Fathers and Children

  IBY EMILE MELCHIOR, VICOMTE DE VOGUE

  Ivan Sergyevitch (Turgenev) has given us a most complete picture ofRussian society. The same general types are always brought forward;and, as later writers have presented exactly similar ones, with but fewmodifications, we are forced to believe them true to life. First, thepeasant: meek, resigned, dull, pathetic in suffering, like a child whodoes not know why he suffers; naturally sharp and tricky when notstupefied by liquor; occasionally roused to violent passion. Then, theintelligent middle class: the small landed proprietors of twogenerations. The old proprietor is ignorant and good-natured, ofrespectable family, but with coarse habits; hard, from long experienceof serfdom, servile himself, but admirable in all other relations oflife.

  The young man of this class is of quite a different type. Hisintellectual growth having been too rapid, he sometimes plunges intoNihilism. He is often well educated, melancholy, rich in ideas but poorin executive ability; always preparing and expecting to accomplishsomething of importance, filled with vague and generous projects forthe public good. This is the chosen type of hero in all Russian novels.Gogol introduced it, and Tolstoy prefers it above all others.

  The favorite hero of young girls and romantic women is neither thebrilliant officer, the artist, nor rich lord, but almost universallythis provincial Hamlet, conscientious, cultivated, intelligent, but offeeble will, who, returning from his studies in foreign lands, is fullof scientific theories about the improvement of mankind and the good ofthe lower classes, and eager to apply these theories on his own estate.It is quite necessary that he should have an estate of his own. He willhave the hearty sympathy of the reader in his efforts to improve thecondition of his dependents.

  The Russians well understand the conditions of the future prosperity oftheir country; but, as they themselves acknowledge, they know not howto go to work to accomplish it.

  In regard to the women of this class, Turgenev, strange to say, haslittle to say of the mothers. This probably reveals the existence ofsome old wound, some bitter experience of his own. Without a singleexception, all the mothers in his novels are either wicked orgrotesque. He reserves the treasures of his poetic fancy for the younggirls of his creation. To him the young girl of the country province isthe corner-stone of the fabric of society. Reared in the freedom ofcountry life, placed in the most healthy social conditions, she isconscientious, frank, affectionate, without being romantic; lessintelligent than man, but more resolute. In each of his romances anirresolute man is invariably guided by a woman of strong will.

  Such are, generally speaking, the characters the author describes,which bear so unmistakably the stamp of nature that one cannot refrainfrom saying as he closes the book, "These must be portraits from life!"which criticism is always the highest praise, the best sanction ofworks of the imagination.--From "Turgenev", in "The Russian Novelists,"translated by J. L. Edmands (1887).