A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 12

[21] This expression has become proverbial in Russia, and is used to repress any one who becomes unduly excited.

CHAPTER IX

SEVENTH PERIOD: GONTCHARoFF. GRIGORoVITCH. TURGeNEFF.

Under the direct influence of Byelinsky's criticism, and of the highly artistic types created by Gogol, a new generation of Russian writers sprang up, as has already been stated--the writers of the '40's: Grigorovitch, Gontcharoff, Turgeneff, Ostrovsky, Nekrasoff, Dostoevsky, Count L. N. Tolstoy, and many others. With several of these we can deal but briefly, for while they stand high in the esteem of Russians, they are not accessible in English translations.

Despite the numerous points which these writers of the '40's possessed in common, and which bound them together in one "school," this community of interests did not prevent each one of them having his own definite individuality; his own conception of the world, ideals, character, and creative processes; his own literary physiognomy, so to speak, which did not in the least resemble the physiognomy of his fellow-writers, but presented a complete opposition to them in some respects. Perhaps the one who stands most conspicuously apart from the rest in this way is Ivan Alexandrovitch Gontcharoff (1812-1890). He was the son of a wealthy landed proprietor in the southeastern government of Simbirsk, pictures of which district are reproduced in his most famous novel, "Oblomoff."

This made its appearance in 1858. No one who did not live in Russia at that time can fully comprehend what an overwhelming sensation it created. It was like a bomb projected into the midst of cultivated society at the moment when every one was profoundly affected by the agitation which preceded the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs (1861), when the literature of the day was engaged in preaching a crusade against slumberous inactivity, inertia, and stagnation. The special point about Gontcharoff's contribution to this crusade against the order of things, and in favor of progress, was that no one could regard "Oblomoff" from the objective point of view. Every one was compelled to treat it subjectively, apply the type of the hero to his own case, and admit that in greater or less degree he possessed some of Oblomoff's characteristics. In this romance the gift of generalization reached its highest point. Oblomoff not only represented the type of the landed proprietor, as developed by the inst.i.tution of serfdom, but the racial type, which comprised the traits common to Russians in general, without regard to their social rank, cla.s.s, or vocation. In fact, so typical was this character that it furnished a new word to the language, "oblomovshtchina,"--the state of being like Oblomoff. Oblomoff carried the national indolence--"_khalatnost_," or dressing-gown laziness, the Russians call it in general--to such a degree that he not only was unable to do anything, but he was not able even to enjoy himself. Added to this, he was afflicted with aristocratic enervation of his faculties, unhealthy timidity, incapacity to take the smallest energetic effort, dove-like gentleness, and tenderness of soul, rendering him utterly incapable of defending his own interests or happiness in the slightest degree. And these characteristics were recognized as appertaining to Russians in general, even to those who had never owned serfs, and thus the type presented by Oblomoff may be said to be not only racial, but to a certain extent universal--one of the immortal types, like Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet, and the like. The chief female character in the book, Olga, can hardly be called the heroine; she appears too briefly for that. But she is admitted to be a fine portrait of the Russian woman as she was about to become, not as she then existed. Gontcharoff's "An Every-day Story" is also celebrated; equally so is his "The Ravine," a very distressing picture of the unprincipled character of an anarchist.

As the author changed his mind about the hero in part while writing the book, it is not convincing.

Another of the men who made his mark at this time was Dmitry Vasilievitch Grigorovitch (born in 1812), who wrote a number of brilliant books between 1847-1855. His chief merit is that he was the first to begin the difficult study of the common people; the first who talked in literature about the peasants, their needs, their virtues, their helplessness, their misfortunes, and their sufferings. Of his early short stories, "Anton Goremka" (wretched fellow) is the best. In it he is free from the reproach which was leveled at his later and more ambitious long stories, "The Emigrants" and "The Fishermen." In the latter, for the sake of lengthening the tale, and of enlisting interest by making it conform to the general taste of readers, he made the interest center on a love-story, in which the emotions and procedure were described as being like those in the higher walks of life; and this did not agree with the facts of the case. But the remainder of the stories are founded on a genuine study of peasant ways and feelings.

Grigorovitch had originally devoted himself to painting, and after 1855 he returned to that profession, but between 1884-1898 he again began to publish stories.

Among the writers who followed Grigorovitch in his studies of peasant life, was Ivan Sergyeevitch Turgeneff (1818-1883), who may be said not only to have produced the most artistic pictures of that sphere ever written by a Russian, but to have summed up in his longer novels devoted to the higher cla.s.ses, in a manner not to be surpa.s.sed, and in a language and style as polished and brilliant as a collection of precious stones--a whole obscure period of changes and unrest. He was descended from an ancient n.o.ble family, and his father served in a cuira.s.sier regiment. On the family estate in the government of Orel[22] (where, later in life, he laid the scene of his famous "Notes of a Sportsman"), he was well provided with teachers of various nationalities--Russian excepted. One of his mother's serfs, a man pa.s.sionately fond of reading, and a great admirer of Kheraskoff, was the first to initiate the boy into Russian literature, with "The Rossiad." In 1834 Turgeneff entered the Moscow University, but soon went to St. Petersburg, and there completed his course in the philological department. Before he graduated, however, he had begun to write, and even to publish his literary efforts. After spending two years in Berlin, to finish his studies, he returned to Moscow, in 1841, and there made acquaintance with the Slavyanophils--the Aksakoffs, Khomyakoff (a military man, chiefly known by his theological writings), and others, the leaders of the new cult. But Turgeneff, thoroughly imbued with western ideas, did not embrace it. He entered the government service, although there was no necessity for his so doing, but soon left it to devote himself entirely to literature, Byelinsky having written an enthusiastic article about a poem which Turgeneff had published under another name. But poetry was not Turgeneff's strong point, any more than was the drama, though he wrote a number of plays later on, some of which have much merit, and are still acted occasionally. He found his true path in 1846, when the success of his first sketch from peasant life, "Khor and Kalinitch,"

encouraged him to follow it up with more of the same sort; the result being the famous collection "The Notes (or Diary) of a Sportsman."

These, together with numerous other short stories, written between 1844-1850, won for him great and permanent literary fame.

The special strength of the "school of the '40's" consisted in its combining in one organic and harmonious whole several currents of literature which had hitherto flowed separately and suffered from one-sidedness. The two chief currents were, on the one hand, the objectivity of the Pushkin school, artistic contemplation of everything poetical in Russian life; and on the other hand, the negatively satirical current of naturalism, of the Gogol school, whose princ.i.p.al attention was directed to the imperfections of Russian life. To these were added, by the writers of the '40's, a social-moral movement, the fermentation of ideas, which is visible in the educated cla.s.ses of Russian society in the '40's and '50's. As this movement was effected under the influence of the French literature of the '30's and '40's, of which Victor Hugo and Georges Sand were the leading exponents (whose ideas were expressed under the form of romanticism), these writers exercised the most influence on the Russian writers of the immediately succeeding period. But it must be stated that their influence was purely intellectual and moral, and not in the least artistic in character. The influence of the French romanticists on the Russian writers of the '40's consisted in the fact that the latter, imbued with the ideas of the former, engaged in the a.n.a.lysis of Russian life, which const.i.tutes the strength and the merit of the Russian literature of that epoch.

Of all the Russian writers of that period, Turgeneff was indisputably the greatest. No one could have been more advantageously situated for the study of the mutual relations between landed proprietors and serfs.

The Turgeneff family offered a very sharp type of old-fas.h.i.+oned landed-proprietor manners. Not one gentle or heartfelt trait softened the harshness of those manners, which were based wholly upon merciless despotism, and weighed oppressively not only upon the peasants, but upon the younger members of the family. Every one in the household was kept in a perennial tremor of alarm, and lived in hourly, momentary expectation of some savage punishment. Moreover, the author's father (who is depicted in the novel "First Love"), was much younger than his wife, whom he did not love, having married her for her money. His mother's portrait is to be found in "Punin and Baburin." Extremely unhappy in her childhood and youth, when she got the chance at last she became a pitiless despot, greedy of power, and indulged the caprices and fantastic freaks suggested by her shattered nerves upon her family, the house-servants, and the serfs. It is but natural that from such an experience as this Turgeneff should have cherished, from the time of his miserable childhood (his disagreements with his mother later in life are matters of record also), impressions which made of him the irreconcilable foe of serfdom. In depicting, in his "Notes of a Sportsman," the tyranny of the landed gentry over their serfs, he could have drawn upon his personal experience and the touching tale "Mumu;"

actually is the reproduction of an episode which occurred in his home.

His "Notes of a Sportsman" const.i.tutes a noteworthy historical monument of the period, not only as a work of the highest art, but also as a protest against serfdom. In a way these stories form a worthy continuation of Gogol's "Dead Souls." In them, as in all his other stories, at every step the reader encounters not only clear-cut portraits of persons, but those enchanting pictures of nature for which he is famous.

The publication of his short sketches from peasant life in book form--"Notes of a Sportsman"--aroused great displeasure in official circles; officialdom looked askance upon Turgeneff because also of his long residence abroad. Consequently, when, in 1852, he published in a Moscow newspaper a eulogistic article on Gogol (when the latter died), which had been prohibited by the censor in St. Petersburg, the authorities seized the opportunity to punish him. He was arrested and condemned to a month in jail, which the daughter of the police-officer who had charge of him, contrived to convert into residence in their quarters, where Turgeneff wrote "Mumu"; and to residence on his estate, which he was not allowed to leave for about two years. In 1855 he went abroad, and thereafter he spent most of his time in Paris, Baden-Baden (later in Bougival), returning from time to time to his Russian estate.

During this period his talent attained its zenith, and he wrote all the most noteworthy works which a.s.sured him fame: "Rudin," "Faust," "A Nest of n.o.bles," "On the Eve," and "First Love," which alone would have sufficed to immortalize him. In 1860 he published an article ent.i.tled "Hamlet and Don Quixote," which throws a brilliant light upon the characters of all his types, and upon their inward springs of action.

And at last, in 1862, came his famous "Fathers and Children." The key to the comprehension of his works is contained in his "Hamlet and Don Quixote." His idea is that in these two types are incarnated all the fundamental, contrasting peculiarities of the human race--both poles of the axis upon which it revolves--and that all people belong, more or less, to one of these two types; that every one of us inclines to be either a Hamlet or a Don Quixote. "It is true," he adds, "that in our day the Hamlets have become far more numerous than the Don Quixotes, but the Don Quixotes have not died out, nevertheless." Such is his hero "Rudin," that central type of the men of the '40's--a man whose whole vocation consists in the dissemination of enlightening ideas, but who, at the same time, exhibits the most complete incapacity in all his attempts to realize those ideas in practice, and scandalous pusillanimity when there is a question of any step which is, in the slightest degree, decisive--a man of the head alone, incapable of doing anything himself, because he has no nature, no blood. Such, again, is Lavretzky ("A Nest of n.o.bles"), that concentrated type, not only of the man from the best cla.s.s of the landed gentry, but in general, of the educated Slavonic man--a man who is sympathetic in the highest degree, full of tenderness, of gentle humanity and kindliness, but who, at the same time, does not contribute to life the smallest active principle, who pa.s.sively yields to circ.u.mstances, like a chip borne on the stormy torrent. Such are the majority of Turgeneff's heroes, beginning with the hero of "asya," and ending with Sanin, in "Spring Floods," and Litvinoff, in "Smoke." Several Don Quixotes are to be found in his works, but not many, and they are of two sorts. One typically Russian category includes Andrei Kolosoff, and Yakoff Pasinkoff, Punin, and a few others; the second are Volntzeff and Uvar Ivanovitch, in "On the Eve." A third type, invented by Turgeneff as an offset to the Hamlets, is represented by Insaroff in "On the Eve."

With the publication, in 1862, of "Fathers and Children," a fateful crisis occurred in Turgeneff's career. In his memoirs and in his letters he insists that in the character of Bazaroff he had no intention of writing a caricature on the young generation, and of bearing himself in a negative manner towards it. "My entire novel," he writes, "is directed against the n.o.bility as the leading cla.s.s." Nevertheless, the book raised a tremendous storm. His mistake lay in not recognizing in the new type of men depicted under the character of Bazaroff enthusiasts endowed with all the merits and defects of people of that sort; but on the contrary, they impressed him as skeptics, rejecters of all conventions, and he christened them with the name of "nihilists," which was the cause of the whole uproar, as he himself admitted. But he declares that he employed the word not as a reproach, or with the aim of insulting, but merely as an accurate and rational expression of an historical fact, which had made its appearance.

Turgeneff always regarded himself as a pupil of Pushkin, and a worthy pupil he was, but he worked out his own independent style, and in turn called forth a horde of imitators. It may be said of Turgeneff, that he created the artistic Russian novel, carrying it to the pitch of perfection in the matter of elegance, and finely proportioned exposition and arrangement of its parts--its architecture, so to speak--combined with artless simplicity and realism. The peculiarity of Turgeneff's style consists in the remarkable softness and tenderness of its tones, combined with a certain mistiness of coloring, which recalls the air and sky of central Russia. Not a single harsh or coa.r.s.e line is to be found in Turgeneff's work; not a single glaring hue. The objects depicted do not immediately start forth before you, in full proportions, but are gradually depicted in a ma.s.s of small details with all the most delicate shades. Turgeneff is most renowned artistically for the landscapes which are scattered through his works, and princ.i.p.ally portray the nature of his native locality, central Russia. Equally famous, and executed with no less mastery and art, are his portrayal and a.n.a.lysis of the various vicissitudes of the tender pa.s.sion, and in this respect, he was regarded as a connoisseur of the feminine heart. A special epithet, "the bard of love," was often applied to him. Along with a series of masculine types, Turgeneff's works present a whole gallery of Russian women of the '50's and '60's, portrayed in a matchless manner with the touch of absolute genius. And it is a fact worth noting that in his works, as in those of all the "authors of the '40's," the women stand immeasurably higher than the men. The heroines are frequently set forth in all their moral grandeur, as though with the express intention of overshadowing the insignificance of the heroes who are placed beside them.

Towards the beginning of the '60's, the germs of pessimism began to make their appearance in Turgeneff's work, and its final expression came in "Poems in Prose." The source of this pessimism must be sought in his whole past, beginning with the impressions of his childhood, and the disintegrating influence of the reaction of the '50's, when the nation's hopes of various reforms seemed to have been blighted, and ending with a whole ma.s.s of experiences of life and the literary failures and annoyances which he underwent during the second half of his life. And in this connection it must not be forgotten that the very spirit of a.n.a.lysis and skepticism wherewith the school of writers of the '40's is imbued, leads straight to pessimism, like any other sort of skepticism.

The following specimen, from "The Notes of a Sportsman," is selected chiefly for its comparative brevity:

"THE WOLF."

I was driving from the chase one evening alone in a racing gig.[23] I was about eight versts from my house; my good mare was stepping briskly along the dusty road, snorting and twitching her ears from time to time; my weary dog never quitted the hind wheels, as though he were tied there. A thunderstorm was coming on. In front of me a huge, purplish cloud was slowly rising from behind the forest; overhead, and advancing to meet me, floated long, gray clouds; the willows were rustling and whispering with apprehension. The stifling heat suddenly gave way to a damp chill; the shadows swiftly thickened. I slapped the reins on the horse's back, descended into a ravine, crossed a dry brook, all overgrown with scrub-willows, ascended the hill, and drove into the forest.

The road in front of me wound along among thick clumps of hazel-bushes, and was already inundated with gloom; I advanced with difficulty. My gig jolted over the firm roots of the centenarian oaks and lindens, which incessantly intersected the long, deep ruts--the traces of cart-wheels; my horse began to stumble. A strong wind suddenly began to drone up above, the trees grew turbulent, big drops of rain clattered sharply, and splashed on the leaves, the lightning and thunder burst forth, the rain poured in torrents. I drove at a foot-pace, and was speedily compelled to halt; my horse stuck fast. I could not see a single object. I sheltered myself after a fas.h.i.+on under a wide-spreading bush. Bent double, with my face wrapped up, I was patiently awaiting the end of the storm, when, suddenly, by the gleam of a lightning-flash, it seemed to me that I descried a tall figure on the road. I began to gaze attentively in that direction--the same figure sprang out of the earth as it were beside my gig.

"Who is this?" asked a sonorous voice.

"Who are you yourself?"

"I'm the forester here."

I mentioned my name.

"Ah, I know; you are on your way home?"

"Yes. But you see what a storm--"

"Yes, it is a thunderstorm," replied the voice. A white flash of lightning illuminated the forester from head to foot; a short, cras.h.i.+ng peal of thunder resounded immediately afterwards. The rain poured down with redoubled force.

"It will not pa.s.s over very soon," continued the forester.

"What is to be done?"

"I'll conduct you to my cottage if you like," he said, abruptly.

"Pray do."

"Please take your seat."

He stepped to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and turned her from the spot. We set out. I clung to the cus.h.i.+on of the drozhky, which rocked like a skiff at sea, and called the dog.

My poor mare splashed her feet heavily through the mire, slipped, stumbled; the forester swayed from right to left in front of the shafts like a specter. Thus we proceeded for rather a long time. At last my guide came to a halt. "Here we are at home, master," he said, in a calm voice. A wicket gate squeaked, several puppies began to bark all together. I raised my head, and by the glare of the lightning, I descried a tiny hut, in the center of a s.p.a.cious yard, surrounded with wattled hedge. From one tiny window a small light cast a dull gleam.

The forester led the horse up to the porch, and knocked at the door. "Right away! right away!" resounded a shrill little voice, and the patter of bare feet became audible, the bolt screeched, and a little girl, about twelve years of age, clad in a miserable little chemise, girt about with a bit of list, and holding a lantern in her hand, made her appearance on the threshold.

"Light the gentleman," he said to her:--"and I will put your carriage under the shed."

The little la.s.s glanced at me, and entered the cottage. I followed her. The forester's cottage consisted of one room, smoke-begrimed, low-ceiled and bare, without any sleeping-shelf over the oven, and without any part.i.tions; a tattered sheepskin coat hung against the wall. On the wall-bench hung a single-barreled gun; in the corner lay scattered a heap of rags; two large pots stood beside the oven. A pine-knot was burning on the table, sputtering mournfully, and on the point of dying out. Exactly in the middle of the room hung a cradle, suspended from the end of a long pole. The little maid extinguished the lantern, seated herself on a tiny bench, and began to rock the cradle with her left hand, while with her right she put the pine-knot to rights. I looked about me, and my heart grew sad within me; it is not cheerful to enter a peasant's hut by night. The baby in the cradle was breathing heavily and rapidly.

"Is it possible that thou art alone here?" I asked the little girl.

"Yes," she uttered, almost inaudibly.

"Art thou the forester's daughter?"

"Yes," she whispered.

The door creaked, and the forester stepped across the threshold, bending his head as he did so. He picked up the lantern from the floor, went to the table, and ignited the wick.

"Probably you are not accustomed to a pine-knot," he said, as he shook his curls.

I looked at him. Rarely has it been my fortune to behold such a fine, das.h.i.+ng fellow. He was tall of stature, broad-shouldered, and splendidly built. From beneath his dripping s.h.i.+rt, which was open on the breast, his mighty muscles stood prominently forth. A curly black beard covered half of his surly and manly face; from beneath his broad eyebrows, which met over his nose, small, brown eyes gazed bravely forth. He set his hands lightly on his hips, and stood before me.

I thanked him, and asked his name.

"My name is Foma," he replied--"but my nickname is 'The Wolf'."[24]

"Ah, are you The Wolf?"

I gazed at him with redoubled curiosity. From my Ermola and from others I had often heard about the forester, The Wolf, whom all the peasants round about feared like fire. According to their statements, never before had there existed in the world such a master of his business. "He gives no one a chance to carry off trusses of brushwood, no matter what the hour may be; even at midnight, he drops down like snow on one's head, and you need not think of offering resistance--he's as strong and as crafty as the Devil.... And it's impossible to catch him by any means; neither with liquor nor with money; he won't yield to any allurement. More than once good men have made preparations to put him out of the world, but no, he doesn't give them a chance."