A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  ‘We’ve heard that story a good many times,’ replied Bazarov; ‘but what are you trying to prove by that?’

  ‘I am tryin’ to prove by that, sir’ (when Pavel Petrovitch was angry he intentionally clipped his words in this way, though, of course, he knew very well that such forms are not strictly grammatical. In this fashionable whim could be discerned a survival of the habits of the times of Alexander. The exquisites of those days, on the rare occasions when they spoke their own language, made use of such slipshod forms; as much as to say, ‘We, of course, are born Russians, at the same time we are great swells, who are at liberty to neglect the rules of scholars’); ‘I am tryin’ to prove by that, sir, that without the sense of personal dignity, without self - respect — and these two sentiments are well developed in the aristocrat — there is no secure foundation for the social ... bien public ... the social fabric. Personal character, sir — that is the chief thing; a man’s personal character must be firm as a rock, since everything is built on it. I am very well aware, for instance, that you are pleased to consider my habits, my dress, my refinements, in fact, ridiculous; but all that proceeds from a sense of self - respect, from a sense of duty — yes, indeed, of duty. I live in the country, in the wilds, but I will not lower myself. I respect the dignity of man in myself.’

  ‘Let me ask you, Pavel Petrovitch,’ commented Bazarov; ‘you respect yourself, and sit with your hands folded; what sort of benefit does that do to the bien public? If you didn’t respect yourself, you’d do just the same.’

  Pavel Petrovitch turned white. ‘That’s a different question. It’s absolutely unnecessary for me to explain to you now why I sit with folded hands, as you are pleased to express yourself. I wish only to tell you that aristocracy is a principle, and in our days none but immoral or silly people can live without principles. I said that to Arkady the day after he came home, and I repeat it now. Isn’t it so, Nikolai?’

  Nikolai Petrovitch nodded his head.

  ‘Aristocracy, Liberalism, progress, principles,’ Bazarov was saying meanwhile; ‘if you think of it, what a lot of foreign ... and useless words! To a Russian they’re good for nothing.’

  ‘What is good for something according to you? If we listen to you, we shall find ourselves outside humanity, outside its laws. Come — the logic of history demands ...’

  ‘But what’s that logic to us? We call get on without that too.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Why, this. You don’t need logic, I hope, to put a bit of bread in your mouth when you’re hungry. What’s the object of these abstractions to us?’

  Pavel Petrovitch raised his hands in horror.

  ‘I don’t understand you, after that. You insult the Russian people. I don’t understand how it’s possible not to acknowledge principles, rules! By virtue of what do you act then?’

  ‘I’ve told you already, uncle, that we don’t accept any authorities,’ put in Arkady.

  ‘We act by virtue of what we recognise as beneficial,’ observed Bazarov. ‘At the present time, negation is the most beneficial of all — and we deny — — ’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Everything!’

  ‘What? not only art and poetry ... but even ... horrible to say ...’

  ‘Everything,’ repeated Bazarov, with indescribable composure.

  Pavel Petrovitch stared at him. He had not expected this; while Arkady fairly blushed with delight.

  ‘Allow me, though,’ began Nikolai Petrovitch. ‘You deny everything; or, speaking more precisely, you destroy everything.... But one must construct too, you know.’

  ‘That’s not our business now.... The ground wants clearing first.’

  ‘The present condition of the people requires it,’ added Arkady, with dignity; ‘we are bound to carry out these requirements, we have no right to yield to the satisfaction of our personal egoism.’

  This last phrase obviously displeased Bazarov; there was a flavour of philosophy, that is to say, romanticism about it, for Bazarov called philosophy, too, romanticism, but he did not think it necessary to correct his young disciple.

  ‘No, no!’ cried Pavel Petrovitch, with sudden energy. ‘I’m not willing to believe that you, young men, know the Russian people really, that you are the representatives of their requirements, their efforts! No; the Russian people is not what you imagine it. Tradition it holds sacred; it is a patriarchal people; it cannot live without faith ...’

  ‘I’m not going to dispute that,’ Bazarov interrupted. ‘I’m even ready to agree that in that you’re right.’

  ‘But if I am right ...’

  ‘And, all the same, that proves nothing.’

  ‘It just proves nothing,’ repeated Arkady, with the confidence of a practised chess - player, who has foreseen an apparently dangerous move on the part of his adversary, and so is not at all taken aback by it.

  ‘How does it prove nothing?’ muttered Pavel Petrovitch, astounded. ‘You must be going against the people then?’

  ‘And what if we are?’ shouted Bazarov. ‘The people imagine that, when it thunders, the prophet Ilya’s riding across the sky in his chariot. What then? Are we to agree with them? Besides, the people’s Russian; but am I not Russian too?’

  ‘No, you are not Russian, after all you have just been saying! I can’t acknowledge you as Russian.’

  ‘My grandfather ploughed the land,’ answered Bazarov with haughty pride. ‘Ask any one of your peasants which of us — you or me — he’d more readily acknowledge as a fellow - countryman. You don’t even know how to talk to them.’

  ‘While you talk to him and despise him at the same time.’

  ‘Well, suppose he deserves contempt. You find fault with my attitude, but how do you know that I have got it by chance, that it’s not a product of that very national spirit, in the name of which you wage war on it?’

  ‘What an idea! Much use in nihilists!’

  ‘Whether they’re of use or not, is not for us to decide. Why, even you suppose you’re not a useless person.’

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, no personalities, please!’ cried Nikolai Petrovitch, getting up.

  Pavel Petrovitch smiled, and laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder, forced him to sit down again.

  ‘Don’t be uneasy,’ he said; ‘I shall not forget myself, just through that sense of dignity which is made fun of so mercilessly by our friend — our friend, the doctor. Let me ask,’ he resumed, turning again to Bazarov; ‘you suppose, possibly, that your doctrine is a novelty? That is quite a mistake. The materialism you advocate has been more than once in vogue already, and has always proved insufficient ...’

  ‘A foreign word again!’ broke in Bazarov. He was beginning to feel vicious, and his face assumed a peculiar coarse coppery hue. ‘In the first place, we advocate nothing; that’s not our way.’

  ‘What do you do, then?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we do. Not long ago we used to say that our officials took bribes, that we had no roads, no commerce, no real justice ...’

  ‘Oh, I see, you are reformers — that’s what that’s called, I fancy. I too should agree to many of your reforms, but ...’

  ‘Then we suspected that talk, perpetual talk, and nothing but talk, about our social diseases, was not worth while, that it all led to nothing but superficiality and pedantry; we saw that our leading men, so - called advanced people and reformers, are no good; that we busy ourselves over foolery, talk rubbish about art, unconscious creativeness, parliamentarism, trial by jury, and the deuce knows what all; while, all the while, it’s a question of getting bread to eat, while we’re stifling under the grossest superstition, while all our enterprises come to grief, simply because there aren’t honest men enough to carry them on, while the very emancipation our Government’s busy upon will hardly come to any good, because peasants are glad to rob even themselves to get drunk at the gin - shop.’

  ‘Yes,’ interposed Pavel Petrovitch, ‘yes; you were convinced of all this, and
decided not to undertake anything seriously, yourselves.’

  ‘We decided not to undertake anything,’ repeated Bazarov grimly. He suddenly felt vexed with himself for having, without reason, been so expansive before this gentleman.

  ‘But to confine yourselves to abuse?’

  ‘To confine ourselves to abuse.’

  ‘And that is called nihilism?’

  ‘And that’s called nihilism,’ Bazarov repeated again, this time with peculiar rudeness.

  Pavel Petrovitch puckered up his face a little. ‘So that’s it!’ he observed in a strangely composed voice. ‘Nihilism is to cure all our woes, and you, you are our heroes and saviours. 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.

  Pavel Petrovitch looked at his nephew and laughed.

  ‘Yes, a force is not to be called to account,’ said Arkady, drawing himself up.

  ‘Unhappy boy!’ wailed Pavel Petrovitch, he was positively incapable of maintaining his firm demeanour any longer. ‘If you could only realise what it is you are doing for your country. No; it’s enough to try the patience of an angel! Force! There’s force in the savage Kalmuck, in the Mongolian; but what is it to us? What is precious to us is civilisation; yes, yes, sir, its fruits are precious to us. And don’t tell me those fruits are worthless; the poorest dauber, un barbouilleur, the man who plays dance music for five farthings an evening, is of more use than you, because they are the representatives of civilisation, and not of brute Mongolian force! 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.

  ‘Yes, yes. First a pride almost Satanic, then ridicule — that, that’s what it is attracts the young, that’s what gains an ascendancy over the inexperienced hearts of boys! Here’s one of them sitting beside you, ready to worship the ground under your feet. Look at him! (Arkady turned away and frowned.) And this plague has spread far already. I have been told that in Rome our artists never set foot in the Vatican. Raphael they regard as almost a fool, because, if you please, he’s an authority; while they’re all the while most disgustingly sterile and unsuccessful, men whose imagination does not soar beyond ‘Girls at a Fountain,’ however they try! And the girls even out of drawing. They are fine fellows to your mind, are they not?’

  ‘To my mind,’ retorted Bazarov, ‘Raphael’s not worth a brass farthing; and they’re no better than he.’

  ‘Bravo! bravo! Listen, Arkady ... that’s how young men of to - day ought to express themselves! And if you come to think of it, how could they fail to follow you! In old days, young men had to study; they didn’t want to be called dunces, so they had to work hard whether they liked it or not. But now, they need only say, “Everything in the world is foolery!” and the trick’s done. Young men are delighted. And, to be sure, they were simply geese before, and now they have suddenly turned nihilists.’

  ‘Your praiseworthy sense of personal dignity has given way,’ remarked Bazarov phlegmatically, while Arkady was hot all over, and his eyes were flashing. ‘Our argument has gone too far; it’s better to cut it short, I think. I shall be quite ready to agree with you,’ he added, getting up, ‘when you bring forward a single institution in our present mode of life, in family or in social life, which does not call for complete and unqualified destruction.’

  ‘I will bring forward millions of such institutions,’ cried Pavel Petrovitch — ’millions! Well — the Mir, for instance.’

  A cold smile curved Bazarov’s lips. ‘Well, as regards the Mir,’ he commented; ‘you had better talk to your brother. He has seen by now, I should fancy, what sort of thing the Mir is in fact — its common guarantee, its sobriety, and other features of the kind.’

  ‘The family, then, the family as it exists among our peasants!’ cried Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘And that subject, too, I imagine, it will be better for yourselves not to go into in detail. Don’t you realise all the advantages of the head of the family choosing his daughters - in - law? Take my advice, Pavel Petrovitch, allow yourself two days to think about it; you’re not likely to find anything on the spot. Go through all our classes, and think well over each, while I and Arkady will ...’

  ‘Will go on turning everything into ridicule,’ broke in Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘No, will go on dissecting frogs. Come, Arkady; good - bye for the present, gentlemen!’

  The two friends walked off. The brothers were left alone, and at first they only looked at one another.

  ‘So that,’ began Pavel Petrovitch, ‘so that’s what our young men of this generation are! They are like that — our successors!’

  ‘Our successors!’ repeated Nikolai Petrovitch, with a dejected smile. He had been sitting on thorns, all through the argument, and had done nothing but glance stealthily, with a sore heart, at Arkady. ‘Do you know what I was reminded of, brother? I once had a dispute with our poor mother; she stormed, and wouldn’t listen to me. At last I said to her, “Of course, you can’t understand me; we belong,” I said, “to two different generations.” She was dreadfully offended, while I thought, “There’s no help for it. It’s a bitter pill, but she has to swallow it.” You see, now, our turn has come, and our successors can say to us, “You are not of our generation; swallow your pill.”‘

  ‘You are beyond everything in your generosity and modesty,’ replied Pavel Petrovitch. ‘I’m convinced, on the contrary, that you and I are far more in the right than these young gentlemen, though we do perhaps express ourselves in old - fashioned language, vieilli, and have not the same insolent conceit.... And the swagger of the young men nowadays! You ask one, “Do you take red wine or white?” “It is my custom to prefer red!” he answers in a deep bass, with a face as solemn as if the whole universe had its eyes on him at that instant....’

  ‘Do you care for any more tea?’ asked Fenitchka, putting her head in at the door; she had not been able to make up her mind to come into the drawing - room while there was the sound of voices in dispute there.

  ‘No, you can tell them to take the samovar,’ answered Nikolai Petrovitch, and he got up to meet her. Pavel Petrovitch said ‘bon soir’ to him abruptly, and went away to his study.

  CHAPTER XI

  Half an hour later Nikolai Petrovitch went into the garden to his favourite arbour. He was overtaken by melancholy thoughts. For the first time he realised clearly the distance between him and his son; he foresaw that every day it would grow wider and wider. In vain, then, had he spent whole days sometimes in the winter at Petersburg over the newest books; in vain had he listened to the talk of the young men; in vain had he rejoiced when he succeeded in putting in his word too in their heated discussions. ‘My brother says we are right,’ he thought, ‘and apart from all vanity, I do think myself that they are further from the truth than we are, though at the same time I feel there is something behind them we have not got, some superiority over us.... Is it youth? No; not only youth. Doesn’t their superiority consist in there being fewer traces of the
slaveowner in them than in us?’

  Nikolai Petrovitch’s head sank despondently, and he passed his hand over his face.

  ‘But to renounce poetry?’ he thought again; ‘to have no feeling for art, for nature ...’

  And he looked round, as though trying to understand how it was possible to have no feeling for nature. It was already evening; the sun was hidden behind a small copse of aspens which lay a quarter of a mile from the garden; its shadow stretched indefinitely across the still fields. A peasant on a white nag went at a trot along the dark, narrow path close beside the copse; his whole figure was clearly visible even to the patch on his shoulder, in spite of his being in the shade; the horse’s hoofs flew along bravely. The sun’s rays from the farther side fell full on the copse, and piercing through its thickets, threw such a warm light on the aspen trunks that they looked like pines, and their leaves were almost a dark blue, while above them rose a pale blue sky, faintly tinged by the glow of sunset. The swallows flew high; the wind had quite died away, belated bees hummed slowly and drowsily among the lilac blossom; a swarm of midges hung like a cloud over a solitary branch which stood out against the sky. ‘How beautiful, my God!’ thought Nikolai Petrovitch, and his favourite verses were almost on his lips; he remembered Arkady’s Stoff und Kraft — and was silent, but still he sat there, still he gave himself up to the sorrowful consolation of solitary thought. He was fond of dreaming; his country life had developed the tendency in him. How short a time ago, he had been dreaming like this, waiting for his son at the posting station, and what a change already since that day; their relations that were then undefined, were defined now — and how defined! Again his dead wife came back to his imagination, but not as he had known her for many years, not as the good domestic housewife, but as a young girl with a slim figure, innocently inquiring eyes, and a tight twist of hair on her childish neck. He remembered how he had seen her for the first time. He was still a student then. He had met her on the staircase of his lodgings, and, jostling by accident against her, he tried to apologise, and could only mutter, ‘Pardon, monsieur,’ while she bowed, smiled, and suddenly seemed frightened, and ran away, though at the bend of the staircase she had glanced rapidly at him, assumed a serious air, and blushed. Afterwards, the first timid visits, the half - words, the half - smiles, and embarrassment; and melancholy, and yearnings, and at last that breathing rapture.... Where had it all vanished? She had been his wife, he had been happy as few on earth are happy.... ‘But,’ he mused, ‘these sweet first moments, why could one not live an eternal, undying life in them?’