,
they lived in the Government of Orlof; and
Ivan Sergéiyevitch had tutors of every nation-
ality except his own. His first acquaintance
with Russian literature came from a se ‘f named
Kheraskof, belonging to his mother. The first
Russian book that he ever read was the “ Ros-
siada.” In 1828 the family moved to Moscow,
and six years later Ivan Sergéyevitch entered
the University of Moscow; but the year follow-
ing he left for Petersburg, where he graduated
as kandidat in philology. His first attempts at
writing were made before he graduated; and
his teacher, Pletnef, was able to discover in him
signs of future greatness. Turgénief says, in
his “Reminiscences,” “At the beginning of
1827, while I was a student in the third course
of the University of St. Petersburg, I handed
: APPENDIX. 385

the professor of literature, P. A. Pletnef, one
of the first ‘fruits of my muse,’ as they used to
say in those days. It was a fantastic drama, in
iambic pentameters, entitled ‘Stenio.’ In one
of the following lectures, Pletnef, without men-
tioning any names, analyzed, with his usual
kindness, this absolutely stupid piece of work,
in which, with childish incapability, was shown
a slavish imitation of Byron’s ‘ Manfred.’
After leaving the university building, and find-
ing me on the street, he called me to him, and
caressed me like a father, remarking at the
same time that there was something [tchZo-¢o]
in me. These two words gave me sufficient
assurance to take to him some more of my
poetical productions. He picked out two of
them, and a year later published them in ‘The
Sovremennik,’ which he inherited from Pushkin.
I don’t remember the title of one; but ‘“‘ The
Old Oak’’ was the subject of the other, and it
began thus : —

‘The forests’ mighty tsar with curly head,
The ancient oak, bent o’er the water’s sleeping smooth-

ness.’”
386 APPENDIX. Z

In 1838 Turgénief went to Berlin. On his
way the ship took fire, and he narrowly escaped
with his life. He afterwards embodied the
recollection in his story, or sketch, “A Fire at

”

Sea.” “T was then nineteen years old,” he
says, in his “ Reminiscences,” “and I had been
dreaming about this trip. I was convinced that
it was possible to acquire in Russia only ele-
mentary knowledge, but that the source of real
knowledge was abroad. Among the number of
the professors in the St. Petersburg University
at that time, there was not one who could have
shaken that conviction in me. Moreover, they
themselves felt the same way. Even the min-
istry itself, including its chief, Count Uvarof,
was convinced of this same thing; and the latter
used to send at his own expense young men to
the universities of Germany. I was at Berlin
(at two different times) for about two years. I
studied philosophy, the ancient languages, his-
tory, and with special eagerness I devoted my-
self to Hegel under the guidance of Professor
Werder. As proof of the insufficiency of the
knowledge to be gained at our own colleges, I
am going to quote this fact: I studied Latin
APPENDIX. 387

antiquity with Zumpt, the history of Greek lit-
erature with Beck ; but at my own home I was
compelled to learn by heart Latin and Greek
grammar, of which I had a very slim acquaint-
ance, and I was not one of the worst candi-
dates.”

In his “Reminiscences” he throws further
light on the causes which induced him to live
abroad. He says that there was nothing to
keep him in Russia. Every thing around him
was calculated to fill him with indignation, con-
tempt, and scorn. ‘I could not hesitate long.
It was necessary either to submit to humilia-
tion, and calmly make up my mind to follow
the general rut over the beaten road, or boldly
to push away ‘every thing and all,’ even at the
risk of losing much that was dear and near to
my heart. And soIdid. I threw myself head
first into the ‘German sea,’ which should purify
and regenerate me; and, when at last I emerged
from its billows, I became a Zapadnik, —a West-
ern man, and such I remained for all my life.”

In 1841 Turgénicf returned to Russia, going
directly to Moscow, where his mother was liv-
‘ing. Here he became acquainted with the
388 APPENDIX.

Slavophiles Aksakof, Khomiakof, and the Kir-
iyevskys, who at this time were just beginning
to promulgate their ideas. But Turgénief found
them hopelessly in the “ general rut.”

He tells in his “Reminiscences” how he first
thought of “Fathersand Sons.” “TI was taking
baths at Ventnor, a little town on the Isle of
Wight, in August, 1860, when the first thought
of ‘Fathers and Sons’ entered my mind, —that
narrative which checked, as it seems to me,
forever the kindly disposition of the Russian
younger generation. More than once I read in
journals, and heard that ‘I was off the track,’
or was ‘bringing in new ideas.’ Some praised
me; others, on the contrary, blamed me. On
my part, I must confess that I never attempted
to ‘create a figure.’ I always had for my start-
ing-point, not an idea, but a living person, to
whom I would gradually add and join suitable
elements. The same thing happened in ‘Fa-
thers and Sons.’ As the foundation of the main
figure, Bazarof, the person of a young provin-
cial doctor, who surprised me very much at the
time, was chosen. He died just before 1860,
This remarkable man appeared to me to contain
APPENDIX. 389

all the elements of what has since received the
name of Nihilism, but which at that time was
just beginning to rise, and had not yet been
formulated. The impression made upon me by
this person was very strong, and at the same
time not very clear. At first I could not ac-
count for him very well; and I used my utmost
endeavors to hear and see every thing about
me, with a view of vivifying the truthfulness of
my own impressions. This fact confused me.
In no book of our literature could I find a single
hint of what seemed to me to be everywhere.
Reluctantly the doubt arose in me whether I
was not hunting for a shadow.”

What he found at last was Bazdarof, in which
type he predicted the spirit of a new epoch, and
showed “the new man” at the very moment of
his appearance. No one understood it, and
hence arose the storm which assailed the
author.

“I experienced impressions,” says Turgénief,
“of different kinds, but all equally disagreeable
to me. I noticed coolness, even going so far
as indignation, in many who had been near and
dear tome. I received almost fulsome congratu-
390 APPENDIX.

lations from people who belonged to the camp
of my enemies. This confused me:... it
grieved me. But my conscience did not re-
proach me. I knew well that I had been true
to the type which I had described.” .

M. le Vicomte E. Melchior de Vogiié, in
a capital study of Turgénief’s life and works,
thus speaks of the reason for the novelist’s
popularity and influence in Russia: “ We read
books as the passer-by glances at a painting in
a shop-window, for an instant, from the corner
of the eye, as he goes to his business. If you
knew how differently they read their poets
there [in Russia]! What for us is only a feast
for enjoyment is for them the daily bread of
the soul. It is the golden age of lofty litera-
ture, which all very youthful peoples in Asia, in
Greece, in the Middle Ages have seen flourish-
ing. The writer is the guide for his race,
the master of a multitude of commingling
thoughts; still in a measure the creator of his
language, poet in the ancient and complete
meaning of the word vwates, poet, prophet.
Simple-hearted and serious readers, new-comers
into the world of ideas, eager for direction, full
APPENDIX. 391

of illusions about the power of human genius,
ask their intellectual guide for a doctrine, for a
reason for life, for a perfect revelation of the
ideal. In Russia the few members of the aris-
tocratic dite long ago reached, and perhaps
went beyond, our dilettanteism ; but the lower
classes are beginning to read: they read passion-
ately, with faith and hope, as we read ‘Robin-
son’ at twelve. . . . For the Moscow merchant,
the son of the village priest, the small country
proprietor, to whom a few volumes of Pushkin,
of Gogol, of Nekrdsof represent the encyclo-
pedia of the human mind, this novel [“ Virgin
Soil,” or “Fathers and Sons,” or “A Nest of
Noblemen”’] is one of the books of the national
Bible: it assumes the importance and the epic
significance which the story of Esther had for
the people of Judaea, the story of Ulysses for
the people of Athens, the romance of ‘The
Rose’ or of ‘Renart’ for our ancestors.

“Three years ago, in dedicating the statue of
Pushkin at Moscow, Turgénief quoted a char-
acteristic remark made by a peasant standing
near the monument. In reply to a comrade
who asked the name of this gentleman in
392 APPENDIX.

bronze, the muzhik said, ‘He was a school-
master.’ The orator appropriated the remark,
and developed it, saying rightly that the peas-
ant in his ignorance had hit upon the true
name of the hero of the celebration. The first
Russian poet had been the schoolmaster of his
countrymen, he had given new life to their lan-
guage and their thought. The day, not far
distant, doubtless, when Turgénief’s statue will
be erected at Moscow, the muzhik will be able
to repeat his saying: he also was a school-
master.

“ His generation listened to him more will-
ingly than to any other. It would be a mis-
take to seek solely in what we call talent for
the reasons of this popular adoption. How
many among his primitive and passionate read-
ers troubled themselves about the question
of talent, of devices of form, delicacies of
thought? In literature, as in politics, a people
follow instinctively the men whom they feel
belong to themselves, made of their fesh and
their genius, marked by their virtues and their
failings. Ivan Sergeyévitch personified the
master qualities of the Russian people, — their
APPENDIX. 393

simple-hearted goodness, simplicity, and resig-
nation. He was, as it is said popularly, axe dme
du bon Dieu: that mighty brain was ruled by a
child’s heart. Never did I approach him with-
out better comprehending the magnificent
meaning of the gospel saying about the “sim-
ple in spirit,” and how this state of soul can
be allied to the artist’s exquisite gifts and
knowledge. Devotion, generosity of heart
and of hand, brotherly kindness — all were as
natural to him as an organic function. In our
cautious, complicated society, where every one
is armed for the rough struggle of life, he
seemed like a person from another sphere, from
some pastoral and fraternal tribe of the Ural;
—some grand, self-forgetful child, following his
thoughts under the sky, as a shepherd follows
his flocks in the steppe.

“ Physically, likewise, this tall, calm old man,
with his somewhat coarse features, his scu/ptur-
esque head, and his thoughtful gaze, brought to
mind certain Russian peasants, —the elder who
sits at the head of the table in patriarchal fami-
lies, — but ennobled and transfigured by the
labor of thought, like those peasants of old who
394 APPENDIX.

became monks, were worshipped as saints, and
are seen represented on the zkonostas with the
aureole and the majesty of prayer. The first
time that I met this good giant, the symbolical
statue of his country, I had great difficulty in
making my impression clear: it seemed to me
that I saw and heard a muzhik upon whom had
descended the fire of genius, who had been
raised to the pinnacles of mind wjthout losing
any of his native candor. He would assuredly
not have been offended by the comparison, he
who so loved his people.”

M. de Vogiié goes on to speak of Turgénief’s
work. “The public,” he says, referring to the
“Annals of a Sportsman,” “did not at first
perceive their hidden significance: the watchful
censor was deceived. All that was seen in
them was a literary manifestation of the first
order, a new note in Russia. Doubtless
Gogol’s influence was apparent in the young
writer’s style, in his comprehension of nature:
the ‘Evenings at the Farm’ set the model for
the class. It was always the grand and melan-
choly symphony of the Russian land; but this
time the interpretation by the artist was quite
APPENDIX. 395

different. No longer were seen Gogol’s sharp
humor, the frankly popular character of his
paintings, his warm outbursts of enthusiasm
suddenly checked by touches of irony: in Tur-
génief, no jests or enthusiasm; a soberer note,
amore subdued emotion; landscapes and men
are seen in the pale twilight, through an
idealizing mistiness, yet clearly outlined and
focussed, as it were, under the eyes of the ever
watchful observer.

“The language, also, is richer, more flexible,
more graceful; no Russian writer had ever
carried it to such a degree of expression. It is
not the clear and limpid prose of Pushkin, who
had read much of Voltaire, and did not forget
it. Turgénief’s periods run slow and voluptuous,
like the surface of the mighty Russian rivers,
without haste, harmonious, amid the reeds,
bearing water-lilies, floating nests, wandering
perfumes, showing luminous vistas, and long
mirages of sky and land, and suddenly re-
appearing in shady depths. His discourse
stops to gather up any thing, —the humming
of a bee, the call of a night-bird, a passing,
caressing, dying breeze. The most elusive
396 APPENDIX.

accords of the grand register of nature it
translates with the infinite resources of the
Russian keys, flexible epithets, words welded
together with poetic fancy, popular joinings
of sound to sense.

“T dwell on that which makes the power of
this book: it is only a song of the earth, anda
murmur of a few poor souls directly heard by
us. The writer takes us to the heart of his
native land; he leaves us face to face with this
country; he disappears, it seems: yet, if not
he, who then has drawn from things, and con-
densed on their surface, that mysterious poetry
which they hide within them, but which so few
can see, and which we clearly see here? The
‘Annals of a Sportsman’ have charmed many
French readers; yet how much they lose in
color across the double veil of the translation
and the common ignorance of the country! ...

“When these fragments were brought to-
gether into a volume, the public, till then uncer-
tain, saw the significance of the work. Some
one had appeared with courage to develop the
meaning concealed in Gogol’s sinister jest
about “Dead Souls.” What other name can be
APPENDIX. 397

given to that gallery of portraits gathered by
the sportsman, — small country proprietors,
selfish and hard; sneaking overseers, idle and
rapacious functionaries; beneath this cruel
society, wretched helots, fallen, as it were, from
the state of humanity, touching by force of
misery and submission? The process — how-
ever well disguised it be, there is always a
process — was invariably the same. The author
causes a ludicrous being to pass again and again
in his lantern, showing all its phases, laugh-
able and pitiable, in turn, without wants, with-
out resources, condemned to crepuscular life.
By the side of the serf appeared the master,
a half-civilized marionette, a good devil, after
all, unconscious of the harm he was doing, led
astray by the fatality of his environment. This
painting, which would otherwise be ugly, repul-
* sive, the writer clothed with grace and charm,
in some sort contrary to his desire by the inborn
virtue of his poetry. Why were all the main-
springs of life broken in all the heroes of the
book? Whence came this malaria over the Rus-
sian land? What was the name of this pest?
The reader was left the trouble of answering.
398 APPENDIX.

“Tt is not very exact to say that Turgénief
attacked serfage. Russian writers, in conse-
quence of the conditions under which they
work, as well as by the peculiar turn of their
genius, never attack openly ; they neither argue
nor declaim: they paint without drawing con-
clusions, and they appeal to pity rather than
wrath. Twenty years later, when Dostoyevsky
will publish his “Recollections of a Dead
House” (Zapiski Mertzava Doma), his terrible
memoirs of ten years in Siberia, he will pro-
ceed in the same way, without a word of mutiny,
without a drop of gall, seeming to find what he
describes as quite natural, only a trifle sad. It
is the national trait in all things... . The
public understands by a hint.

“Tt understood this time. The Russia of
serfage looked at itself with horror in the mirror
which was held before its eyes: a long shudder”
shook the country ; between night and morning
the author was famous, and his cause was half
gained. The censorship was the last to com-
prehend, but finally it also comprehended. Pos-
sibly its sensitiveness will be wondered at: I
have said that serfage was condemned even in
APPENDIX. 399

the Emperor Nicholas’s heart. You must know
that the wishes of theecensorship do not always
coincide with the emperor’s wishes; at least, it is
backward, it is sometimes a reign behindhand.
It gave up launching its thunder against the
book, but it kept its eye on the author. Gogol
being dead in the interim, Turgénief dedicated
a warmly eulogistic article to the dead author.
This article would seem inoffensive enough, as
it appears in Turgénief’s complete works,‘ and
we should have difficulty in discovering the
crime if the criminal had not revealed the secret
in a very gay note: ‘Agzopos of that article,
Iremember that one day at Petersburg, a lady
of very high rank criticised the punishment in-
flicted upon me, judging it to have been unde-
served, or at least too severe. As she was
warmly speaking in my defence, some one said
to her, “Is it possible that you don’t know that
in this article he called Gogol a great man?”
—“TIt is impossible.” — “I assure you that it

* Ten volumes, published by Salaief, in Moscow: his poetry, in
one volume of two hundred and thirty pages, bears no publisher’s
imprint, simply the title, Stikhotvoreniya 1. S. Turgénieva, S.
Peterburg, 1885.
400 APPENDIX.

is so.”—-“Ah! in that case, I have nothing
more to say. I am sorry; but I see that they
had to be severe upon him.’’’

“This impertinent epithet, given to a simple
writer, cost Turgénief a month of arrest; then
he was advised to go and meditate in his
domain. I imagine that he found that society
was very ill arranged, so unfair are we to the
power that wills our best good. It must be con-
fessed, however, that this power sometimes
serves our interest better than we ourselves, and
lettres de cachet are generally in accordance with
the views of Providence. Thirty years earlier
an order of exile saved Pushkin by tearing the
poet from the dissipations of Petersburg, where
he was wasting his genius, and by sending him
to the sun of the East, where his genius was to
ripen. If Turgénief had remained at the capi-
tal, the warmth of youth and compromising
friendships, perchance, might have brought him
into some barren political quarrel: sent into
the solitude of the woods, he lived there labo-
rious years, studying the humble provincial life
of Russia, and gathering materials for his first
great novels.”
APPENDIX. 401

An anonymous writer, who knew Turgénief
intimately, contributed, shortly after his death,
to “The London Daily News,” an article, some
of the details of which are worthy of preserva-
tion: “Turgénief hated luxury. The more he
advanced in life, the more he prized simplicity
inall things. His bedroom at Les Fresnes‘ had
an almost austere aspect. The bed and toilet-
stand were in iron; and the desk, drawers, and a
large bookcase, in mahogany, of a plain design.

Some photographs and engraved likenesses of
literary and other friends broke the monotony

of the wall. Portrait-cartes, many of which had
autographs of those whom they represented,
were stuck into the frame of the chimney glass.

“Turgénief was the youngest of three very
distinguished brothers. Were the eldest of the
trio now living, he would be almost a centena-
rian. He remembered Buonaparte, Bernardin,
St. Pierre, Talleyrand, Sir Walter Scott, — of
whom he was for some weeks a guest at Abbots-
ford, ~Miss Edgeworth when she was in the
zenith of her fame; visited Mme. de Staél at
Coppet, and fell in with Byron as he was mak-

* The summer home of his friends the Viardots, at Bougival.

”
402 APPENDIX.

ing a touron the Rhine. The eldest Turgénief
was a many-sided man. Though not a profes-
sional author, he had great literary qualities,
His political insight and sagacity were no less
remarkable, and he had a wider experience of
human nature than perhaps any other Euro-
pean of his time. Though he belonged to a
family which stood well with the Court and
high in the administration, he enjoyed close
intercourse with his ‘unmasked countrymen.’
He thus designated the serfs, who had learned
to be patient and resigned, but were unable to
dissimulate. Nevertheless, he was accomplished
in every polite art, and, if he had chosen, might
have risen to the highest diplomatic position.
His education was French on Russian soil.
Voltaire and Diderot were his early school-
masters. When he grew up, he made wide
incursions into English literature, and came to
the conclusion that Maria Edgeworth had
struck on a vein which most of the great novel-
ists of the future would exclugively work. She
took the world as she found it, and selected
from it the material that she thought would be
interesting to write about in a clear and natural
APPENDIX. 403

style. It was Ivan Turgénief himself who told
me this, and he modestly said that he was an
unconscious disciple of Miss Edgeworth in set-
ting out on his literary career. He had not the
advantage of knowing English ;* but, as a youth,
he used to hear his brother translate to visitors,
at his country house in the Uralian, passages
from ‘Irish Tales and Sketches,’ which he
thought superior to her three-volume novels.
Turgénief also said to me, ‘It is possible, nay,
probable, if Maria Edgeworth had not written
about the poor Irish of the County Longford,
and the squires and squireens, that it would not
have occurred to me to give a literary form
to my impressions about the classes parallel to
them in Russia. My brother used, in pointing
out the beauties of her unambitious works, to
call attention to their extreme simplicity, and
to the distinction with which she treated the
simple ones of the earth.’

1 Mr. Henry James, in his Atlantic Monthly article upon Tur-
génief, says : “He had read a great deal of English, and knew the lan-
guage remarkably well, — too well I used often to think; for he liked
to speak it with those to whom it was native, and, successful as the

effort always was, it deprived him of the facility and raciness with

which he expressed himself in French,”
404 APPENDIX.

“Turgénief’s stature was far above the aver-.
age. He was admirably proportioned, and,
when young, could walk as far in a day as a
tough horse would amble, and that without any
oppressive sense of fatigue. The big bones
supported tremendous muscles, which at no
time of his life were clogged with adipose tis-
sue. When I knew him, his thick, long hair
and flowing beard were white as snow; but as
the complexion was fresh, the eye bright, the
carriage upright, the voice resonant, I never
thought of him as an old man. This giant
wrote a neat and almost delicate hand. I have
before me a book of his with an autograph
inscription which he sent me last winter... .
This autograph, though almost ladylike in its
delicacy, is very free and unconventional. Tur-
génief felt what was beautiful in minute and
lowly things. He was one of those who are
happy in admiring flowers in the valley of
humiliation. In some respects he was a big
child. Nobody was more easy to amuse. He
used to say that Providence was so kind in
throwing in his way the kind of persons who
exactly suited him. Liking fine arts and music,
APPENDIX. 405

and disliking fashion and worldly frivolity, he
deemed it a piece of rare good luck to fall in
with Louis Viardot and his gifted wife (née
Garcia), and to be allowed to enter their family
circle... .
“Turgénief’s conversation was analogous to
his handwriting. It was light, delicate, of a
free and quite original style, and abounded in
picturesque traits. Nothing was forced or far-
fetched. His ideas came in the bright, easy
flow of a quick-running and well-fed streamlet.
It was all the same to him whether he was
brought forward or unnoticed in society, for he
was neither shy nor vain. He rarely, in talk-
ing, broached a subject; but there was no
subject on which he could not talk with ease.
The politician, philosopher, artist, poet, novelist,
intelligent or simple, woman or child, found
him good company. Whatever interested man-
kind appeared to concern him, and to be a thing
to study. At the Universal Exhibition of 1878
I found Turgénief in the United States Agri-
cultural Department studying horse-shoes and
horse-shoe nails with as much zest as he after-
wards showed in comparing the works of the
406 APPENDIX.

English, Russian, and German schools of pic-
torial art. The person who explained to him
the peculiar merits of the horse-shoe nails was
a character; and his peculiarities, which were
racy of the soil of Texas, acted as a stimulant
on the Russian novelist.”

“Theoretically, there was no depth of human
degradation with which the Russian novelist
was not acquainted; but it was said that per-
sonally no vice ever touched him. ‘Gros zuno-
cent’ was a term which M. Viardot often applied
to him in their intimate conversation. The
giant was ‘aif.’ He preserved until old age
the impressionable eyes of childhood, and a
freshness of nature which to those who did not
know him must seem incompatible with his
extensive knowledge of human nature, which
he studied as a student at Moscow and Berlin,
as a functionary at St. Petersburg and in other
parts of Russia, and as an exile in Paris. Al-
though an old bachelor, he was free from
crotchets and angles. He was glad to oblige,
often obliged, sometimes was heartily thanked ;
and, when he met with ingratitude, he did
not think about it. Flaubert was the French
APPENDIX. 407

novelist whom he best liked as a man and a
writer. But he was of opinion that he travelled
too far south when he went to Carthage’ to look
fora heroine. His eyes were not used to the
glaring landscape of North Africa. They dis-
cerned better the cool tints of the Normandy
landscape. Plots, he thought, spoiled novels,
which were peintures de meurs; and he was
glad to see that the taste for them was dying
out. Dickens, in his opinion, was at his best
in the ‘Pickwick Papers,’ because he had not
to be thinking about a plot, instead of letting
his pen run on according to the humor of the
moment. The plot was necessary for a drama,
but in the way of a novelist, who should, above
every thing else, keep truth in view. B, Uo
“Turgénief was of opinion that a splendidly 3
picturesque country was a bad soil for literary
or artistic production. Strong emotions or
sensations tendcd to dethrone the faculty of
exact observation upon which we are dependent
for zsthetic enjoyment in flat districts. We
console ourselves for the prose of a landscape
in looking with an almost microscopic eye at
the plants and insects, and come to see a world

1 Referring to Salammbo.
408 APPENDIX.

replete with beauty and animation in a tangle
of gorse, brambles, and humble field-flowers. In
expressing to me this theory, he asked, ‘Did
you ever see a mountaineer who was sensible
to the beauty and song of a small bird? He
watches the flight of game and birds of prey.
But, for my part, I have found him indifferent
to the lark and swallow. My first acquaintance
with the skylark was precisely in looking about
for compensation for the ugliness of a flat near
Berlin. I shall never forget the broadening out
of the zsthetic faculty on this occasion. The
little creature rose almost from under my feet,
and went up singing her joyful song, which I
heard long after she was invisible. I then
remarked the beauty of the sky and of many
other things which I should not otherwise have

noticed.’ ”’

A few.sentences from the “noble discourse”
spoken by M. Renan at Turgénief’s tomb, on
Oct. 1, 1883, will fittingly bring this note to a
close.

“Turgénief was an eminent writer. He was,
above all, a great man. I shall speak to you
APPENDIX. 409

only of his soul as it always appeared to me in
the pleasant retreat which an illustrious friend-
ship had provided for him among us.

“Turgénief received, by that mysterious de-
cree which makes human avocations, the
noblest gift of all: he was born essentially im-
personal. His consciousness was not that of
an individual more or less finely endowed by
nature: he was in some sort the consciousness
of a people. Before his birth he had lived thou-
sands of years; infinite series of visions were
concentrated in the depths of his heart. No
man has been to such a degree the incarnation
of an entire race. A world lived in him, spoke
by his lips; generations of ancestors lost in
the sleep of ages, without voices, through him
came to life and to speech.

“The silent genius of collective masses is
the source of all great things. But the masses.
have no voice. They can only feel and stam-
mer. They need an interpreter, a prophet, to
speak for them. Who shall be this prophet?
Who shall tell their sufferings, denied by those
who are interested in not seeing them, their
secret aspirations which upset the sanctimo-
410 APPENDIX.

nious optimism of the contented? The great
man, gentlemen, when he is at once a man of
genius and a man of heart. That is why the
great man is least free of all men. He does
not do, he does not say, what he wishes. A
God speaks in him; ten centuries of suffering
and of hope possess him and rule him. Some-
times it happens to him, as to the seer in the
ancient stories of the Bible, that, when called
upon to curse, he blesses; according to the
spirit which moves, his tongue refuses to obey.

“It is to the honor of the great Slav race,
whose appearance in the world’s foreground is
the most unexpected phenomenon of our cen-
tury, that it was first expressed by a master so
accomplished. Never were the mysteries of an
obscure and still contradictory consciousness
revealed with such marvellous insight. It was
because Turgénief at once felt, and perceived
that he felt: he was the people, and he was of
the elect. He was as sensitive as a woman and
as impassive as a surgeon, as free from illu-
sions as a philosopher and as tender as a child.
Happy the race, which, at its beginning a life
of reflection, can be represented by such images,
APPENDIX. 4II

simple-hearted as well as learned, at once real
and mystical.

“When the future shall have brought to their
real proportions the surprises kept in reserve
for us by this wonderful Slav genius, with its
ardent faith, its depth of intuition, its individ-
ual idea of life and death, its martyr spirit, its
thirst for the ideal, Turgénief’s paintings will
be priceless documents, something, as it were,
like the portrait of a man of genius, if it
were possible to be had, taken in his infancy.
The perilous solemnity of his duty as inter-
preter of one of the great families of humanity,
Turgénief clearly saw. He felt that he had
souls in his charge; and, as he was a man of
honor, he weighed each of his words. He trem-
bled for what he said, and what he did not say.

“His mission was thus wholly that of the
peacemaker. He was like the God of the Book
of Job, who ‘makes peace upon the heights.’
What everywhere else caused discord became
with him a principle of harmony. In his great
bosom, contradictions united. Cursing and
hatred were disarmed by the magic enchant-

ments of his art.
412 APPENDIX.

“That is why he is the common glory of
schools, between which so many disagreements
exist. This great race, divided because it is
great, finds in him its unity. Hostile brethren
separated by different ways of interpreting the
ideal, come all of you to his tomb. All of you
have the right to love him; for he belonged to
all of you, he held you all in his heart. Admir-
able privilege of genius! The repellent sides
of things do not exist for him. In him all finds
reconciliation. Parties most opposed unite to
praise him and admire. In the region whither
he carries us, words which stir irritation in the
vulgar lose their sting. Genius accomplishes in
a day what it takes centuries to do. It creates
an atmosphere of higher peace when those who
were foes find that in reality they have been
co-laborers; it opens the era of the grand
amnesty when those who have been battling in
the arena of progress sleep side by side and
hand in hand.

“Above the race, in fact, stands humanity ;
or, if you prefer, reason. Turgénief was of a
race by his manner of feeling and painting. He
belonged to all humanity by his lofty philoso-
APPENDIX. 413

phy, facing with calm eyes the conditions of
human existence, and seeking without prejudice
to know the reality. This philosophy brought

him sweetness, joy in life, pity for creatures,-
for victims above all. Ardently_he loved this

 

poor humanity, often blind, in sooth, but so
often betrayed. by its leaders. He applauded
its spontaneous effort towards well being and
truth, He did not reprove its illusions; he
was not angry because it complained. The
iron policy which mocked at those who suffer
was not for him. No disappointment arrested
him. Like the universe, he would have begun
a thousand times the ruined work: he knew
that justice can wait; the end will always be
success. He had truly the words of eternal
life, the words of peace, of justice, of love, and
of liberty.”
414 APPENDIX:

COUNT LYOF N. TOLSTOi.

Count Totstoi traces his ancestry back to
Count Piotr Andreyévitch Tolstoi, a friend and
companion of Peter the Great. In all proba-
bility the unnamed atavuws who lurks in the
patronymic Axdreyévitch was merely distin-
guished by his size, — Andrew the Stout. Many
Russian family names, just as is the case with
our own English appellations, are derived from
characteristics or resemblances. The great
Speransky was a hopeful foundling; Soloviéf
recalls our nightingales ; Pobyedonovtsof means
“of the victorious;” the name of Katkof
may refer to the proverbial rolling stone;
Gogol is a species of duck called the golden:
eye; the report of cannon may be heard in
Pushkin’s name; the ancestor of Griboyédof
was probably an eater of mushrooms.

Tolstoi’s father was a retired lieutenant-colo-
nel, who died in 1839. His mother, the Prin-
APPENDIX 415

cess Marya Nikolayevna Volkonskata, died
when Count Lyof was only two years old, and
he was brought up by a distant relative,
Mme. Yergolskaia. At Yasmaia Polyana his
education was desultory. In 1840 the five
children were taken in charge by a relative of
their mother, Pelagia Ilinishna Yushkovaia, who
lived at Kazan. It was thus that Lyof Tolstor
happened to enter the university of that city in
1843. After a few years of study, he suddenly
determined to leave the university without
graduation. The rektor and the professors
argued with him, but in vain; and he went
back to his ancestral estate, where he lived till
1851, very rarely visiting the capital. A visit
from his beloved brother Nikolai, who was an
officer in the army of the Caucasus, inspired
him to see “cities of men and manners, cli-
mates, councils,” though least of all the cities
of men. Especially strong was his desire to
be with his brother in the Kavkaz, where Rus-
sia's greatest poets had won their proudest
laurels. The impressions made on him by the
splendid scenery of the ‘white mountains,’ and
by the rough, half-savage life, were so strong
416 APPENDIX.

that in 1851 he entered the service, like Olénin,
as a yunker, or -ensign-bearer in the Fourth
Battery of the Twentieth Artillery, the same in
which his brother was an officer.

Here in the Caucasus Count Tolstof first
began to write fiction. He planned to weave
his recollections of family life and old tradi-
tions into a great novel. Fragments of this
work were written and afterwards published
in the “Sovremennik.” “Infancy” (Dyetsivo)
came out in 1852. ‘ Adolescence” (Otrotches-
zvo) was also written then, and several of his
brilliant sketches of wild life, —‘The Inva-
sion,” “The Felling of the Forest,” and, as has
been said, ‘‘ The Cossacks.” “The Cossacks”
is translated into English by Mr, Eugene
Schuyler. A very little polishing would make it
a brilliant piece of literary work: in its present
form it is crude and rough.

Count Tolstoi lived two years in the Cauca-
sus, taking part in various guerilla expeditions,
and enduring in common with the soldiers all
the hardships of frontier warfare. Here on
the spot he made his powerful and life-like
studies of the Russian soldier, which are seen
APPENDIX. 417

in his “ War Sketches ’ (Voyennuié Razskazut),
At the breaking out of the Crimean War,
Count Tolstoi was transferred to the army of the
Danube, and served on Prince M. D. Gortcha-
kof’s staff. At Sevastépol, whither he went after
the Russian army was driven from the princi-
palities, he was attached to the artillery. His
literary work had attracted attention in high
quarters, and orders were sent to the front to
see that he was not exposed to danger. In
May, 1855, he was appointed division com-
mander: he took part in the battle of the
Tchernaia, was in the celebrated storming of
Sevastépol, and after the battle was sent as
special courier to Petersburg. At the end of
the campaign Count Tolstot retired, and the
next winter he spent at Moscow and Peters-
burg. This was a period of great literary
activity. Besides his stories, “Sevastdpol in
December,” and “Sevastépol in May,” there
appeared in the magazines “ Youth” ( Yuzos?),
“ Sevastdépol in August,” “Two Hussars” (Dva
Gusdri), and “ Three Deaths” (Zvi Smertz).

-- After the liberation of the serfs, Count Tol-

stoi, like many conscientious Russian proprie-
418 APPENDIX.

tors, felt it his duty to live on his estate. He
was profoundly interested in agronomic ques-
tions, and in the application to the Slavic
commune of Occidental methods, which he
studied abroad for himself. He was stil] more
interested in popular education; and a school
journal, called “ Yasnaia Polyana,”’ which he
established, discussed all pedagogical questions.
He also published a series of primers, readers,
spellers, in paper covers and large type. It
was about this time that a Russian journalist
met Count Tolstot; and his account of the inter-
view is interesting, as showing the novelist’s
views a quarter of a.century ago. He says, —

“In 1862 I became acquainted with him in
Moscow. I saw before me a tall, wide-shoul-
dered, thin-waisted man, about thirty-five years
old, with a mustache, but without a beard, with
a serious, even gloomy expression of face, which,
however, was softened by a gleam of kindliness
whenever he laughed. Our conversation turned
on the occurrences which at that time were ex-
citing Russian life. Count Tolstot immediately
showed that he lived outside of this life, that
the interests of the class which regards itself
APPENDIX. 419

as cultured were foreign to him. He seemed
to be opposed to progress, which, in his opinion,
was only advantageous for the smaller portion
of society, having plenty of time to spend, and
which was absolutely injurious for the majority,
for the people; and for them it was just as
disadvantageous as it was profitable for the
minority... . Those present argued angrily
with him: he himself sometimes was drawn
away, sometimes he spoke ironically. I lis-
tened more than I spoke. At the time when
all were infatuated with progress, such original
boldness of thought was remarkable; and I felt
an involuntary sympathy for this Rousseau,
who began to contrast the products of nature
with the products of civilization, -— forests, wild
creatures, rivers, physical development, purity
of morals, and other such things. It seemed
that this man was living the life of the peas-
antry, sharing their views, that he was devoted
to the welfare of the people with all the strength
of his soul, though he understood the people in
different way from others. The proof was his
school, — those maltchiks, of whom he spoke
with evident love, praising their talents, their
420 APPENDIX.

powers of comprehension, their artistic sense,
their moral virginity, which was so far from
being the case with children of other nation-
alities.”

The latter years of Count Tolstot’s life, since
the publication of “War and Peace” and
“Anna Karénina,” are somewhat wrapped in
mystery. Various wild stories, founded on the
evident bias of “My Confession” and “My
Religion,” have assumed almost the proportions
of myth. It may be that at the present day,
that we of the calm, rational, sceptical, West-
ern world are granted the privilege of seeing
the actual evolution of a myth, as a boy may
see a chrysalis unfold.

The Russian race, standing with its Janus
face towards the sunset and the more mystical
sunrise, a link, as it were, between Occidental
fact and Oriental fancy, might well allow us the
spectacle. ‘My Religion ” declares that titles,
emoluments, dignities, and all such things, are
vain. Next we hear that Count Tolstof is only
a muzhitk. Noman has aright to wealth. We
hear that the opulent aristocrat has stripped
himself to give to the poor. All must earn
APPENDIX. 421

their bread by the sweat of the brow. The
young sons of the count are next heard of as
crossing-sweepers. The truth probably is, that
Count Tolstoi has in reality changed little from
the Olénin of “The Cossacks,” praying for
occasion of self-sacrifice, for chance of renunci-
ation, changed little from the threefold mani-
festation of himself in “War and Peace,”
working for the same end, or from the twofold
and simpler manifestation of himself, morally
in Levin, socially in Vronsky, of “Anna Karé-
nina.” The little picture of him given by the
Russian journalist casts a flood of light on the
man ; and therefore it was but a fulfilment of
prophecy to read that Count Tolstoi, instead
of beggaring his children, instead of deserting
the pen of the writer for the awl of the cobbler,
was brave and cheerful and healthy in body
and mind, superintending his schools, cultivat-
ing his ancestral desyatins, and writing stories
when the mood was on him.

This brief sketch of Count Tolstoi’s life may
fitly come to a conclusion with an acute bit of
criticism from a Russian writer. It is very
possible that his marriage to Sofia Andreyevna
e
422 APPENDIX.

Beers, the daughter of a Muscovite professor,
which took place in 1862, may have cast a back
gleam, and inspired the thought of creating
the gracious forms that move through Count
Tolstoi’s later novels. At all events, this is
what the critic said when “ War and Peace”
appeared, at the end of 1860, “It is remarkable,
that in all Tolstoi’s works, until the appearance
of * Voina i Mir,” there is not a single female
figure brought out in strong relief; but here
were seen a whole flezad, wonderfully clear,
psychologically true, and beautifully described.
The richness and variety in the figures of the
men, the splendid description of the battles, a
perfect mass of marvellously described scenery,
in which persons of all classes appear, begin-
ning with emperors, and ending with muzhiks
and dabas, make this work one of the greatest
ornaments of our literature.”
APPENDIX. 423

Nore To P. 145 — TCHERNUISHEVSKY.

Ir is commonly reported in Russia, that Tchernui-
shevsky wrote yet another novel besides Zchto Dyélat,
entitled Prolog Prologof (a Prologue of Prologues),
which may possibly be still in existence in manuscript.

Nore To P. 202.— DosTovevsky.

Feédor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky’s father was a
doctor. The boy, who was one of a large family, grew
up pale and thin. He had a nervous and impression-
able nature, with some tendency to hallucination. He
was very fond of the woods. He tells in his recollec-
tions of his childhood, that his “special delight was the
forest, with its mushrooms and wild cherries, with its
beetles and birds, its porcupines and squirrels, with
its delicious damp of the flying leaves.” He had all
the books that he desired. By the time that he was
twelve, he had read all of Sir Walter Scott’s and Coo-
per’s novels, besides some Russian authors, including
Karamzin’s great history. At fifteen, Dostoyevsky
424 APPENDIX.

was sent to Petersburg, where he entered the main
engineering school. Notwithstanding his passion for
literature, which was shared by many of his school-
mates, he distinguished himsélf in mathematics, and
graduated number three in a class of thirty. About
this time he was deprived of both father and mother.
““While he was living in Petersburg,” says Mr. S. S.
Skidelsky, “ he visited all the slums and haunts of pov-
erty, for the sake of collecting materials for his future
literary work.” Dostoyevsky tells in his recollections,
quoted by Polevoi, that in the winter of 1845 he be-
gan his first story, “Poor People” (Byeduucé Liwdt).
“When I finished the tale, I did not know what to do
with it, or where to place it. I had no literary ac-
quaintances, except possibly Grigorévitch, who at that
time had written nothing except ‘ Petersburg Organ-
grinders,’ in a magazine. .. . He came to me one
day in May, and said, ‘Show me the manuscript:
Nekrdasof is going to publish a magazine next year,
and I want to show it to him.’ I took it over to Ne-
krasof. We shook hands; I became confused at
the thought that I had come with my writing, and I
quickly beat a retreat without saying another word.
T had very little hope of success ; for I stood in awe of
the party of ‘the Country Annals,’ as the literary men
of that day were called. I read Byélinsky’s criticisms
APPENDIX. 425

eagerly, but he seemed to me too severe and cruel;
and ‘he will make sport of my “ Poor People,’”’’ I used
to think at times, but only at times. -‘I wrote it with
passion, almost with tears. Is it really possible that
all these minutes spent with pen in hand over this
story, that all this is falsehood, mirage, untrue feeling ?’
But I had these thoughts only now and then, and
immediately the doubts returned again.

“On the evening of the very day that I handed him
the manuscript, I went a long way to see one of my
former classmates. We talked all night about ‘ Dead
Souls,’ and we read it again, —I don’t know how many
times it made. At that time it was fashionable, when
two or three young men met, to say, ‘Hadn’t we
better read some Gogol, gentlemen?’ and then to
sit down and read late into the night. . . . I returned
home at four o’clock, in the white Petersburg night,
bright as day. It was a beautiful warm time; and
when I reached my room I could not go to sleep, but
opened the window, and sat down by it. Suddenly
the bell rang: it surprised me greatly; and in an
instant Grigordvitch and Nekrdsof were hugging me in
a glory of enthusiasm, and both of them were almost
in tears. The evening before they had returned home
early, took up my manuscript, and began to read it
for a trial: ‘By ten pages we shall be able to judge.’
426 APPENDIX.

But after they had finished ten pages they decided
to read ten more. And afterwards, without budging,
they sat the whole night through till early morning,
taking turns in reading aloud when one got tired.
‘He read about the death of the student,’ said Gri-
gorévitch, after we were alone; ‘and suddenly I
noticed, that, when he reached the place where the
father runs after his son’s coffin, Nekrasof’s voice broke
once, and a second time, and all at once it failed
entirely. He pounded with his fist on the manuscript :
“ Akh, what a man!” That was said about you; and
so we spent the whole night.’

“When they finished the manuscript, they ex-
claimed, simultaneously, ‘Let us go and find hiin
right away. Suppose he is asleep, this is more im-
portant than sleep.’ ... They staid half an hour.
For half an hour we talked about, God knows what,
understanding each other by half words, by exclama-
tions, so eager were we. We talked about poetry,
about prose, about the ‘situation of affairs,’ and
of course about Gogol, quoting from the ‘ Revizor’
and ‘Dead Souls,’ but chiefly about Byélinsky. .. .
Nekrasof took the manuscript to Byélinsky that very
day. ‘A new Gogol has appeared,’ shouted Nekrasof,
entering with ‘Poor People.’ ‘Gogols with you
spring up like mushrooms,’ remarked Byélinsky
APPENDIX. 427

severely ; “but he took the manuscript. When Nekrd-
sof returned that same evening, Byélinsky met him in
perfect enthusiasm. ‘Bring him, bring him as soon
as you can!’”

On the next day an interview took place between
Dostoyevsky and the great Russian critic. Dostoyev-
sky thus describes it: “He began to speak with me
ardently, with flashing eyes. ‘Do you understand
yourself what you have written?’ he shouted at me
several times, in his own peculiar way. ‘Only by
your own unassisted genius as an artist, could you
have written this. But have you realized all the terri-
ble truth which you have presented before us? It is
impossible that you, at the age of twenty, could under-
stand it. . . . You have touched the very essence of
the matter, you have reached the most vital inward-
ness. We journalists and critics only argue; we try
to explain it with words: but you are an artist, and
with a single stroke put the very truth into shape so
that it is tangible, so that the simplest reader can
understand instantly. Here lies the secret of the
artistic, the truth of art. Here is the service that the
artist performs for truth. The truth is revealed and
imparted to you; it is your gift as an artist. Value
your talent, and be true to it, and you will be a great
writer.’
428 APPENDIX.

“JT went from him in a state of rapture. F stopped
at the corner of his house, looked up at the sky, at
the bright sun, on the passing people, and all; and
with my whole body I felt that a glorious moment
had come into my life,—a most important crisis ;
that a new life had begun, such as I had never antici-
pated in my most passionate dreams (and at that time
I was a great dreamer). ‘Is it really true that I am .
so great?’ I asked myself, full of shame, full of timid
glory. — Oh, do not laugh !— Never again did I have
an idea that I was great. But at that time was it
possible to bear it calmly? Oh! I will be worthy of
this praise.”

His name from this time began to stand with Tur-
génief’s, Byélinsky’s, Iskander’s (Herzen’s), and others,
in the pages of the Russian magazines. This period,
which began so auspiciously, was clouded by a catas-
trophy which greatly affected his whole life. In 1849
he was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of
being engaged in a secret political society. His older
brother, a married man, the father of three children,
was also arrested on the same charge. Dostoyevsky
knew that his brother’s family was almost penniless,
that his brother had taken no active part in the Pet-
rashevsky Society, and had only borrowed books from
the general library. The brother, however, was soon
APPENDIX. 429

released by the interposition of the Emperor Nicholas.
While he was in prison, Feéddor Mikhailovitch wrote
his beautiful story, “The Little Hero.” He was con-
demned to death; but the sentence, without his
knowledge, was commuted to transportation to the
mines. He wrote his brother on the 3d of January,
1850: “To-day we were taken to the Semydénovsky
Place. Here the sentence of death was read to us,
we were given the cross to kiss, the sabres were
broken over our heads, and our death-toilet was pre-
pared,— white shirts. Then three of our number
were placed at the ‘disgraceful post,’ ready for exe-
cution. I was the sixth. Three were summoned at.
a time: consequently my turn came next, and I had
only a second to live. JI remembered thee, my broth-
er, and all of thy household; at the last moment
thou alone wert in my mind; here, only, I learned
how I loved thee, my dear brother! . . . At last the
drums sounded a retreat. Those who were fastened
to the ‘ disgraceful post’ were taken down, and it was
announced that his Imperial Majesty had granted us
our lives.”

“Dostoyevsky, as a thoroughly religious and highly
moral man,” says Polevoi, “endured all the depriva-
tions of his life in the mines with remarkable firmness
and undisturbed equanimity. His faith was strength-
430 APPENDIX.

ened, not by the Bible alone, which was the only book
allowed him in prison, but by his love for ‘ Poor Peo-
ple,’ to whom he had sworn to be true till he died.”
After he spent a number of years in the mines, he
entered the military service, and was quickly promoted
to be an officer. He says, “J remember that soon
after leaving the Siberian prison, in 1854, I began to
read all the literature written during the five years
since my imprisonment. The ‘Annals of a Sports-
man’ had just begun to be published; and Turgé-
nief’s first stories I read at one draught. The sun
of the steppe shone upon me, spring began, and with
it an entirely new life, an end to prison, — freedom !”
His passion for literature, so long restrained, broke
out with energy and strength; and even before he
quitted military service and returned to Petersburg,
he wrote a few little trifles. In Petersburg he took
part in the journal, “The Times” ( Vremya), edited by
his brother Mikhail Mikhailovitch. In 1860 appeared
the first collection of his works, and shortly after
appeared his great novel, “The Degraded and In-
sulted” (Unizhinnuie i Oskorblonnuie). At this
time Turgénief, Gontchardf (author of “ Oblémof”),
Grigordévitch, and Count Lyof Tolstoi were in the full
bloom of production, and Dostoyevsky’s book was
not warmly received. But the most antagonistic
APPENDIX. 431

critics were silenced when “The Recollections of a
Dead House” appeared. It immediately gave him
the reputation as one of the greatest lights of Russian
literature.

In 1863 Dostoyevsky’s wife died; and in the fol-
lowing year he lost his beloved brother, whose journal,
“The Times,” passed into his hands. But he was
entirely unused to business, and was placed in a very
embarrassing situation, which was intensified by a
strange public impression that it was the novelist who
was dead. Consequently its circulation was greatly
reduced, and Feddor Mikhailovitch had to give it up.
As a distraction for all these tribulations, Dostoyevsky
devoted himself to literary work, and wrote his great
story, “Crime and Punishment,” which established
his reputation as a psychological analyst. In 1867
he married again, and lived abroad for four years.
He also, looking from the “beautiful distance”
upon the pitiful side of Russian social life, wrote
his two stories, “Idiot” and “Devils.” After he
came back he wanted to analyze the abnormal rela-
tionship between the rising generation and the older
writers; and he founded a new journal, and wrote a
novel entitled “ Podrostok” (The Adult). The jour-
nal was given up at the end of 1877 ; but Dostoyevsky,
who had new novels in view, promised ultimately to
432 APPENDIX.

continue the journal at some future time. He died
on the oth of February, 1881; and on the day
of his funeral the first number of the long-looked-
for journal, which he did not live to see, was issued.
All Petersburg escorted the beloved remains to the
tomb; tens of thousands of people were counted in
the procession. Dostoyesky’s faith in humanity is
summed up in his own words: “I never could under-
stand the reason why one-tenth part of our people
should be cultured, and the other nine-tenths must
serve as the material support of the minority and
themselves remain in ignorance. I do not want to
think or to live with any other belief than that our
ninety millions of people (and those who shall be
born after us) will all be some day cultured, human-
ized, and happy. I know and I firmly believe that
universal enlightenment will harm none of us. I also
believe that the kingdom of thought and light is pos-
sible of being realized in our Russia, even sooner than
elsewhere maybe, because with us, even now, no one
defends the idea of one part of the population being
enlisted against the other, as is found everywhere in
the civilized countries of Europe.’
APPENDIX. " 433

Note To P. 203.-
The Banya (from “ The Recollections of a Dead-House”).

“Tn the whole city, there were only two public baths.
The first, which was kept by a Hebrew, was numbered,
with an entrance-fee of fifty Aopeks for each number,
and was designed for high-toned people. The other
banya was pre-eminently common, old, filthy, small ;
and to this dazya our prisoners were going. It was
cold and sunny. The men were already rejoicing
-because they were going to get out of prison, and
have a glimpse of the city. Jests, laughter, did not
cease during the walk. A whole squad of soldiers
escorted us with loaded guns, to the wonder of the
whole city. At the danya they immediately divided
us into two detachments. The second had to wait in
the cold ante-room while the first detachment soaped
themselves, and this was necessary on account of the
smallness of the Janya; but, notwithstanding this
fact, the danya was so small, that it was hard to im-
agine how our half could find accommodation in it.
But Petrof did not leave me: he himself, without my
asking him, hurried to help me, and even offered to
wash me. Bakliushin, as well as Petrof, offered me

his services. He was a prisoner from a special cell,
434 — APPENDIX.

and was known among us as the pioneer, and him
I remembered as the gayest and liveliest of the aves-
tants, as indeed he was. We had already become
somewhat well acquainted. Petrof helped me undress
myself, because, as I was not used to it, it took me
long; and the dressing-room was cold, almost as cold
as the street. By the way, it is very hard for a
prisoner to undress if he has not had some practice.
In the first place, it is necessary to know how to
unfasten quickly the shin-protectors.: These shin-
protectors are made of leather, about seven inches
long; and they are fastened to the underclothes di-
rectly under the iron anklet which encircles the leg.
A pair of shin-protectors are worth not less than sixty
kopeks ; but, nevertheless, every prisoner gets himself
a pair, at his own expense of course, because without
them it is impossible to walk. The iron ring does not
encircle the leg tightly, and it is easy to thrust a finger
between the ring and the leg. Thus the iron strikes
the leg, chafes it; and a prisoner without shin-protec-
tors would in a single day have bad wounds. But to
take off the shin-protectors is not the hardest thing of
all. It is much harder to learn to get off the clothes
when one wears the rings (Aandalui). This is the
whole trick: Suppose you are taking off the drawers
! Podkandatnikt.
APPENDIX. 435

from the left leg, it is necessary first to let the garment
slip through between the leg and the’ring. Afterwards
you have to put it on again the same way. The same
process must be gone through with when you put on
clean clothes. For a newcomer it is even hard to
guess how it is accomplished. The first one who ever
taught us how to do it was the prisoner Kéryenef in
Tobolsk, who had once been ataman of a gang of
cut-throats, and had been fastened to a chain five years,
But the prisoners get used to it, and do it without any
difficulty. I gave several kopeks to Petrof to get soap
and scrubbers. To be sure, the authorities furnished
the prisoners with soap. Every one would get a lit-
tle piece about the size of a two-kopek coin, and as
thick as the slice of cheese served at evening lunch
by middle-class people. Soap was sold here in the
dressing-room, together with sdzfen [a kind of mead],
twists, and hot water. Every prisoner would get,
according to the agreement made with the proprietor
of the danya, a single pail of hot water. Whoever
wanted to wash himself cleaner could get fora grosh,
or half kopek, an extra pail, which was handed into
the Janya itself through a window made for that pur-
pose from the dressing-room. After helping me to
undress, Petrof led me by the hand, observing that
it was very hard for me to walk in the rings. “ Pull
436 APPENDIX.

them up a little higher over the calf,” he added, sup-
porting me as though he were my uncle (dyadka).
“Be a little careful here, there is a door-sill.” I even
felt a little ashamed. I wanted to assure Petrof that
I could get along by myself, but he would not have
believed, me. He treated me just like a young and
incapable child, whom everybody was obliged to help.
Petrof was far from being a servant, by no means was
he a servant. Had I insulted him, he would have
understood how to behave to me. I did not offer
him any money for his services, and he did not ask
for any. What, then, prompted him to take such care
of me?

“When we opened the door of the danya, I thought
that we were going into Gehenna. Imagine a room
about twelve feet long, and as wide, stuffed with prob-
ably a hundred men at once, and, at the very least,
surely eighty, because the prisoners were divided into
two detachments, and the whole number of us who
went to the Janya were two hundred men; the
steam blinding our eyes, the sweat, the filth, such a
crowd that there was no room to get a leg in. I was
alarmed, and wanted to go back, but Petrof immedi-
ately encouraged me. Somehow, with the greatest
difficulty, we squeezed ourselves through to the
benches, over the heads of those who were sitting on
APPENDIX. 437

the floor, asking them to bend down so that we could
pass. But all the places on the benches were occu-
pied. Petrof told me that it was necessary to buy a
place, and immediately entered into transactions with
a prisoner who had taken a place near the window.
For a kopek the prisoner surrendered his place, im-
mediately took the money from Petrof, who had it
tight in his fist, having foreseen that it would be ne-
cessary to bring it with him into the dazya. The man
threw himself under the bench, directly under my
place, where it was dark, filthy, and where the slimy
dampness was almost half a finger in thickness. But
the places under the benches were also taken; even
there, the crowd clustered. On the whole floor, there
was not a free place as large as the palm of the hand
where the prisoners would not be sitting doubled up,
washing themselves in their pails. Others stood up-
right among these, and, holding their pails in their
hands, washed themselves as best they could. The
dirty water ran down directly on the shaven heads of
those who sat beneath them. On the platform, and
on all the steps leading to it, were men washing them-
selves, bent down and doubled up. But precious little
washing they got. Plebeians wash themselves very
little with hot water and soap: they only steam them-
selves tremendously, and then pour cold water over
438 APPENDIX.

them, and that’s their whole bath. Fifty brooms or so
on the platform were rising and falling in concert:
they all broomed themselves into a state of intoxica-
tion. Every instant steam was let in. It was not
merely heat, it was hell let loose. It was all one up-
roar and hullaballoo (gogo¢a/o), with the rattling of a
hundred chains dragging over the floor. . . . Some,
trying to pass, entangled themselves with the chains of
others, and they themselves bumped against the heads
of those sitting below, and they tumbled over, and
scolded, and dragged into the quarrel those whom
they hit. The filth was streaming on every side. All
were in an excited, and as it were intoxicated, state of
mind. Shrieks and cries were heard. At the dressing-
room window, where the water was handed through,
there was a tumult, a pushing, even fighting. The hot.
water ordered was spilt on the heads of those sitting
on the floor, before it reached its destination. Now
and then, at the window or in the half-opened door,
a soldier with mustachioed face would show himself,
with gun in hand, ready to quell any disorder. The
shaven heads and red, parboiled bodies of the pris-
oners seemed uglier than ever. On their parboiled
shoulders clearly appeared, oftentimes, the welts
caused by the strokes and lashes which they may have
received in days gone by; so that now all these backs
APPENDIX. 439

seem to be freshly wounded. Horrid welts! A chill
went through my skin at seeing them. “Give us more

steam ;”

and the steam would spread in a thick hot
cloud over the whole danya. From under the cloud
of steam gleamed scarred backs, shaven heads, disfig-
ured arms and legs. And as a fit climax Isai Fomitch
(the Jew) would roar with all his throat, from the
top of the platform. He steams himself into insanity,
but it seems as if no heat could satisfy him. Fora
kopek he hires a washer (parilshchik) ; but at last it
gets too warm for him, and he throws down the broom,
and runs to pour cold water on hiin. Isai Fomitch
“does. not give up hope, but hires a second, a third: he
makes up his mind, on such occasions, not to grudge
any expense, and he has as many as half a dozen
washers. “You are tough, Isai Fomitch, you are a
fine fellow,” shout the prisoners from below. And
Isai Fomitch himself feels that at this moment he
stands above them all, and could thrust them all un-
der his belt ; he is in a glory ; and with a sharp, crazy
voice he shouts out his aria /ya-Jya-lya-lya, drowning
all other voices.' The thought entered my mind, that,

1 At the beginning of the chapter Isai Fomitch assures Dostoyevsky,
“ under oath, that this song and the same motive was sung by the six hundred
thousand Hebrews, from small to great, when they crossed the Red Sea; and
that every Hebrew has to sing this song at the moment of glory and victory

over his enemies.”
440 APPENDIX.

if we were ever to be all in hell, then it would look
very much like this place. I could not refrain from
imparting this thought to Petrof: he only looked
around, but said nothing.”
INDEX.

Aksakof, 142, 144.

Alexander II., Emperor, 148, 151, 152, 326.

Alexander III, Emperor, 151, 152, 156.

“Anna Karénina,” 206, 218, 230, 232; analysis, 297-323;
quoted, 304-305, 306-307, 309-322; meaning, 322.

“Annals of a Sportsman,” 121, 129, 158, 190, 394.

Aristophanes, 70.

Arria, 188.

Balzac, 105.

“Banya (bath), The,” 203; quoted, 433-440.
Bazarof, 145, 173, 174, 186, 388.

Bidlinsky, 120, I2I mole, 424, 426.

“Bulba.” See “Taras Bulba.”

Censorship, The Russian, 122 sof, 217, 398.

“Childhood and Youth,” 205, 217.

“Confession”? Sze “My Confession.”

Corneille, 13.

“Cossacks, The” (“ Kazaki”), 216, 229, 231; analysis, 239-267.
“Commentary on the Gospels,” Tolstoi’s, 234.

Daudet, Alphonse, 199 szo¢e.

“Dead Souls,” 11, 28, 61, 159, 360, 396, 426; analysis, 86-115.
Devil, The, in Gogol, 30.

Dissenters, 181, 330, 337:

Divorce, according to Tolstoi, 271, 299, 302.

“Dmitri Rudin,” 167, 168.

Dniépr, 15-18, 36.
oat 4at
442 INDEX.

“Don Quixote,” 133, 158, 170.
Dostoyevsky, 141, 202 zote, 203, 204 note ; biography, 423-432;
faith, 432.

Edgeworth, Maria, 401, 402, 403.
“ Evenings at the Farm,” 9, 10, 28, 29, 60.

“ Fathers and Sons,” 130, 173, 388; quoted, 193-198.
Fénelon, 70.

Flaubert, 127, 134, 207, 209, 406.

French novelists, 190, 191.

German education, 172, 386.

Goethe, 343; quoted by Turgénief, 137.

Gogol, biography, 5-11, 339-362; professorship, 9, 10, 353,
355-358; works enumerated, 29, 30, 346, 353; humor, 80,
3465 as a poet, 6, 13, 47, I14, 191; as a scholar, 343, 344,
354; as a painter of women, 186; influence on Turgénief,
394+

Gontchardf, 430.

Griboyédof, 238 ote, 414.

Grigorévitch, 425, 430.

Hamlet, 126, 158, 170, 179.
Hegel, 120, 168, 172, 386.
Herzen, 428.

Hugo, Victor, 209, 210.

Iskander. See Herzen.
Ivanitsky on Gogol, quoted, 356.

James, Henry, quoted, 403 ote.

Karakdézof, 151.

Katkof, 145, 148, 149, 152, 174, 414.
“ Kazaki.” See “ The Cossacks.”
Khor and Kalinuitch, 121, 159.
Kulzhinsky on Gogol, quoted, 343.
INDEX. 443

La Bruyére, 70.
La Rochefoucauld, 220.
Lermontof, 202 and ote.

“May Night, The,” quoted, 21, 32.

Marvellous, The, in Gogol, 30-34.

Merimée, 4, 48, 192.

Moliére, 11, 68, 70, 80.

Muzhik. See Russian Peasantry.

Murillo, comparison with Gogol, 31.

“My Confession ” (Tolstoi), 219-228.

“My Religion” (Tolstoi), 228, 322, 420; quoted, 278, 296; an-
alysis, 324-338.

Napoleon, Tolstoi’s judgment of, 285.
Nekrasof, 181, 202 zo¢e, 210 20fe, 391, 426:
“Nest of Noblemen,” 169.

Nicholas, Emperor, 84, 113, 399, 426, 429.
Niézhin, 5, 7, 342.

Nihilism, 148, 173, 176, 179, 180, 329, 389.

Occidentalism, Turgénief’s, 120, 142, 387.
“Old-time Proprietors,” 51-58; quoted, 24.

“ Parasha,” 120.

Pathetic, The, in Turgénief, 199.

Pisemsky, 167 note.

Pletnef, 9, 385.

Pobyedonovtsof, 152, 414.

Poetry, Nature of, 13.

Pogodin, 142.

Polevol, 339; quoted, 424, 429.

Polonsky, 126, 136.

Pushkin, 4, 6, 7, 9, 73, 112, 134, 202, 210, 238, 345, 385, 400,
414; on Griboyédof’s death, 238; judgment of Gogol, 58;
as inspiration to Gogol, 345; festival, 135, 391.

Raskolniks. See Dissenters.
Realism, French and Russian, 25, 189, 193, 199, 286.
444 INDEX.

“Recollections of a Scorer” (Tolstoi), quoted, 235-237.

* Recollections ” (Reminiscences), Turgénief’s, quoted, 120
note, 122 101e, 384, 388.

Renan, funeral discourse on Turgénief, 408.

Resurrection, The, according to Tolstoi, 278.

Revizor, The, 7, 10, 61, 358, 426; analysis, 63-83.

Rousseau, 70.

Rudin. See Dmitri Rudin.

Russian ideal, 182; language, 98, 110, 192, 395, 414; mind,
12; nature, 14, 18, 23, 114; nobility, 159, 164; peasantry,
150, 159, 181, 325.

Sand, George, 127, 211.

Sasuluitch, Viéra, 171.

Satirical, The, in Gogol, 7, 12, 60, 347.
Shchedrin. See Soltuikof.

Schiller, 212, 343; quoted by Turgénief, 154.
Schopenhauer, 172, 228.

Schuyler, Eugene, translation of “ The Cossacks,” 416.
Serfage, 166, 326, 397.

Shakspeare, 69, 126, 225.

Skidelsky, quoted, 424.

Slavophilism, 143, 144, 206.

“Smoke,” 175.

Soltuikof, 204, 211.

Swinburne, Turgénief’s opinion of, 210.

“Taras Bulba,” 6, 10, 18, 29, 355; analysis, 36-49; Turgénief’s
judgment on, 50; quoted, 19, 23, 363-382.

Tchernuishevsky, 145, 201, 210 70/e, 423.

“Terrible Vengeance, A,” quoted, 15-18.

Tolstoi, Count Lyof N., biography, 215, 222-230, 236 note, 414-
422; works enumerated, 216, 416, 417; talent, 218; mental
and moral transformation, 222-230, 278; literary life,
224, 231; marriage, 224, 421; mysticism, 234; character
revealed in “The Cossacks,” 256-258; in “War and
Peace,” 267, 275, 293, 295; in “Anna Karénina,” 295, 4213
his ideal of strength, 248 ; ideal of life, 227, 275, 299; asa
INDEX. 44

historian, 283; as a non-combatant, 293, 299; as a prophe
219, 329; as a communist, 335; his creed, 332; appearanc
in 1862, 418; criticised by Turgénief, 205.

Turgénief, Ivan, biography, 117-140, 383-408; works enume:

ated, 129-139; method of work, 130, 135, 183, 407; prog
ress, 157; talent, 182, 409; character, 139, 141; generosity
139 note, 155, 205; conversation, 140, 149, 405; as a polit
cal prophet, 153, 157; as a dramatist, 189; as a poet, 191
385, 399 zote; as a critic on his epoch, 146, 150, 200; judg
ment on Alexander IIL., 152, 156; on Hugo, 209, 210; 0:
George Sand, 212; Flaubert, 209; Zola, 208; Swinburne
210; Dickens, 407; Dostoyevsky, 203; Nekrasof, 201, 202
Gogol, 50; Soltuikof, 204; Tchernuishevsky, 201; Tolsto:
205, 231, 284; letters to Tolstoi, 127, 138; letter to M1
King, 183; homesickness and love of Russia, 123, 127
personal appearance, 139, 393, 404; disease, 136.

Turgénief, Nikolai, 383.
Turner, C. E., on Gogol, quoted, 361.

Ukraina, 10, 15, 23, 32.

Viardot, 4o1, 406.

“Vii,” quoted, 30, 358.

“Virgin Soil” (ov), 131, 132, 176, 179, 187.

Vogiié, Count E. Melchior, on Turgénief, quoted, 390-400.

“War and Peace,” 206, 218, 230, 232, 233; analysis, 267-294.
Woman in Gogol, 109, 187; in Turgénief, 186, 187; in Tolstoi

247, 288, 422.

Zhukovsky, 4, 345.
Zola, 135, 208, 211, 286.
 
 
 
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