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 a nature 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 belongs. It is still, in his
opinion, an epoch “of transition.” He deplores the lack of union, the
want of solidarity, in the men who in Russia hold this weapon,--the
pen; and who might, by concentrating their efforts, triumph over so
many obstacles against which, in their isolation, they run a-muck and
bruise themselves. “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.
“I am sorry for Tchernuishevsky’s dryness, his tendency to crudeness,
his unceremonious treatment 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 Nekrásof, he goes so far
as no longer to recognize any talent in him, so shocked, so disgusted,
is he by his intentional brutalities. His verses “leave behind them
an after-taste which makes me nauseated.” “What a son of a dog!” he
says in another place. “He is a vulture, ravening and gorging.” But
Nekrásof[42] 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 St. ----, addressing these young people,
tells them that they are right in placing Nekrásof above Pushkin and
Lermontof,[43] and tells them so with an imperturbable smile, I find it
hard to restrain my indignation, and I repeat the lines of Schiller:--
“‘I have seen splendid crowns of glory woven for most common brows.’”
His early sympathy for the novelist Dostoyevsky[44] was soon changed
to dislike, owing to their differences of opinion. The sharp features
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 tendency of which is sometimes to put a check
upon his own. He was not sparing of admiration for the “Recollections
of a Dead House.” “The picture of the _banya_ (bath) is really worthy
of Dante. In the character of the various 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 extravagant, 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 horrible,--Turgénief does not hide his disgust, his
scorn. “God, what a sour smell! What a vile hospital odor! What idle
scandal! What a psychological mole-hole!”[45]
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 _nom 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 features 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 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 Tolstoï.
From the moment when Tolstoï’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 fashion: “When this young
wine shall have finished 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 moment, movements of vexation. The admiration which he was
the first to arouse in Tolstoï’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 Karénina.” “Tolstoï this time has taken the wrong track;
and that is due to the influence of Moscow, 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 generous crusade, which, from the year 1878,
Turgénief undertakes for the sake of popularizing Tolstoï in France,
and of building him a pedestal 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 seemed to him to give the
highest idea of Tolstoï’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 enlighten 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 Tolstoï. 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 departing, 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 contemporaneous realistic school, and he judges it
favorably, especially at its first beginning. He does more than enjoy
the Goncourts and Zolas. He makes arrangements for them with the
directors of Russian journals or reviews; he endeavors to have one or
two thousands of francs more paid for their manuscripts, by giving them
to be translated into Russian before they are published 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 amusing 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, Stasulevitch,
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 Yevropui_) seems in Zola’s eyes like the fabulous
hen with the golden eggs, which he must guard like the apple of his
eye.”
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 translated 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 endeavored, 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 a demonstration 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 intervention on his
part gave rise. His enemies affected 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
in verse he never rose above mediocrity. He knew it, and he criticised
this part of his work very severely. The quality of his verses is
explained better when it is seen how narrowly and unfairly he judges
_La Légende des Siècles_. 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.[46]
He is, however, more just towards Swinburne, 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,--Shchedrin, for example. He it was who caused
the scales to fall from Turgénief’s eyes, and revealed for him what
he himself felt somewhat 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 _Akh!_ 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 inventing 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 son of
Noah, I turn away my eyes, and hide the nakedness of my grandam.”
He had recovered from his boyish enthusiasm for the work of the
illustrious novelist, “I 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
substituted, 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
presence of an infinitely generous and benevolent nature, in which all
the egotism had been 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 aureole, something sublime, free, heroic. Believe 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, is it not allowed us to
find many of his own?