Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

“ I could not help continually glancing at the gloomy portrait of Madame Eltsov. Vera Nikolaevna was sitting just under it; it is her favourite place. Imagine my amazement: Vera Nikolaevna has never yet read a single novel, a single poem—in fact, not a single invented work, as she expresses it! This incomprehensible indifference to the highest pleasures of the intellect irritated me. In a woman of intelligence, and as far as I can judge, of sensibility, it’s simply unpardonable. ”

“ I remember, when I was left alone, I was absorbed in wondering how it was Harlov had not pounded Sletkin ‘into a jelly,’ as he said, and how it was Sletkin had not been afraid of such a fate. It was clear Martin Petrovitch really had grown ‘meek,’ I thought, and I had a still stronger desire to make my way into Eskovo, and get at least a glance at that colossus, whom I could never picture to myself subdued and tractable. I had reached the edge of the copse, when suddenly a big snipe, with a great rush of wings, darted up at my very feet, and flew off into the depths of the wood. ”

“ An instant later and haughtiness has regained its sway over the physiognomy, varied at times by a look of dull blankness. Yes, I avoided Russians; but I liked Gagin at once. There are faces in the world of that happy sort; every one is glad to look at them, as though they warmed or soothed one in some way. Gagin had just such a face—sweet and kind, with large soft eyes and soft curly hair. ”

“ Even supposing the roof to be, as Kvitsinsky had said, a poor affair, even so, it was something incredible! On the floor of the garret, in a whirl of dust and rubbish, a blackish grey mass was moving to and fro with rapid ungainly action, at one moment shaking the remaining chimney, built of brick, (the other had fallen already) then tearing up the boarding and flinging it down below, then clutching at the very rafters. It was Harlov. ”

“ Through Turgenev’s single glimpse at their fortunes one knows the whole intervening fifteen years; he has carried us into a new world: yet it is the old world; one needs to know no more. It is life arbitrary but inevitable, life so clarified by art that it is absolutely interpreted; but life with all the sense of mystery that nature breathes around it in its ceaseless growth. ”

“ ACIA I
At that time I was five-and-twenty, began N. N.,—it was in days long past, as you perceive. I had only just gained my freedom and gone abroad, not to ‘finish my education,’ as the phrase was in those days; I simply wanted to have a look at God’s world. I was young, and in good health and spirits, and had plenty of money. Troubles had not yet had time to gather about me. I existed without thought, did as I liked, lived like the lilies of the field, in fact. It never occurred to me in those days that man is not a plant, and cannot go on living like one for long. ”

“ Yesterday I felt disposed for a walk before dinner—only not in the garden; I walked along the road towards the town. Walking rapidly, quite aimlessly, along a straight, long road is very pleasant. You feel as if you’re doing something, hurrying somewhere. I look up; a coach is coming towards me. Surely not some one to see me, I wondered with secret terror.... No: there was a gentleman with moustaches in the carriage, a stranger to me. ”

“ Almost the most vivid impression, that has remained in my memory of that far-off time, is the figure of our nearest neighbour, Martin Petrovitch Harlov. Indeed it would be difficult for such an impression to be obliterated: I never in my life afterwards met anything in the least like Harlov. Picture to yourselves a man of gigantic stature. On his huge carcase was set, a little askew, and without the least trace of a neck, a prodigious head. A perfect haystack of tangled yellowish-grey hair stood up all over it, growing almost down to the bushy eyebrows. ”

“ I thought of Vera, and my heart failed me; all, at which I had so rejoiced, struck me, as it ought to have done, as unhappiness, as hopeless ruin. The feeling of apprehension grew and grew; I could not lie still any longer; I [218] suddenly fancied again that some one was calling me in a voice of entreaty.... I raised my head and shuddered; I had not been mistaken; a pitiful cry floated out of the distance and rang faintly resounding on the dark window-panes. I was frightened; I jumped off the bed; I opened the window. A distinct moan broke into the room and, as it were, hovered about me. ”

“ But who does not perceive that Turgenev looks at and presents the figure of this man in a manner totally different from the way any clever novelist of the second rank would look at and use him? Kvitsinsky, in Turgenev’s hands, is an individual with all the individual’s mystery in his glance, his coming and going, his way of taking things; but he is a part of the household’s breath, of its very existence; he breathes the atmosphere naturally and creates an atmosphere of his own. ”

“ Natalia Nikolaevna!’ he began, in a strained voice,—and again I was struck by the uneasy straying of his eyes; ‘I will tell you the truth; I am myself most of all to blame.’
‘Ay, to be sure; you would not listen to me at the time,’ assented my mother, sinking into an arm-chair and slightly moving a scented handkerchief before her nose; very strong was the smell that came from Harlov ... the odour in a forest bog is not so strong. ”

“ Zhitkov had a long face, like a horse’s; it was all overgrown with hair of a dusty whitish colour; his cheeks were covered with it right up to the eyes; and even in the severest frosts, it was sprinkled with an abundant sweat, like drops of dew. ”

“ No; but I thought that in her great kindness——’
‘You should apply to Martin Petrovitch.’
‘To Martin Petrovitch?’ Sletkin repeated, dwelling on each syllable. ‘To him I’m no better than a worthless page, like Maximka. He keeps a tight hand on us, that he does, and you get nothing from him for all your toil.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, by God. He’ll say, “My word’s sacred!”—and there, it’s as though he’s chopped it off with an axe. You may beg or not, it’s all one. Besides, Anna Martinovna, my wife, is not in such favour with him as Evlampia Martinovna. ”

“ I repeated a hundred times over that I loved her. I vowed I would never part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hold her cold hand again, to hear again her soft voice, to see her again before me.... She had been so near, she had come to me, her mind perfectly made up, in perfect innocence of heart and feelings, she had offered me her unsullied youth ... and I had not folded her to my breast, I had robbed [309] myself of the bliss of watching her sweet face blossom with delight and the peace of rapture.... ”

“ The little town of Z. lies a mile and a half from the Rhine. I used often to walk to look at the majestic river, and would spend long hours on a stone-seat under a huge solitary ash-tree, musing, not without some mental effort, on the faithless widow. A little statue of a Madonna, with an almost childish face and a red heart, pierced with swords, on her bosom, peeped mournfully out of the branches of the ash-tree. ”

“ Oh! fancy, the next day, as I was walking in the garden by the arbour, I suddenly heard a pleasing, musical, woman’s voice singing—‘Freut euch des Lebens!...’ I glanced into the arbour: it was Vera. ‘Bravo!’ I cried; ‘I didn’t know you had such a splendid voice.’ She was rather abashed, and did not speak. Joking apart, she has a fine, strong soprano. [199] And I do believe she has never even suspected that she has a good voice. What treasures of untouched wealth lie hid in her! She does not know herself. But am I not right in saying such a woman is a rarity in our time? ”

“ In truth, Turgenev’s art at its highest may well be the despair of artists who have sufficient insight to understand wherein he excels. He is rich in all the gifts, so he penetrates into everything; but it is the perfect harmony existing between his gifts that makes him see everything in proportion. Thus he never caricatures; he is never too forcible, and never too clever. He is a great realist, and his realism carries along with it the natural breath of poetry. ”

“ In the middle of October, three weeks after my interview with Martin Petrovitch, I was standing at the window of my own room in the second storey of our house, and thinking of nothing at all, I looked disconsolately into the yard and the road that lay beyond it. The weather had been disgusting for the last five days. Shooting was not even to be thought of. All things living had hidden themselves; even the sparrows made no sound, and the rooks had long ago disappeared from sight. ”

“ I have no talent for anything; I must be a very dull person to be with.’
‘You’re unjust to yourself,’ I replied; ‘you’ve read a lot, you’re cultivated, and with your cleverness—’
‘Why, am I clever?’ she asked with such naïve interest, that I could not help laughing; but she did not even smile. ‘Brother, am I clever?’ she asked Gagin.
He made her no answer, but went on working, continually changing brushes and raising his arm.
‘I don’t know myself what is in my head,’ Acia continued, with the same dreamy air. ‘I am sometimes afraid of myself, really. ”

“ An examination of A Lear of the Steppes is of especial interest to authors, as the story is so exquisite in its structure, so overwhelming in its effects, that it exposes the artificiality of the great majority of the clever works of art in fiction. A Lear of the Steppes is great in art because it is a living organic whole, springing from the deep roots of life itself; and the innumerable works of art that are fabricated and pasted together from an ingenious plan—works that do not grow from the inevitability of things—appear at once insignificant or false in comparison. ”

“ Harlov looked askance at Souvenir. Till that instant he seemed not to have noticed his presence, and only my exclamation aroused his attention.
‘Look out, brother,’ he growled huskily, ‘don’t dance yourself into trouble.’
Souvenir fairly rolled about with laughter. ‘Ah, how you frighten me, most honoured brother. You’re a formidable person, to be sure. You must comb your hair, at any rate, or, God forbid, it’ll get dry, and you’ll never wash it clean again; you’ll have to mow it with a sickle.’ Souvenir all of a sudden got into a fury. ‘And you give yourself airs still. ”

“ I will tear the roof off them, and they shall have no roof over their heads, like me. They shall learn to know Martin Harlov. My strength is not all gone yet; they shall learn to laugh at me!... They shall have no roof over their heads!’
I was stupefied; never in my life had I witnessed such boundless anger. Not a man—a wild beast—paced to and fro before me. I was stupefied ... as for Souvenir, he had hidden under the table in his fright.
‘They shall not!’ Harlov shouted for the last time, and almost knocking over the butler and the wardroom maid, he rushed away out of the house.... ”

“ Can death spare any one whatever in this world?’
‘What have you got in your head, my good friend? Who of us is immortal? For all you’re born a giant, even to you there’ll be an end in time.’
‘There will! oh, there will!’ Harlov assented and he looked downcast. ”

“ Come down.’
‘What do you mean by disposing of what’s ours?’ put in Sletkin. Evlampia merely scowled more angrily.
‘I give you back my share. I give up everything. Give over, come down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.’
Harlov still went on smiling. ‘It’s too late, my darling,’ he said, and each of his words rang out like brass. ‘Too late your stony heart is touched! The rock’s started rolling downhill—there’s no holding it back now! And don’t look to me now; I’m a doomed man! You’d do better to look to your Volodka; see what a pretty fellow you’ve picked out! ”

“ Souvenir had gone back in one of the carts that had come with Kvitsinsky. Young and frivolous as I was at that time, the sudden sweeping change (not in mere details only) that is invariably called forth in all hearts by the coming of death—expected or unexpected, it makes no difference!—its majesty, its gravity, and its truthfulness could not fail to impress me. I was impressed too, ... but for all that, my troubled, childish eyes noted many things at once; they noted how Sletkin, hurriedly and furtively, as though it were something stolen, popped the gun out of sight ”

“ And the story goes on flowing easily and naturally till the people of the neighbourhood, the peasants, the woods and fields around, are known by us as intimately as is any neighbourhood in life. Suddenly a break—the tragedy is upon us. Suddenly the terrific forces that underlie human life, even the meanest of human lives, burst on us astonished and breathless, precisely as a tragedy comes up to the surface and bursts on us in real life: everybody runs about dazed, annoyed, futile ”

“ You seem to be discovering new worlds. She never goes into ecstasies over anything; anything boisterous is distasteful to her; she is softly radiant all over when she likes anything, and her face wears such a noble and good—yes, good expression. From her earliest childhood Vera has not known what deceit was; she is accustomed to truth, it is the breath of her being, and so in poetry too, only what is true strikes her as natural ”