Pavel Bazarov

“ But why do you abuse others, those reformers even? Don't you do as much talking as every one else?'
'Whatever faults we have, we do not err in that way,' Bazarov muttered between his teeth.
'What, then? Do you act, or what? Are you preparing for action?'
Bazarov made no answer. Something like a tremor passed over Pavel Petrovitch, but he at once regained control of himself.
'Hm! ... Action, destruction ...' he went on. 'But how destroy without even knowing why?'
'We shall destroy, because we are a force,' observed Arkady. ”

“ How pleased that worthy imbecile would have been if he had heard you!'
'What did you call Pavel Petrovitch?'
'I called him, very justly, an imbecile.'
'But this is unbearable!' cried Arkady.
'Aha! family feeling spoke there,' Bazarov commented coolly. 'I've noticed how obstinately it sticks to people. A man's ready to give up everything and break with every prejudice; but to admit that his brother, for instance, who steals handkerchiefs, is a thief—that's too much for him. ”

“ That last phrase obviously displeased Bazarov; it smacked of philosophy, or romanticism, for Bazarov called philosophy a kind of romanticism--but he did not judge it necessary to correct his young disciple.
"No, no!" cried Pavel Petrovich with sudden vehemence. "I can't believe that you young men really know the Russian people, that you represent their needs and aspirations! No, the Russian people are not what you imagine them to be. They hold tradition sacred, they are a patriarchal people, they cannot live without faith . ”

“ We cannot endure one another. What more is necessary?"
"What more is necessary?" repeated Bazarov ironically. "As regards the conditions of the duel itself, since we shall have no seconds--for where could we get them?"
"Exactly, where could we get any?"
"I therefore have the honor to put the following proposals to you; we shall fight early tomorrow morning, at six, let us say, behind the plantation, with pistols, at a distance of ten paces . . ."
"At ten paces? That will do; we can still hate each other at that distance."
"We could make it eight," remarked Pavel Petrovich. ”

“ The duel, if you are willing, shall not be renewed. You have behaved honourably ... to-day, to-day—observe.'
'There's no need to recall the past,' rejoined Bazarov; 'and as regards the future, it's not worth while for you to trouble your head about that either, for I intend being off without delay. Let me bind up your leg now; your wound's not serious, but it's always best to stop bleeding. But first I must bring this corpse to his senses.'
Bazarov shook Piotr by the collar, and sent him for a droshky.
'Mind you don't frighten my brother,' Pavel Petrovitch said to him ”

“ Good. Move away, my good fellow, move away; you may get behind a tree even, and stop up your ears, only don't shut your eyes; and if any one falls, run and pick him up. Six ... seven ... eight....' Bazarov stopped. 'Is that enough?' he said, turning to Pavel Petrovitch; 'or shall I add two paces more?'
'As you like,' replied the latter, pressing down the second bullet.
'Well, we'll make it two paces more.' Bazarov drew a line on the ground with the toe of his boot. 'There's the barrier then. By the way, how many paces may each of us go back from the barrier? That's an important question too. ”

“ Bazarov is clever, and knows his subject.'
'And his conceit's something revolting,' Pavel Petrovitch broke in again.
'Yes,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch, 'he is conceited. But there's no doing without that, it seems; only that's what I did not take into account. I thought I was doing everything to keep up with the times; I have started a model farm; I have done well by the peasants, so that I am positively called a "Red Radical" all over the province; I read, I study, I try in every way to keep abreast with the requirements of the day—and they say my day's over. ”

“ Bazarov remarked coolly. "That is entirely correct. You have no need to insult me; indeed it would not be quite safe . . . you can remain a gentleman . . . I accept your challenge also like a gentleman."
"Excellent," observed Pavel Petrovich, and put his stick down in the corner. "We will say a few words now about the conditions of our duel ”

“ Personal character, my good sir, that is the chief thing; a man's personality must be as strong as a rock since everything else is built up on it. I am well aware, for instance, that you choose to consider my habits, my dress, even my tidiness, ridiculous; but all this comes from a sense of self-respect and of duty--yes, from a sense of duty. I live in the wilds of the country, but I refuse to lower myself. I respect the dignity of man in myself."
"Let me ask you, Pavel Petrovich," muttered Bazarov, "you respect yourself and you sit with folded hands ”

“ An aristocrat by training, he was saved as Tolstoi was from sterilising his imaginative and dramatic powers by any sense of caste and privilege. He loved the play of human nature, knew how to reckon with its foibles, its pride, habitual prejudices, and all tragic and comic susceptibilities. So he drew Bazarov, as a protagonist of the revolt against the old order and the protective habit of age. When Bazarov enters the house of Arkady's father, he is like Don Quixote entering the inn of his direst probation. ”

“ It is known that he found not only an unusually appropriate nickname for this negation, but a nickname which later became attached to a certain group of phenomena and types and as such was accepted not only by Russia alone but by the whole of Europe. The artist created in the image of Bazarov an exceedingly characteristic representative of the new formation of life, of the new movement, and christened it with a wonderfully fitting word, which made so much noise, which called forth so much condemnation and praise, sympathy and hatred, timid alarm and bold raving. ”

“ It is Bazarov’s life to despise honours, success, opinion, and to let nothing, not love itself, come between him and his inevitable course, and, when death comes, to turn his face to the wall, while in the street below he can hear the voices of men cheering the popular hero who has last arrived. ”

“ In the prominent representative of the 'children,' Bazarov, he recognized a certain moral force, the energy of character, which favourably contrasts this strong type of realist with the puny, characterless, weak-willed type of the former generation; but having recognised the positive side of the young type, he could not but show up their shortcomings to life and before the people, and thus take their laurels from them. ”

“ The antipathy between Pavel Petrovitch and Bazaroff became more pronounced as the days went by. There were several passages of arms between them--the one taking the old-fashioned view of life, the other dismissing contemptuously his outlook as unprogressive. For himself, Nikolai Petrovitch was too delighted at having his son with him to feel any concern about Bazaroff. ”

“ Bazarov is the incarnation of the Lucifer type that recurs again and again in Russian history and fiction, in sharp contrast to the meek humble type of Ivan Durak. Lermontov’s Pechorin was in some respects an anticipation of Bazarov; so were the many [Pg 172] Russian rebels. He is the man who denies, to whom art is a silly toy, who detests abstractions, knowledge, and the love of Nature; he believes in nothing; he bows to nothing; he can break, but he cannot bend ”

“ He is simply obliterated by chance, as an insect perishes under the foot of a passing traveller, who is entirely unaware that he has taken an individual life.
Nature herself could hardly be colder or more passive than the woman with whom it was Bazarov's bad luck to fall in love. ”

“ You fancy yourselves advanced people, and all the while you are only fit for the Kalmuck's hovel! Force! And recollect, you forcible gentlemen, that you're only four men and a half, and the others are millions, who won't let you trample their sacred traditions under foot, who will crush you and walk over you!'
'If we're crushed, serve us right,' observed Bazarov. 'But that's an open question. We are not so few as you suppose.'
'What? You seriously suppose you will come to terms with a whole people?'
'All Moscow was burnt down, you know, by a farthing dip,' answered Bazarov. ”

“ The crude materialism of the ’sixties was not the basis of the scientific spirit, it was merely its passing expression; and the early Nihilists who denounced Art, the Family and Social Institutions were simply freeing themselves from traditions preparatory to a struggle that was inevitable. Again, though Bazarov is a Democrat, perhaps his kinship with the people is best proved by the contempt he feels for them. He stands forward essentially as an Individual, with the “isms” that can aid him, mere tools in his hand ”

“ The one real conviction of Turgenev's life was pessimism,--the belief that the man of the noblest aspiration and the man of the most brutish character are treated by Nature with equal indifference. Bazarov is the strongest individual that the novelist could conceive; and it is safe to say that most of us live all our lives through without meeting his equal. ”

“ The reason why I am unhappy is that I have no wish, no enthusiasm, to live. I daresay you will not believe me, and will think that a mere 'petty aristocrat,' a person who is lapped in lace and seated in an armchair, is saying all this (and I will not conceal from you that I love what you call 'the comforts of life') : yet all the while I feel as though I had no desire to continue my existence. Pray reconcile that contradiction if you can. But perhaps you consider what I say 'Romanticism'?"
Bazarov shook his head.
"You are yet young," he said. "Also, you are rich and independent. ”

“ Herzen refuses to accept Pisarev's interpretation of Bazarov. He complains that Bazarov leaves nothing in repose, and contemplates everything in Russia from above, complaining in especial that Bazarov failed to understand the decabrists and their significance.
"Science would bring salvation to Bazarov; he would cease to look down upon people from above in profound and unconcealed contempt. Science, even more than the New Testament, teaches us humility. Science cannot look down on anything from above, for to science this expression "from above" has no meaning. ”

“ Yes, heroic, as Turgenev, in indignation with Bazarov’s shallow accusers, was betrayed into defining his own creation, Bazarov, whose very atmosphere is difficulty and danger, who cannot move without hostility carrying as he does destruction to the old worn-out truths, contemptuous of censure, still more contemptuous of praise, he goes his way against wind and tide. Brave man, given up to his cause, whatever it be, it is his joy to stand alone, watching the crowd as it races wherever reward is and danger is not. ”

“ Hew your way vigorously, for you can do no harm." In Pisarev's view there are no great men. As a materialist, his outlook upon the historical evolutionary process is decisively determinist, and he explains great men as the sport of circumstance. He does not recognise that he has a false conception of determinism and of the historical process.
Pisarev approves Turgenev's Bazarov, and would make Bazarov his model. In his essay on Bazarov, he compares with that character Pečorin and Rudin, Bazarov's predecessors in the imaginary world of literature, and comes to the following conclusion. ”

“ His creator, whose first and last words to young writers was, "You need truth, remorseless truth, as regards your own sensations," was driven to confess that he shared all Bazarov's convictions except those on Art. He stands at the dividing-line between the religion of the Past which is Faith and that of the future which is Science. His savage egoism is necessary if he is to break away from all the old laws and customs that men held sacred. ”

“ It is possible that Turgenev, who keenly realised the need in Russia of men of strong will, and who always despised himself because he could not have steadily strong convictions, tried to incarnate in Bazarov all the uncompromising strength of character that he lacked himself; just as men who themselves lack self-assertion and cannot even look another man in the eye, secretly idolise the men of masterful qualities. ”

“ But the sage only answered, 'Who's to know—miles hereabout aren't measured,' and went on swearing in an undertone at the shaft horse for 'kicking with her head-piece,' that is, shaking with her head down.
'Yes, yes,' began Bazarov; 'it's a lesson to you, my young friend, an instructive example. God knows, what rot it is? Every man hangs on a thread, the abyss may open under his feet any minute, and yet he must go and invent all sorts of discomforts for himself, and spoil his life.'
'What are you alluding to?' asked Arkady. ”

“ The average man is too afraid of Bazarov to come into contact with him. Again, the Bazarovs, as Iconoclasts, are always unpopular in their own circles. Yesterday in political life they were suppressed or exiled, and even in Science they were the men who were supplanted before their real claim was recognized, and to-day, when order reigns for a time, the academic circles and the popular critics will demonstrate that Bazarov’s existence was a mistake, and the crowd could have got on much better without him. ”

“ I and my people are obscure folk."
"Whereas I, you imagine, am an aristocrat?"
Bazarov looked up.
"Yes," he replied with emphasis.
She smiled.
"Then I can see that your knowledge of me is small," she remarked. "But of course—you believe all human beings to be identical, and therefore not worth the trouble of studying. Some day I will tell you my history. But first tell me yours."
"You say that my knowledge of you is small?" queried Bazarov. "You may be right. Possibly every human being is an enigma. Let us take an example of that. ”