“RUDIN”

The biographers tell us that Turgenev left Russia again in 1847, for the sake of being near Pauline Garcia, the famous singer (afterwards Madame Viardot), whom he adored all his life; that he left her in Berlin, visited Salzbrunn with the critic Byelinsky, who was dying of consumption, and then proceeded to Paris, Brussels, Lyons and Courtavenel. In Paris he works incessantly, producing plays and short stories and most of the series of A Sportsman’s Sketches; makes friends with Hertzen and George Sand; studies the French classics and avows his democratic sympathies, without any illusions as to the good-for-nothingness of “the Reds.” In the autumn of 1858 he returns to Russia, recalled by news of the grave illness of his mother, who, however, refused to be reconciled with her two sons, whom she tried to disinherit on her deathbed. Turgenev was henceforward a rich man. In 1852 A Sportsman’s Sketches appeared in book form, and in April of the same year, for writing a sympathetic article on Gogol’s death, Turgenev was ordered a month’s detention in a police-station and then confined to his estate at Spasskoe.[13]

Turgenev notes that his imperious desire to escape to Europe indicated “Possibly something lacking in my character or force of will.” But he declares, “I should never have written A Sportsman’s Sketches had I remained in Russia.... It was impossible for me to remain and breathe the same air that gave life to everything I abhorred.” The persecution of his literary forerunners and contemporaries by the Autocracy was continuous. Pushkin’s humiliation and subjection to official authority; Lermontov’s exile to the Caucasus; Tchaadaev declared insane by bureaucratic order and confined to a mad-house; Gogol’s recantation of Dead Souls and relapse into feeble mysticism; Hertzen’s expatriation; Dostoevsky’s and Petrashevsky’s exile to the mines of Siberia; Saltykov’s banishment, etc., the list of the intellectual and creative minds gagged or stifled under Nicholas I. is endless. And Turgenev’s mild and generous spirit was designed neither for political partisanship nor for active revolt. He has indeed been accused of timidity,[14] and cowardice by uncompromising Radicals and Revolutionaries. But his life-work is the answer to these ill-considered allegations. Spiritual enfranchisement was impossible in “the swamp of Petersburg with its Winter Palace, eight Ministries, three Polices, the most Holy Synod, and all the exalted family with their German relatives,” as Hertzen wittily put it later; and by faring abroad and by inhaling deep draughts of free European air Turgenev was enabled, in his own phrase, “to strike the enemy from a distance.”

His exile for a year and a half to his own estate was, however, by no means a bad thing for his own self-development. Years afterwards he wrote: “All was for the best.... My being under arrest and in the country proved to my undeniable advantage; it brought me close to those sides of Russian life which, in the ordinary course of things, would probably have escaped my observation.” He consoled himself with shooting, with music, with reading, with literary composition, and it is to this enforced detention in Russia that, no doubt, we owe the masterpiece Rudin (1855), which he rewrote many times, declaring to Aksakov that none of his other stories had ever given him so much trouble. In fact this novel, in grace, ease and strength, has the quality of finished statuary.

Though sixty years have passed since the appearance of Rudin, no dust has gathered on the novel, so original is the leading figure. The portrait of the hero who typifies the failure of the Russian intelligentsia of the ‘’forties’ to do more than talk, is as arresting as the day on which it was painted. In him Turgenev creates a fresh variety of idealist, the orator sapped by the love of his own words. Rudin is Russian in the combination of his soft, wavering will, his lofty enthusiasm for ideas, and his rather naÏve sincerity: in other respects, he might be a western European. Behind him we feel generations of easygoing manorial gentlefolk regarding in surprise this curious descendant, whose clever brain is aglow with a passion for “eternal truth” and for the “general principles” of German philosophy. One is haunted by a sense of Rudin’s cousinship to other famous idealists in life and literature; he shows affinities both to a contemporary, Coleridge, and to a famous successor, Ibsen’s Brand.

English idealism in general is both a covering for mundane interests, and a spiritual compromise with those same interests. An English Rudin would have gone into the Church, and as a Canon or Bishop would have attained celebrity by his gift of lofty and magnetic eloquence. But a Russian Rudin does not succeed in buttering his bread; it is both his unworldliness and lack of will that bring his powers to nought. Rudin can and does indeed, deceive himself; but the strands of hypocrisy in his nature are too fragmentary to bring him worldly success.

Of Turgenev’s six novels, Rudin is the most perfect in form, by the harmony of its parts and absolute grace of modelling.[15] Everywhere the master’s chisel has fined away his material to attain the most delicately firm contours. The grouping of the character is a lesson in harmonious arrangement. Note by what simple, natural steps one passes from the outer circle of the neighbours of the wealthy patroness of art and letters, Darya Mihailovna, to the inner circle of her household. The cold, suave egoism of the lady of the manor is admirably set off by the sketches of her dependents, the simple young tutor, Bassistoff, her young Jewish protÉgÉ Pandalevsky, and the cynic Pigasov. The household is expecting the arrival of a guest, a Baron Muffel, but in his place arrives his acquaintance, Dmitri Rudin, slightly shabby, but of pre-possessing address.

A master of eloquent language, Rudin conquers his hearers by his fine bearing and brilliant talk. But notice that the effect he instantaneously produces holds in germ all the after development of the story. Volintsev fears in him a rival for Natalya’s love; Pandalevsky is on his guard against the clever stranger who may dispossess him in the favour of the mistress of the house; Natalya falls in love with the newcomer who has fired her girlish imagination; while her mother, Darya Mihailovna, is planning to keep Rudin, this coming lion, in her house to adorn her salon. The structure of the story, beautifully planned, is a lesson in the directness and ease of artistic development. Everything flows, simply and inevitably, from the actions of the group of characters, quickened and watchful after Rudin’s arrival.

As an example of Turgenev’s skill in drawing a man with a dozen touches, and of exposing the mainspring of his nature by a few of his words and actions, consider the Jewish-looking youth, Pandalevsky; with the slight, exact strokes of his chisel Turgenev here graves a perfect intaglio. Pandalevsky, in the opening pages, meeting the charming Alexandra Pavlovna on her walk, offers her his arm, unasked. “She took it.” After some flowery remarks, Pandalevsky, presuming further, says, “Allow me to offer you this lovely wild flower.” Alexandra Pavlovna did not refuse it, but “after a few steps, let it drop on the path.” The sensitive woman is repelled by the young Jew’s familiarity and his thickness of skin, and indeed Pandalevsky has scarcely turned his back on her, when he transfers his interest to a peasant girl working in the field, and so coarse is his talk that she stops her ears and mutters, “Go away, sir; upon my word!”

Again, note how the characters all reveal themselves by their unconscious behaviour. On the night of Rudin’s unexpected arrival, while Bassistoff sits up, pouring out his soul in an eloquent letter to a friend, and Natalya cannot sleep for thinking of Rudin’s glowing eloquence, “Pandalevsky went to bed, and as he took off his daintily embroidered braces, he said aloud, ‘A very smart fellow,’ and suddenly, looking harshly at his page, ordered him out of the room.” By this little revelation of his mean spirit the young Jew prepares us for his furtive suspicion of Rudin, and for his playing the spy subsequently. By a word, a gesture, a look, psychologically exact, Turgenev secures thus in a sentence effects which it takes his rivals a paragraph or a page to make clear to us. Thus his scenes always appeal by their aesthetic ease and grace.

Remark again how swift, precise and final is Turgenev’s exploration of Rudin’s character. Tired of wandering, Rudin, as Darya Mihailovna’s guest, is glad to have found a congenial circle, perhaps indeed a home, but while every one seems to listen eagerly to him, and he lays down the law to the household, a cold undercurrent of criticism is already felt threatening his position. One of the neighbours, Lezhnyov, had been at college with Rudin in youth, and from his talk about their past relations one learns why Rudin, despite his genius, has not succeeded in life. He is a theorist and he has never really understood human nature. So much so is this indeed that Rudin does not realize in time that Natalya, this girl “of an ardent, true and passionate nature,” has fallen in love with him, and exalts him as her spiritual teacher. And when Rudin’s eyes are opened this fatal flaw in his character is seen. He lives only for his ideas and for his audience; his great, his sole power lies in the magic of his stimulating, flowing oratory. He is a master of words, but he cannot act. Lezhnyov is right in declaring that Rudin in his relations with others, even in his love affairs, “only needs a fresh opportunity of speechifying and giving vent to his fine talk, and that’s what he can’t live without.” Rudin, carried away by the discovery of Natalya’s love, pretends and simulates love for her, but his “passion” is shown to be hollow when the young girl comes to warn him that Pandalevsky, spying on them, has betrayed their secret meetings to her mother, who is angry and jealous that Rudin should be paying court to her daughter. Rudin is in consternation at the news. He has been so intent on his eloquent feelings that he has not faced the practical difficulties. And he has made no plans to face the future. But let us quote the scene:

“‘And what advice can I give you, Natalya Alexyevna?’

“‘What advice? You are a man; I am used to trusting to you. I shall trust you to the end. Tell me, what are your plans?’

“‘My plans.... Your mother will certainly turn me out of the house.’

“‘Perhaps.... She told me yesterday that I must break off all acquaintance with you.... But you do not answer my question?’

“‘What question?’

“‘What do you think we must do now?’

“‘What we must do?’ replied Rudin; ‘of course submit.’

“‘Submit,’ repeated Natalya slowly, and her lips turned white.

“‘Submit to destiny,’ continued Rudin. ‘What is to be done?... I know very well how bitter it is, how painful, how unendurable. But consider yourself, Natalya Alexyevna; I am poor. It is true I could work; but even if I were a rich man, could you bear a violent separation from your family, your mother’s anger?... No, Natalya Alexyevna; it is useless even to think of it. It is clear it was not fated for us to live together, and the happiness of which I dreamed is not for me!’

“All at once Natalya hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Rudin went up to her.

“‘Natalya Alexyevna! Dear Natalya!’ he said with warmth, ‘do not cry, for God’s sake do not torture me, be comforted.’

“Natalya raised her head.

“‘You tell me to be comforted!’ she began, and her eyes blazed through her tears; ‘I am not weeping for what you suppose—I am not sad for that; I am sad because I have been deceived in you.... What! I come to you for counsel, and at such a moment!—and your first word is submit! submit! So this is how you translate your talk of independence, of sacrifice which....’

“Her voice broke down.

“‘But, Natalya Alexyevna,’ began Rudin in confusion, ‘remember—I do not disown my words—only——’

“‘You asked me,’ she continued with new force, ‘what I answered my mother, when she declared she would sooner agree to my death than my marriage to you; I answered that I would sooner die than marry any other man.... And you say, “Submit!” It must be that she is right; you must, through having nothing to do, through being bored, have been playing with me.’

“‘I swear to you, Natalya Alexyevna—I assure you,’ maintained Rudin.

“But she did not listen to him.”

Natalya’s passionate answer: “I told my mother that I would die sooner than marry any other man.... And you say ‘submit’!” passes through Rudin’s self-esteem like a knife. He protests vainly again and again his love. But he has exposed his ambiguous emptiness too fully. And now he must leave Darya Mihailovna’s household, discredited in his own, in Natalya’s and in everybody’s eyes.

Remark in the passage quoted above how the conflicting currents of the girl’s passionate warmth and the man’s ambiguous reasoning—like hot and cold springs mingling—flow in a form beautiful by its grace of line. The scene is graven as lightly, yet as durably as an antique Greek gem. One must emphasize this union of soft warmth and grace in Turgenev’s work, for it is one of his special characteristics. While the beauty of his feeling declares itself by its purity of tone, all the mental shades of a scene or a conversation are unfolded with flowing, flexible grace. Even a piece of mental analysis, a synthesis of the internal life of character, and of pure thought, are stamped with the spontaneous gestures of life. And calm and mellow tenderness seems to emanate, as a secret essence, from his pictures. We cite a little passage, famous in Russian literature, where Turgenev sketches a portrait of Byelinsky, under the pseudonym of Pokorsky, Rudin’s friend:

“‘... He took pity on me, perhaps; anyway, he took me by the arm and led me away to his lodging.’

“‘Was that Rudin?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.

“‘No, it was not Rudin ... it was a man ... he is dead now ... he was an extraordinary man. His name was Pokorsky. To describe him in a few words is beyond my powers, but directly one begins to speak of him, one does not want to speak of any one else. He had a noble, pure heart, and an intelligence such as I have never met since. Pokorsky lived in a little, low-pitched room, in an attic of an old wooden house. He was very poor, and supported himself somehow by giving lessons. Sometimes he had not even a cup of tea to offer to his friends, and his only sofa was so shaky that it was like being on board ship. But in spite of these discomforts a great many people used to go and see him. Every one loved him; he drew all hearts to him. You would not believe what sweetness and happiness there was in sitting in his poor little room! It was in his room I met Rudin. He had already parted from his prince before then.’

“‘What was there so exceptional in this Pokorsky?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.

“‘How can I tell you? Poetry and truth—that was what drew us all to him. For all his clear, broad intellect he was as sweet and simple as a child.... Pokorsky and Rudin were very unlike. There was more flash and brilliance about Rudin, more fluency, and perhaps more enthusiasm. He appeared far more gifted than Pokorsky, and yet all the while he was a poor creature by comparison. Rudin was excellent at developing any idea, he was capital in argument, but his ideas did not come from his own brain; he borrowed them from others, especially from Pokorsky: Pokorsky was quiet and soft—even weak in appearance—and he was fond of women to distraction, and fond of dissipation, and he would never take an insult from any one. Rudin seemed full of fire and courage and life, but at heart he was cold and almost a coward, until his vanity was touched, then he would not stop at anything.... And really when I recall our gatherings, upon my word there was much that was fine, even touching in them.... Ah, that was a glorious time, and I can’t bear to believe that it was altogether wasted! And it was not wasted—not even for those whose lives were sordid afterwards. How often have I chanced to come across such old college friends! You would think the man had sunk altogether to the brute, but one had only to utter Pokorsky’s name before him and every trace of noble feeling in him was stirred at once; it was like uncorking a forgotten phial of fragrance in some dark and dirty room.’”

How perfect is the form of the novel! Rudin’s sudden appearance at Darya Mihailovna’s house, from the void, his brief, brilliant scintillation, his disappearance beyond the horizon like a falling star, while the little circle he has quitted returns to its quiet settled round, and is knitted closer, by and by, in two marriages. In the final chapters Turgenev gives a wonderful feeling of the stormy horizon of life in his glimpses of Rudin’s restless wanderings, of his pathetic series of failures, of his useless death in a hopeless cause on a Paris barricade. It is now the genius of Turgenev’s heart that speaks, the head in absolute unison with the heart. For Turgenev’s creative judgment, infinitely just, infinitely tender, is a court of appeal from all hard, worldly arraignments. All that has been shown us of Rudin’s Utopianism, of the “something lacking” in his character and outlook is true. But it is not the whole truth. In Lezhnyov’s final words, “Rudin has faith, Rudin has honesty. He has enthusiasm, the most precious quality in our times. We have all become insufferably reasonable and indifferent and slothful.” That is the point. The Rudins, the idealists of the “’forties,” were the yeast in the dough of Russian fatalism and the nation’s stagnation. For one idealist there were a thousand lethargic, acquiescent minds, clinging to the rock of personal interest, staking nothing, but all subservient to the forces of official despotism or worldly power. In Rudin burned clear the light of humane, generous ideals, of the fire of the love of truth. Most of the intellectual seed he scattered fell by the wayside or was swallowed up in the morass of Russia’s social distress and mass impotence. But, in Lezhnyov’s words: “I say again, that is not Rudin’s fault, and it is his fate—a cruel and unhappy fate—for which we cannot blame him.” And when we survey the figures of that gloomy reign of Nicholas, when “a merciless Imperialism repressed the least sign of intellectuality,” it was the Rudins who breathed on and passed on that living seed of fire to the younger generation.

It is to be remarked that not a line, not a detail in the social picture seems to have faded. The picture by its truth and art is timeless in its plastic grace, like a Tanagra group, or a Velasquez portrait. Nothing, indeed, can be added or taken away from the masterpiece.

V
“A HOUSE OF GENTLEFOLK”