Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 1

Liza.

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev.

PREFACE.

The author of the _Dvoryanskoe Gnyezdo_, or "Nest of n.o.bles," of which a translation is now offered to the English reader under the t.i.tle of "Liza," is a writer of whom Russia may well be proud.[A] And that, not only because he is a consummate artist,--ent.i.tled as he is to take high rank among those of European fame, so accurate is he in his portrayal of character, and so quick to seize and to fix even its most fleeting expression; so vividly does he depict by a few rapid touches the appearance of the figures whom he introduces upon his canvas, the nature of the scenes among which they move,--he has other and even higher claims than these to the respect and admiration of Russian readers. For he is a thoroughly conscientious worker; one who, amid all his dealings with fiction, has never swerved from his regard for what is real and true; one to whom his own country and his own people are very dear, but who has neither timidly bowed to the prejudices of his countrymen, nor obstinately shut his eyes to their faults.

[Footnote A: Notwithstanding the unencouraging opinion expressed by Mr. Ralston in this preface, of the probable fate of "Fathers and Children," and "Smoke," with the English public, both have been translated in America and have met with very fair success. Of course, even more may be hoped for the author's other works.]

His first prose work, the "Notes of a Sportsman" (_Zapiski Okhotnika_), a collection of sketches of country life, made a deep and lasting impression upon the minds of the educated cla.s.ses in Russia, so vigorous were its attacks upon the vices of that system of slavery which was then prevalent. Those attacks had all the more weight, inasmuch as the book was by no means exclusively devoted to them. It dealt with many other subjects connected with provincial life; and the humor and the pathos and the picturesqueness with which they were treated would of themselves have been sufficient to commend it to the very favorable attention of his countrymen. But the sad pictures he drew in it, occasionally and almost as it were accidentally, of the wretched position occupied by the great ma.s.ses of the people, then groaning under the weight of that yoke which has since been removed, stirred the heart of Russian society with a thrill of generous horror and sympathy; and the effect thus produced was all the more permanent inasmuch as it was attained by thoroughly legitimate means. Far from exaggerating the ills of which he wrote, or describing them in sensational and declamatory language, he treated them in a style that sometimes seemed almost cold in its reticence and freedom from pa.s.sion. The various sketches of which the volume was composed appeared at intervals in a Russian magazine, called the _Contemporary (Sovremennik)_, about three-and-twenty years ago, and were read in it with avidity; but when the first edition of the collected work was exhausted, the censors refused to grant permission to the author to print a second, and so for many years the complete book was not to be obtained in Russia without great difficulty. Now that the good fight of emanc.i.p.ation has been fought, and the victory--thanks to the present Emperor--has been won, M. Turgenieff has every reason for looking back with pride upon that phase of the struggle; and his countrymen may well have a feeling of regard, as well as of respect, for him--the upper-cla.s.ses as for one who has helped them to recognize their duty; the lower, as for a very generous supporter in their time of trouble.

M. Turgenieff has written a great number of very charming short stories, most of them having reference to Russia and Russian life; for though he has lived in Germany for many years, his thoughts, whenever he takes up his pen, almost always seem to go back to his native land.

Besides these, as well as a number of critical essays, plays, and poems, he has brought out several novels, or rather novelettes, for none of them have attained to three-volume dimensions. Of these, the most remarkable are the one I have now translated, which appeared about eleven years ago, and the two somewhat polemical stories, called "Fathers and Children" (_Otsui i Dyeti_) and "Smoke" (_Duim_). The first of the three I may leave to speak for itself, merely adding that I trust that--although it appears under all the disadvantages by which even the most conscientious of translations must always be attended--it may be looked upon by English readers with somewhat of the admiration which I have long felt for the original, on account of the artistic finish of its execution, the purity of its tone, and the delicacy and the n.o.bleness of the sentiment by which it is pervaded.

The story of "Fathers and Children" conveys a vigorous and excessively clever description of the change that has taken place of late years in the thoughts and feelings of the educated cla.s.ses of Russian society One of the most interesting chapters in "Liza"--one which may be skipped by readers who care for nothing but incident in a story--describes a conversation which takes place between the hero and one of his old college friends. The sketch of the disinterested student, who has retained in mature life all the enthusiasm of his college days, is excellent, and is drawn in a very kindly spirit.

But in "Fathers and Children" an exaggeration of this character is introduced, serving as a somewhat scare-crow-like embodiment of the excessively hard thoughts and very irreverent speculations in which the younger thinkers of the new school indulge. This character is developed in the story into dimensions which must be styled inordinate if considered from a purely artistic point of view; but the story ought not to be so regarded. Unfortunately for its proper appreciation among us, it cannot be judged aright, except by readers who possess a thorough knowledge of what was going on in Russia a few years ago, and who take a keen and lively interest in the subjects which were then being discussed there. To all others, many of its chapters will seem too unintelligible and wearisome, both linked together into interesting unity by the slender thread of its story, beautiful as many of its isolated pa.s.sages are. The same objection may be made to "Smoke." Great s.p.a.ces in that work are devoted to caricatures of certain persons and opinions of note in Russia, but utterly unknown in England--pictures which either delight or irritate the author's countrymen, according to the tendency of their social and political speculations, but which are as meaningless to the untutored English eye as a collection of "H.B."'s drawings would be to a Russian who had never studied English politics. Consequently neither of these stories is likely ever to be fully appreciated among us[A].

[Footnote A: A detailed account of both of these stories, as well as of several other works by M. Turgenieff, will be found in the number of the _North British Review_ for March, 1869.]

The last novelette which M. Turgenieff has published, "The Unfortunate One" (_Neschastnaya_) is free from the drawbacks by which, as far as English readers are concerned, "Fathers and Children" and "Smoke,"

are attended; but it is exceedingly sad and painful. It is said to be founded on a true story, a fact which may account for an intensity of gloom in its coloring, the darkness of which would otherwise seem almost unartistically overcharged.

Several of M. Turgenieff's works have already been translated into English. The "Notes of a Sportsman" appeared about fourteen years ago, under the t.i.tle of "Russian Life in the Interior[A];" but, unfortunately, the French translation from which they were (with all due acknowledgment) rendered, was one which had been so "cooked" for the Parisian market, that M. Turgenieff himself felt bound to protest against it vigorously. It is the more unfortunate inasmuch as an admirable French translation of the work was afterwards made by M.

Delaveau[B].

[Footnote A: "Russian Life in the Interior." Edited by J.D.

Meiklejohn. Black, Edinburg, 1855.]

[Footnote B: "Recits d'un Cha.s.seur." Traduits par H. Delavea, Paris, 1858.]

Still more vigorously had M. Turgenieff to protest against an English translation of "Smoke," which appeared a few months ago.

The story of "Fathers and Children" has also appeared in English[A]; but as the translation was published on the other side of the Atlantic, it has as yet served but little to make M. Turgenieff's name known among us.

[Footnote A: "Fathers and Sons." Translated from the Russian by Eugene Schuyler. New York 1867.]

The French and German translations of M. Turgenieff's works are excellent. From the French versions of M. Delaveau, M. Xavier Marmier, M. Prosper Merimee, M. Viardot, and several others, a very good idea may be formed by the general reader of M. Turgenieffs merits. For my own part, I wish cordially to thank the French and the German translators of the _Dvoryanskoe Gnyezdo_ for the a.s.sistance their versions rendered me while I was preparing the present translation of that story. The German version, by M. Paul Fuchs,[A] is wonderfully literal. The French version, by Count Sollogub and M.A. de Calonne, which originally appeared in the _Revue Contemporaine_, without being quite so close, is also very good indeed.[B]

[Footnote A: Das adelige Nest. Von I.S. Turgenieff. Aus dem Russicher ubersetzt von Paul Fuchs. Leipzig, 1862.]

[Footnote B: Une Nichee de Gentilshommes. Paris, 1862]

I, too, have kept as closely as I possibly could to the original.

Indeed, the first draft of the translation was absolutely literal, regardless of style or even idiom. While in that state, it was revised by the Russian friend who a.s.sisted me in my translation of Krilofs Fables--M. Alexander Onegine--and to his painstaking kindness I am greatly indebted for the hope I venture to entertain that I have not "traduced" the author I have undertaken to translate. It may be as well to state that in the few pa.s.sages in which my version differs designedly from the ordinary text of the original, I have followed the alterations which M. Turgenieff made with his own hand in the copy of the story on which I worked, and the t.i.tle of the story has been altered to its present form with his consent.

I may as well observe also, that while I have inserted notes where I thought their presence unavoidable, I have abstained as much as possible from diverting the reader's attention from the story by obtrusive asterisks, referring to what might seem impertinent observations at the bottom of the page. The Russian forms of name I have religiously preserved, even to the extent of using such a form as Ivanich, as well as Ivanovich, when it is employed by the author.

INNER TEMPLE, June 1, 1869.

LIZA.

I.

A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but to be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond.

At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that name--it was in the year 1842--there were sitting two ladies, the one about fifty years old, the other an old woman of seventy.

The name of the first was Maria Dmitrievna Kalitine. Her husband, who had formerly occupied the post of Provincial Procurator, and who was well known in his day as a good man of business--a man of bilious temperament, confident, resolute, and enterprising--had been dead ten years. He had received a good education, and had studied at the university, but as the family from which he sprang was a poor one, he had early recognized the necessity of making a career for himself and of gaining money.

Maria Dmitrievna married him for love. He was good-looking, he had plenty of sense, and, when he liked, he could be very agreeable. Maria Dmitrievna, whose maiden name was Pestof, lost her parents while she was still a child. She spent several years in an Inst.i.tute at Moscow, and then went to live with her brother and one of her aunts at Pokrovskoe, a family estate situated fifteen versts from O. Soon afterwards her brother was called away on duty to St. Petersburgh, and, until a sudden death put an end to his career, he kept his aunt and sister with only just enough for them to live upon. Maria Dmitrievna inherited Pokrovskoe, but she did not long reside there. In the second year of her marriage with Kalitine, who had succeeded at the end of a few days in gaining her affections, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for another estate--one of much greater intrinsic value, but unattractive in appearance, and not provided with a mansion. At the same time Kalitine purchased a house in the town of O., and there he and his wife permanently established themselves. A large garden was attached to it, extending in one direction to the fields outside the town, "so that," Kalitine, who was by no means an admirer of rural tranquillity, used to say, "there is no reason why we should go dragging ourselves off into the country." Maria Dmitrievna often secretly regretted her beautiful Pokrovskoe, with its joyous brook, its sweeping meadows, and its verdant woods, but she never opposed her husband in any thing, having the highest respect for his judgment and his knowledge of the world. And when he died, after fifteen years of married life, leaving behind him a son and two daughters, Maria Dmitrievna had grown so accustomed to her house and to a town life, that she had no inclination to change her residence.

In her youth Maria Dmitrievna had enjoyed the reputation of being a pretty blonde, and even in her fiftieth year her features were not unattractive, though they had lost somewhat of their fineness and delicacy. She was naturally sensitive and impressionable, rather than actually good-hearted, and even in her years of maturity she continued to behave in the manner peculiar to "Inst.i.tute girls;" she denied herself no indulgence, she was easily put out of temper, and she would even burst into tears if her habits were interfered with. On the other hand, she was gracious and affable when all her wishes were fulfilled, and when n.o.body opposed her in any thing. Her house was the pleasantest in the town; and she had a handsome income, the greater part of which was derived from her late husband's earnings, and the rest from her own property. Her two daughters lived with her; her son was being educated in one of the best of the crown establishments at St. Petersburgh.

The old lady who was sitting at the window with Maria Dmitrievna was her father's sister, the aunt with whom she had formerly spent so many lonely years at Pokrovskoe. Her name was Marfa Timofeevna Pestof.

She was looked upon as an original, being a woman of an independent character, who bluntly told the truth to every one, and who, although her means were very small, behaved in society just as she would have done had she been rolling in wealth. She never could abide the late Kalitine, and as soon as her niece married him she retired to her own modest little property, where she spent ten whole years in a peasant's smoky hut. Maria Dmitrievna was rather afraid of her. Small in stature, with black hair, a sharp nose, and eyes which even in old age were still keen, Marfa Timofeevna walked briskly, held herself bolt upright, and spoke quickly but distinctly, and with a loud, high-pitched voice. She always wore a white cap, and a white _kofta_[A] always formed part of her dress.

[Footnote A: A sort of jacket.]

"What is the matter?" she suddenly asked. "What are you sighing about?"

"Nothing," replied Maria Dmitrievna. "What lovely clouds!"

"You are sorry for them, I suppose?"

Maria Dmitrievna made no reply.

"Why doesn't Gedeonovsky come?" continued Marfa Timofeevna, rapidly plying her knitting needles. (She was making a long worsted scarf.) "He would have sighed with you. Perhaps he would have uttered some plat.i.tude or other."

"How unkindly you always speak of him! Sergius Petrovich is--a most respectable man."

"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.

"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."

"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."[A]

[Footnote A: _Popovich_, or son of a pope; a not over respectful designation in Russia.]

"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit--he cannot speak French--but I beg leave to say that I think him exceedingly agreeable."

"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French, that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect'

myself. It would be better if he spoke no language at all; he wouldn't tell lies then. But of course, here he is, in the very nick of time,"