than of art. Even apart from its unfinished shape, it is characterised
by that formlessness so distinctive of the great Russian novelists the
sole exception being Turgenev. The story is so full of disgressions,
of remarks in mock apology addressed to the reader, of comparisons of
the Russian people with other nations, of general disquisitions on
realism, of glowing soliloquies in various moods, that the whole thing
is a kind of colossal note-book. Gogol poured into it all his
observations, reflections, and comments on life. It is not only a
picture of Russia, it is a spiritual autobiography. It is without
form, but not void. Gogol called his work a poem; and he could not
have found a less happy name. Despite lyrical interludes, it is as far
removed from the nature and form of Poetry as it is from Drama. It is
a succession of pictures of life, given with the utmost detail, having
no connection with each other, and absolutely no crescendo, no
movement, no approach to a climax. The only thread that holds the work
together is the person of the travelling promoter, Chichikov, whose
visits to various communities give the author the opportunity he
desired. After one has grasped the plan of the book, the purpose of
Chichikov's mission, which one can do in two minutes, one may read the
chapters in any haphazard order. Fortunately they are all interesting
in their photographic reality.
The whole thing is conceived in the spirit of humour, and its author
must be ranked among the great humorists of all time. There is an
absurdity about the mission of the chief character, which gives rise
to all sorts of ludicrous situations. It takes time for each
serf-owner to comprehend Chichikov's object, and he is naturally
regarded with suspicion. In one community it is whispered that he is
Napoleon, escaped from St. Helena, and travelling in disguise. An old
woman with whom he deals has an avaricious cunning worthy of a Norman
peasant. The dialogue between the two is a masterly commentary on the
root of all evil. But although all Russia is reflected in a comic
mirror, which by its very distortion emphasises the defects of each
character, Gogol was not primarily trying to write a funny book. The
various scenes at dinner parties and at the country inns are
laughable; but Gogol's laughter, like that of most great humorists, is
a compound of irony, satire, pathos, tenderness, and moral
indignation. The general wretchedness of the serfs, the indifference
of their owners to their condition, the pettiness and utter meanness
of village gossip, the ridiculous affectations of small-town society,
the universal ignorance, stupidity, and dulness--all these are
remorselessly revealed in the various bargains made by the hero. And
what a hero! A man neither utterly bad nor very good; shrewd rather
than intelligent; limited in every way. He is a Russian, but a
universal type. No one can travel far in America without meeting
scores of Chichikovs: indeed, he is an accurate portrait of the
American promoter, of the successful commercial traveller, whose
success depends entirely not on the real value and usefulness of his
stock-in-trade, but on his knowledge of human nature and the
persuasive power of his tongue. Chichikov is all things to all men.
Not content with the constant interpolation of side remarks and
comments, queries of a politely ironical nature to the reader, in the
regular approved fashion of English novels, Gogol added after the
tenth chapter a defiant epilogue, in which he explained his reasons
for dealing with fact rather than with fancy, of ordinary people
rather than with heroes, of commonplace events rather than with
melodrama; and then suddenly he tried to jar the reader out of his
self-satisfaction, like Balzac in "Pere Goriot."
"Pleased with yourselves more than ever, you will smile slowly, and
then say with grave deliberation: 'It is true that in some of our
provinces one meets very strange people, people absolutely ridiculous,
and sometimes scoundrels too!'
"Ah, but who among you, serious readers, I address myself to those who
have the humility of the true Christian, who among you, being alone,
in the silence of the evening, at the time when one communes with
oneself, will look into the depths of his soul to ask in all sincerity
this question? 'Might there not be in me something of Chichikov?'"
This whole epilogue is a programme--the programme of the
self-conscious founder of Russian Realism. It came from a man who had
deliberately turned his back on Romanticism, even on the romanticism
of his friend and teacher, Pushkin, and who had decided to venture all
alone on a new and untried path in Russian literature. He fully
realised the difficulties of his task, and the opposition he was bound
to encounter. He asks and answers the two familiar questions
invariably put to the native realist. The first is, "I have enough
trouble in my own life: I see enough misery and stupidity in the
world: what is the use of reading about it in novels?" The second is,
"Why should a man who loves his country uncover her nakedness?"
Gogol's realism differs in two important aspects from the realism of
the French school, whether represented by Balzac, Flaubert, Guy de
Maupassant, or Zola. He had all the French love of veracity, and could
have honestly said with the author of "Une Vie" that he painted
'humble verite. But there are two ground qualities in his realistic
method absent in the four Frenchmen: humour and moral force. Gogol
could not repress the fun that is so essential an element in human
life, any more than he could stop the beating of his heart; he saw men
and women with the eyes of a natural born humorist, to whom the utter
absurdity of humanity and human relations was enormously salient. And
he could not help preaching, because he had boundless sympathy with
the weakness and suffering of his fellow-creatures, and because he
believed with all the tremendous force of his character in the
Christian religion. His main endeavour was to sharpen the sight of his
readers, whether they looked without or within; for not even the
greatest physician can remedy an evil, unless he knows what the evil
is.
Gogol is the great pioneer in Russian fiction. He had the essential
temperament of all great pioneers, whether their goal is material or
spiritual. He had vital energy, resolute courage, clear vision, and an
abiding faith that he was travelling in the right direction. Such a
man will have followers even greater than he, and he rightly shares in
their glory. He was surpassed by Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi,
but had he lived, he would have rejoiced in their superior art, just
as every great teacher delights in being outstripped by his pupils. He
is the real leader of the giant three, and they made of his lonely
path a magnificent highway for human thought. They all used him
freely: Tolstoi could hardly have written "The Cossacks" without the
inspiration of Gogol, Turgenev must have taken the most beautiful
chapter in "Virgin Soil" directly from "Old-fashioned Farmers," and
Dostoevski's first book, "Poor Folk," is in many places almost a
slavish imitation of "The Cloak"--and he freely acknowledged the debt
in the course of his story. The uncompromising attitude toward
fidelity in Art which Gogol emphasised in "The Portrait" set the
standard for every Russian writer who has attained prominence since
his day. No one can read Chekhov and Andreev without being conscious
of the hovering spirit of the first master of Russian fiction. He
could truthfully have adapted the words of Joseph Hall:--
I first adventure: follow me who list,
And be the second Russian Realist.
III
TURGENEV
Turgenev was born on the 28 October 1818, at Orel, in south central
Russia, about half-way between Moscow and Kiev. Thus, although the
temperament of Turgenev was entirely different from that of Gogol, he
was born not far from the latter's beloved Ukraine. He came honestly
by the patrician quality that unconsciously animated all his books,
for his family was both ancient and noble. His mother was wealthy, and
in 1817 was married to a handsome, unprincipled military officer six
years younger than herself. Their life together was an excellent
example of the exact opposite of domestic bliss, and in treating the
boy like a culprit, they transformed him--as always happens in similar
cases--into a severe judge of their own conduct. The father's
unbridled sensuality and the mother's unbridled tongue gave a
succession of moving pictures of family discord to the inquisitive
eyes of the future novelist. His childhood was anything but cheerful,
and late in life he said he could distinctly remember the salt taste
of the frequent tears that trickled into the corners of his mouth.
Fortunately for all concerned, the father died while Turgenev was a
boy, leaving him with only one--even if the more formidable--of his
parents to contend with. His mother despised writers, especially those
who wrote in Russian; she insisted that Ivan should make an
advantageous marriage, and "have a career"; but the boy was determined
never to marry, and he had not the slightest ambition for government
favours. The two utterly failed to understand each other, and, weary
of his mother's capricious violence of temper, he became completely
estranged. Years later, in her last illness, Turgenev made repeated
attempts to see her, all of which she angrily repulsed. He endeavoured
to see her at the very last, but she died before his arrival. He was
then informed that on the evening of her death she had given orders to
have an orchestra play dance-music in an adjoining chamber, to
distract her mind during the final agony. And her last thought was an
attempt to ruin Ivan and his brother by leaving orders to have
everything sold at a wretched price, and to set fire to other parts of
the property. His comment on his dead mother was "Enfin, il faut
oublier."
It is significant that Turgenev has nowhere in all his novels
portrayed a mother who combined intelligence with goodness.
French, German, and English Turgenev learned as a child, first from
governesses, and then from regular foreign tutors. The language of his
own country, of which he was to become the greatest master that has
ever lived, he was forced to learn from the house-servants. His father
and mother conversed only in French; his mother even prayed in French.
Later, he studied at the Universities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and
Berlin. At Berlin he breathed for the first time the free air of
intellectual Europe, and he was never able long to live out of that
element again. One of his closest comrades at the University was
Bakunin, a hot-headed young Radical, who subsequently became a
Nihilist agitator. There is no doubt that his fiery harangues gave
Turgenev much material for his later novels. It is characteristic,
too, that while his student friends went wild at the theatre over
Schiller, Turgenev immensely preferred Goethe, and could practically
repeat the whole first part of "Faust" by heart. Turgenev, like
Goethe, was a natural aristocrat in his manner and in his literary
taste--and had the same dislike for extremists of all kinds. With the
exception of Turgenev's quiet but profound pessimism, his temperament
was very similar to that of the great German--such a man will surely
incur the hatred of the true Reformer type.
Turgenev was one of the best educated among modern men-of-letters; his
knowledge was not superficial and fragmentary, it was solid and
accurate. Of all modern novelists, he is the best exponent of genuine
culture.
Turgenev often ridiculed in his novels the Russian Anglo-maniac; but
in one respect he was more English than the English themselves. This
is seen in his passion for shooting. Nearly all of his trips to
Britain were made solely for this purpose, and most of the
distinguished Englishmen that he met, like Tennyson, he met while
visiting England for grouse. Shooting, to be sure, is common enough in
Russia; it appears in Artsybashev's "Sanin," and there was a time when
Tolstoi was devoted to this sport, though it later appeared on his
long blacklist. But Turgenev had the passion for it characteristic
only of the English race; and it is interesting to observe that this
humane and peace-loving man entered literature with a gun in his hand.
It was on his various shooting excursions in Russia that he obtained
so intimate a knowledge of the peasants and of peasant life; and his
first important book, "A Sportsman's Sketches," revealed to the world
two things: the dawn of a new literary genius, and the wretched
condition of the serfs. This book has often been called the "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" of Russia; no title could be more absurd. In the whole
range of literary history, it would be difficult to find two
personalities more unlike than that of Turgenev and Mrs. Stowe. The
great Russian utterly lacked the temperament of the advocate; but his
innate truthfulness, his wonderful art, and his very calmness made the
picture of woe all the more clear. There is no doubt that the book
became, without its author's intention, a social document; there is no
doubt that Turgenev, a sympathetic and highly civilised man, hated
slavery, and that his picture of it helped in an indirect way to bring
about the emancipation of the serfs. But its chief value is artistic
rather than sociological. It is interesting that "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
and "A Sportsman's Sketches" should have appeared at about the same
time, and that emancipation in each country should have followed at
about the same interval; but the parallel is chronological rather than
logical.*
*There is an interesting and amusing reference to Harriet Beecher
Stowe in the fourth chapter of "Smoke."
The year of the publication of Turgenev's book (1852) saw the death of
Gogol: and the new author quite naturally wrote a public letter of
eulogy. In no other country would such a thing have excited anything
but favourable comment; in Russia it raised a storm; the
government--always jealous of anything that makes for Russia's real
greatness--became suspicious, and Turgenev was banished to his
estates. Like one of his own dogs, he was told to "go home." Home he
went, and continued to write books. Freedom was granted him a few
years later, and he left Russia never to return except as a visitor.
He lived first in Germany, and finally in Paris, one of the literary
lions of the literary capital of the world. There, on the 3 September
1883, he died. His body was taken to Russia, and with that cruel
perversity that makes us speak evil of men while they are alive and
sensitive, and good only when they are beyond the reach of our petty
praise and blame, friends and foes united in one shout of praise whose
echoes filled the whole world.
Turgenev, like Daniel Webster, looked the part. He was a great grey
giant, with the Russian winter in his hair and beard. His face in
repose had an expression of infinite refinement, infinite gentleness,
and infinite sorrow. When the little son of Alphonse Daudet saw
Turgenev and Flaubert come into the room, arm in arm, the boy cried
out, "Why, papa, they are giants!" George Moore said that at a ball in
Montmartre, he saw Turgenev come walking across the hall; he looked
like a giant striding among pigmies. Turgenev had that peculiar gentle
sweetness that so well accompanies great bodily size and strength. His
modesty was the genuine humility of a truly great man. He was always
surprised at the admiration his books received, and amazed when he
heard of their success in America. Innumerable anecdotes are told
illustrating the beauty of his character; the most recent to appear in
print is from the late Mr. Conway, who said that Turgenev was "a grand
man in every way, physically and mentally, intelligence and refinement
in every feature. . . I found him modest almost to shyness, and in his
conversation--he spoke English--never loud or doctrinaire. At the
Walter Scott centennial he was present,--the greatest man at the
celebration,--but did not make himself known. There was an excursion
to Abbotsford, and carriages were provided for guests. One in which I
was seated passed Turgenev on foot. I alighted and walked with him, at
every step impressed by his greatness and his simplicity."
We shall not know until the year 1920 how far Turgenev was influenced
by Madame Viardot, nor exactly what were his relations with this
extraordinary woman. Pauline Garcia was a great singer who made her
first appearance in Petersburg in 1843. Turgenev was charmed with her,
and they remained intimate friends until his death forty years later.
After this event, she published some of his letters. She died in Paris
in 1910, at the age of eighty-nine. It is reported that among her
papers is a complete manuscript novel by Turgenev, which he gave to
her some fifty years ago, on the distinct understanding that it should
not be published until ten years after her death. We must accordingly
wait for this book with what patience we can command. If this novel
really exists, it is surely a strange sensation to know that there is
a manuscript which, when published, is certain to be an addition to
the world's literature. It is infinitely more valuable on that account
than for any light it may throw on the relations between the two
individuals.
When Madame Viardot gave up the opera in 1864, and went to live at
Baden, Turgenev followed the family thither, lived in a little house
close to them, and saw them every day. He was on the most intimate
terms with her, with her husband, and with her daughters, whom he
loved devotedly. He was essentially a lonely man, and in this
household found the only real home he ever knew. It is reported that
he once said that he would gladly surrender all his literary fame if
he had a hearth of his own, where there was a woman who cared whether
he came home late or not. What direction the influence of Madame
Viardot on Turgenev took no one knows. Perhaps she simply supplied him
with music, which was one of the greatest passions and inspirations of
his life. This alone would be sufficient to account for their
intimacy. Perhaps she merely stimulated his literary activity, and
kept him at his desk; for, like all authors except Anthony Trollope,
he hated regular work. His definition of happiness is not only a
self-revelation, it will appeal to many humble individuals who are not
writers at all. Being asked for a definition of happiness, he gave it
in two words--"Remorseless Laziness."
It is one of the curious contradictions in human nature that Tolstoi,
so aggressive an apostle of Christianity, was himself so lacking in
the cardinal Christian virtues of meekness, humility, gentleness, and
admiration for others; and that Turgenev, who was without religious
belief of any kind, should have been so beautiful an example of the
real kindly tolerance and unselfish modesty that should accompany a
Christian faith. There is no better illustration in modern history of
the grand old name of gentleman.
His pessimism was the true Slavonic pessimism, quiet, profound, and
undemonstrative. I heard the late Professor Boyesen say that he had
never personally known any man who suffered like Turgenev from mere
Despair. His pessimism was temperamental, and he very early lost
everything that resembled a definite religious belief. Seated in a
garden, he was the solitary witness of a strife between a snake and a
toad; this made him first doubt God's Providence.
He was far more helpful to Russia, living in Paris, than he could have
been at home. Just as Ibsen found that he could best describe social
conditions in Norway from the distance of Munich or Rome, just as the
best time to describe a snowstorm is on a hot summer's day,--for
poets, as Mrs. Browning said, are always most present with the
distant,--so Turgenev's pictures of Russian character and life are
nearer to the truth than if he had penned them in the hurly-burly of
political excitement. Besides, it was through Turgenev that the
French, and later the whole Western world, became acquainted with
Russian literature; for a long time he was the only Russian novelist
well known outside of his country. It was also owing largely to his
personal efforts that Tolstoi's work first became known in France. He
distributed copies to the leading writers and men of influence, and
asked them to arouse the public. Turgenev had a veritable genius for
admiration; he had recognised the greatness of his younger rival
immediately, and without a twinge of jealousy. When he read
"Sevastopol," he shouted "Hurrah!" and drank the author's health.
Their subsequent friendship was broken by a bitter and melancholy
quarrel which lasted sixteen years. Then after Tolstoi had embraced
Christianity, he considered it his duty to write to Turgenev, and
suggest a renewal of their acquaintance. This was in 1878. Turgenev
replied immediately, saying that all hostile feelings on his part had
long since disappeared; that he remembered only his old friend, and
the great writer whom he had had the good fortune to salute before
others had discovered him. In the summer of that year they had a
friendly meeting in Russia, but Turgenev could not appreciate the
importance of Tolstoi's new religious views; and that very autumn
Tolstoi wrote to Fet, "He is a very disagreeable man." At the same
time Turgenev also wrote to Fet, expressing his great pleasure in the
renewal of the old friendship, and saying that Tolstoi's "name is
beginning to have a European reputation, and we others, we Russians,
have known for a long time that he has no rival among us." In 1880,
Turgenev returned to Russia to participate in the Pushkin celebration,
and was disappointed at Tolstoi's refusal to take part. The truth is,
that Tolstoi always hated Turgenev during the latter's lifetime, while
Turgenev always admired Tolstoi. On his death-bed, he wrote to him one
of the most unselfish and beautiful letters that one great man ever
sent to another.
"For a long time I have not written to you, because I was and I am on
my death-bed. I cannot get well, it is not even to be thought of. I
write to tell you how happy I am to have been your contemporary, and
to send you one last petition. My friend! resume your literary work!
It is your gift, which comes from whence comes everything else. Ah!
how happy I should be if I could only think that my words would have
some influence on you! . . . I can neither eat nor sleep. But it is
tiresome to talk about such things. My friend, great writer of our
Russian land, listen to my request. Let me know if you get this bit of
paper, and permit me once more to heartily embrace you and yours. I
can write no more. I am exhausted."
Tolstoi cannot be blamed for paying no heed to this earnest appeal,
because every man must follow his conscience, no matter whither it may
lead. He felt that he could not even reply to it, as he had grown so
far away from "literature" as he had previously understood it. But the
letter is a final illustration of the modesty and greatness of
Turgenev's spirit; also of his true Russian patriotism, his desire to
see his country advanced in the eyes of the world. When we reflect
that at the moment of his writing this letter, he himself was still
regarded in Europe as Russia's foremost author, there is true nobility
in his remark, "How happy I am to have been your contemporary!" Edwin
Booth said that a Christian was one who rejoiced in the superiority of
a rival. If this be true, how few are they that shall enter into the
kingdom of God.
After the death of Turgenev, Tolstoi realised his greatness as he had
never done before. He even consented to deliver a public address in
honour of the dead man. In order to prepare himself for this, he began
to re-read Turgenev's books, and wrote enthusiastically: "I am
constantly thinking of Turgenev and I love him passionately. I pity
him and I keep on reading him. I live all the time with him. . . . I
have just read "Enough." What an exquisite thing!"* The date was set
for the public address. Intense public excitement was aroused. Then
the government stepped in and prohibited it!