Fathers and Children
Page 5
IVBY RICHARD H. P. CURLE
But for the best expression of the bewilderment of life we have to turnto the portrait of a man, to the famous Bazarov of "Fathers andChildren." Turgenev raises through him the eternal problem--Haspersonality any hold, has life any meaning at all? The reality of thisfigure, his contempt for nature, his egoism, his strength, his mothlikeweakness are so convincing that before his philosophy all otherphilosophies seem to pale. He is the one who sees the life-illusion,and yet, knowing that it is the mask of night, grasps at it, loathinghimself. You can hate Bazarov, you cannot have contempt for him. He isa man of genius, rid of sentiment and hope, believing in nothing buthimself, to whom come, as from the darkness, all the violent questionsof life and death. "Fathers and Children" is simply an exposure of ourpower to mould our own lives. Bazarov is a man of astonishingintellect--he is the pawn of an emotion he despises; he is a man ofgigantic will--he can do nothing but destroy his own beliefs; he is aman of intense life--he cannot avoid the first, brainless touch ofdeath. It is the hopeless fight of mind against instinct, ofdetermination against fate, of personality against impersonality.Bazarov disdaining everyone, sick of all smallness, is roused to furyby the obvious irritations of Pavel Petrovitch. Savagely announcing thecreed of nihilism and the end of romance, he has only to feel the calm,aristocratic smile of Madame Odintsov fixed on him and he suffers allthe agony of first love. Determining to live and create, he has only toplay with death for a moment, and he is caught. But though he is themost positive of all Turgenev's male portraits, there are otherslinking up the chain of delusion. There is Rudin, typical of the unrestof the idealist; there is Nezhdanov ("Virgin Soil"), typical of theself-torture of the anarchist. There is Shubin ("On the Eve"), hidinghis misery in laughter, and Lavretsky ("A House of Gentlefolk"), hidinghis misery in silence. It is not necessary to search for furtherexamples. Turgenev put his hand upon the dark things. He perceivedcharacter, struggling in the "clutch of circumstances," the tragicmoments, the horrible conflicts of personality. His figures have thatcapability of suffering which (as someone has said) is the true sign oflife. They seem like real people, dazed and uncertain. No action oftheirs ever surprises you, because in each of them he has made you hearan inward soliloquy.--From "Turgenev and the Life-Illusion," in "TheFortnightly Review" (April, 1910).