ARTICLES
THE "HUNTER IN TERROR OF HUNTERS": A CYNEGETIC READING OF TURGENEV'S FATHERS AND CHILDREN
Thomas P.Hodge, Wellesley College
Life is a terribleconflict, a grandioseand atro cious confluence.Hunting submergesman delib eratelyin thatformidable mystery and therefore containssomething of religiousrite and emotion inwhich homage is paid towhat is divine, tran scendent,in the laws ofNature. -Ortega y Gasset 112
By the 1840s,the Russian literaryscene- likeFrench and English writing was inundatedby sportingliterature (Alekseev 214-16, Odesskaia 240-43). While IvanTurgenev's entry into the world ofprose fictionwith thestories that became Notes of a Hunter [Zapiski okhotnika] can readily be viewed as part of this trend, I propose thathunting and its codes were so deeply ingrained inTur genev's creativepersonality that important aspects of his laterworks too,even Fathers and Children[Ottsy i deti],were suffusedwith theterminology, tech niques,and moral implicationsof fieldsport as itwas practicedby theRussian gentry.If we approachTurgenev throughthe work of SergeiAksakov and othercontemporaneous sporting writers, I suggest,we findfresh intertextual meaning in thismost canonicalRussian author'smost widely read texts. My goal here is todescribe thesporting world of nineteenth-centuryRus sia and demonstratethe profundity of Turgenev's immersionin it; todiscuss how thisexpertise shaped his view of thenatural world andunderstanding of classicalmythology; and finallyto propose a new readingof Bazarov's fate inFathers and Children based on cynegetic elements in that novel -by this I mean imagesof and referencesto thehunter's pursuit of gamewith theassis tanceof dogs. The etymologyand applicationof theRussian termfor hunting [okhota] departdramatically from most West European linguisticpractice. In French, chasse emphasizespursuit, as does theEnglish termchase, Italiancaccia,
SEEJ,Vol. 51,No. 3 (2007):p. 453-p. 473 453 454 Slavic and East European Journal
Spanish caza, all ofwhich stressthe seeking of game, thoughthey ultimately derivefrom Latin capere [to take,to seize].English hunt descends fromterms meaning "to take,""to capture."Russian okhota,however, is based on the same root fromwhich we have khotet' [towant] -not tomention pokhot' [lust]- and itdenotes desire, keenness to do something,and can be applied to numerouseveryday activities or hobbies thathave nothingto do with thecap tureor killingof animals(Durkin 72-73).1 Inherentin theRussian conception of hunting,therefore, is a connotationof its sourcewithin thepersonality of thehunter rather than in thenature of his or herphysical activity. Etymolog ically,at least,okhota is a feeling,not a practice. This conceptualdistinction aside, Russian sport-huntersin thenineteenth centuryused the techniquesof English,French and German enthusiastsand essentiallyadhered to thesame distinctionsamong various formsof thehunt by theend of theeighteenth century: hawking, netting, shooting, and cours ing (Munsche 32).2With few exceptions,members of theRussian nobility limitedthemselves to these last two activities,both of which depended en tirelyon theparticipation of well-traineddogs and restedupon a generally recognizedcode ofwhat constituted"sporting" behavior.3 The twoprincipal formsof huntingembraced by thegentry and laterthe middle class were based on twovery different tactics. Because itdid notdepend on theuse of firearms,coursing [psovaia okhota, gon'ba] was by far the older form, dating back at least to ancient Egypt, where gazelleswere chasedby ancestorsof themodem greyhound.Coursing consistedof releasinghounds [gonchiesobaki] thatrelied on theirkeen eye sight(gazehounds) or keen sense of smell to rundown game [dich']while hunters[okhotniki], either mounted or on foot,attempted to catchup while the hounds held the game animal at bay, pinned it to the ground, or less de sirably -killed it. If this last eventuality was avoided, hunters could arrive on thescene and kill theirprey at leisurewith spearsor arrows(the practice up throughthe Middle Ages), or a gun (thepractice from the sixteenth century onward).4The most commonlypursued animals inRussian hound-hunting were wolves, bears,deer and hares.
1. It is probable that the basic German term for "hunt," Jagd, is also derived from an Indo European root that can mean both "to chase" and "to wish for"; see Porkorny. 2. The ancient hunting practices I will refer to throughout this essay are gathered chiefly from two works: Hull and Anderson. A late-eighteenth-century, early-nineteenth-century form of Rus sian hawking is described at length by S. T. Aksakov in "Okhota s iastrebom za perepelkami," in his Rasskazy i vospominaniia okhotnika o raznykh okhotakh inAksakov 1956, 4: 480-503. 3. The norms of sport-hunting made it harder to kill and emphasized the means of killing; subsistence-hunting, inwhich the end is all-important, sought tomake the kill as easy as possi ble (MacKenzie 10). 4. The most famous breed of Russian dog, the Russian wolfhound or borzoi [borzaia sobaka], was a gazehound bred expressly to course wolves; a famous literary example of such sport is fur nished by the wolf-hunt in Lev Tolstoy's War and Peace (I, Vol. 2, Part 4, Chapters 3-5). The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 455
For thebagging of birds,and sometimeshares, an entirelydifferent and muchmore recentlydeveloped method was necessary:shooting, also known inEnglish as fowlingor fieldsport [ruzheinaia okhota, polevaia okhota].This formof hunting,which originatedin sixteenth-century Europe, depends on the use of a smooth-borefirearm designed to propel a largenumber of pellets.Be forefiring, hunters must be relativelyclose to theirprey- Turgenevin 1876 consideredone hundredpaces a maximum5-and thereforestalking is essen tial.As an aid in thisstealthy pursuit, dogs trainedto listenfor, sniff out, and communicate the presence of game -field dogs [legavye sobaki] - are indis pensable (PSS (Soch.) 10: 274).When suchdogs detectedhidden quarry, they would stopand takeup a set [stoika]-hence theFrench chiens d'arret [stop ping-dogs]-which communicatedthe locationof the intendedvictim. In his Notes of an Orenburg-ProvinceHunter [1852], SergeiAksakov vividlyde scribed a dog's behavior in taking up a set:
Only dedicated sportsmencan appreciateall thecharm of thescene when a dog, pausing fre quently,finally goes rightup to a sittingwoodcock, raises itspaw and standstrembling as ina fever,its eager eyes spellboundand seemingto turngreen, fixed to the spotwhere thebird is sitting.It standsas ifgraven in stone,rooted to thespot, as sportsmensay. (1998, 277)
In English parlance, as Turgenevexplained it toRussian readers in 1852, short-haireddogs who "set"by stretchingforward and raisingtheir heads to ward thegame were called pointers;long-haired dogs who "set" by sittingor lyingdown were called setters(PSS (Soch.) 4: 510-11).6 Leonid Sabaneev, themost accomplished late-nineteenth-centuryauthority on Russian field sport, asserted in themid- 1890s thatTurgenev owned some of the firstpoint ers inRussia (Sabaneev 427, 462). Unlike coursing,field sport demanded an extraordinarilyclose relationship betweena highlyskilled hunter and an exceptionallyintelligent dog, a dog who had tounderstand numerous complex verbal commands-inmid-nine teenth-centuryRussia, thesecommands were given inFrench-under often ruggedand tryingcircumstances.7 Aksakov held thatthe field dog completed thehunter and furnishedthe essence of fowling:
5. Turgenev, "Piat'desiat nedostatkov ruzheinogo okhotnika i piat'desiat nedostatkov legavoi sobaki"PSS (Soch.) \0:274. 6. Turgenev, "Zapiski ruzheinogo okhotnika Orenburgskoi gubernii. S. A?va. Moskva. 1852 (Pis'mo k odnomu iz izdatelei Sovremennika)." 1. The basic commands were ? terre! [down], Pille! [seize], Apporte! [fetch], Donne! [give], Derri?re! [heel], Cherche! [seek], Tourne! [turn]. In the late eighteenth century, German imper atives were employed; the fashion for French commands arose in the first third of the nineteenth century. In 1852 Aksakov jokingly described the transition: "formerly inRussia broken German was used, and now Russians mangle French" (1956, 4: 161). Kevin Windle's translation of Ak sakov's treatise (1998) omits the early chapters on hunting equipment and dogs. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own. 456 Slavic and East European Journal
Every hunterunderstands the need fora fielddog: this is the lifeand soul of shooting[...] a hunterwith a field-piecebut without a dog is somethingdeficient, incomplete [...] a dog's searchingcan be so expressiveand clear thatit's exactly as thoughit is speakingwith thehunter [...].A good dog has an unselfishand naturalpassion forseeking out game andwill devote it self to thiswith selflessness;it will love itsmaster warmly too and, unless forcedto, will part with thehunter neither day nornight [...] (1956, 4: 160, 162) Elzear Blaze, who, alongsideAksakov, was Turgenev's favoritehunting au thor,summed up the human-caninerelationship by frequentlyciting the Frenchhunting proverb, "A good dogmakes a good hunter,and a good hunter makes a good dog."8 In general,nineteenth-century Russian hunters,like theirWest European counterparts,preferred either shooting or coursingand tendednot to engage inboth; Lev Tolstoywas an exception.Aleksei Khomiakovwas an enthusi asticbreeder of borzois and an expertin coursing,9while Nikolai Nekrasov, Afanasy Fet, and Turgenevdevoted themselvesto shooting.Of all these prominentliterary hunters, only one- Turgenev- approachedthe passionate devotionto fieldsport for which his friendSergei Aksakov, thepatriarch of allmodem Russian sportingliterature, has longbeen famous. Huntingwas without doubt one of themost importantaspects of Tur genev's existence;he called himself"a truehunter a hunterbody and soul" (PSS (Soch.) 4: 509).10The biographicaland autobiographicalevidence sug gests that Turgenev, the son of two serious hunters, was himself a hunter using a gun by age twelve -long before he was a writer (Shapochka 46, Tur genev PSS (Soch.) 10: 11 8). 1 As thevogue forhunting spread among European landownersin the 1820s and 1830s,vivid written descriptions of theiradventures in forestand field were soon to follow,first in England, then in France (Alekseev 214-15). Huntingsketches, as Margarita Odesskaia has demonstrated(240-42), began to turnup inRussian periodicalsduring the 1840s: Huntingby thattime had become not only thepossession of thenobleman's estate,but also a partof spiritualculture [...] alongside theurban literaturethat was forming[...] therealso took shape a gentryliterature that cultivated the ideas of naturalnessand closeness to nature,that idealized thepeasant primordiallyconnected to theearth and who embodied theprinciple of nature.Hunting, which imitatesboth a fieldof battleand a dramaticstage, was forthe noble man not simplya game thatprovided an outletfor his naturalpassions, but also [...] placed him face to facewith nature,returning him toa primordialsensation of theworld's wholeness. When hunting,man communeswith thecycles thatare constantlybeing accomplished innature [...]. Huntingprovided theability not togaze upon thebeauty of natureat a certainremove, but to participatein her life,feeling oneself tobe partof thegreater whole. (Odesskaia 243)
8. "Le bon chien fait le bon chasseur, le bon chasseur fait le bon chien" (Blaze, 1,331,339). 9. Khomiakov's zeal is reminisicent of the first of Gogol's seven famous zadory in Chapter 2 ofMertvye dushi: "one man's ardor applies to borzois" (Gogol 24). 10. See also Hodge 294. 11. Turgenev's autobiographical story "Perepelka." The "Hunterin Terror of Hunters" 457
Led by suchwriters as Kukolnik,Nekrasov, andKhomiakov, thefirst works ofRussian huntingliterature in the 1840s seemed tobetoken a brightfuture forthe genre.12 Itwas at preciselythis juncture that Turgenev, whose lifelongdevotion to shootingput him in theperfect position tocreate venatic writing of superior quality,joined thefray. In 1846 he createdhis nine-poemcycle The Country side [Derevnia],which containstwo hunting lyrics -"Before theHunt" and "SummerHunting" [Pered okhotoi;Na okhote- letom]-and byNovember of thatyear had completed"Khor and Kalinych"; both thepoem cycle and the storyappeared in theJanuary 1847 issueof The Contemporary[Sovremen nik].13The Countrysidewas the lastpoetry Turgenev would publish inhis lifetime,while "Khor andKalinych" famouslybecame thefirst sketch in the collectionof taleseventually known as Notes of a Hunter,based on thesub title("From thenotes of a hunter")given to "Khor andKalinych" by Ivan Panaev when the story firstappeared in The Contemporary(Alekseev 210-12). Itwas not longbefore a friendshipdeveloped between Turgenev and Aksa kov, thetwo sportingwriters whose work toweredover thatof Russia's other literaryhunters. In January1851, twentymonths before his Notes of a Hunter would be publishedas a book,Turgenev visited Sergei Aksakov inMoscow and listenedwith greatpleasure toa readingof theolder man's manuscriptof Notes of an Orenburg-ProvinceHunter, much to thedelight of Aksakov, who had longadmired Turgenev's own Notes (Nikitina177). A year later,Turgenev expressedhis impatienceat thepublication delays holding up Aksakov's hunt ing treatise and wrote to him that "writing a review of itwould simply be a
12. One of the earliest Russian hunting sketches in this period was published by Nestor Kukol nik in the inaugural issue of Zhurnal konnozavodstva i okhoty [The Journal ofHorse Breeding and Hunting], a monthly that began publication in 1842 (Kukol'nik, Akopov 63). Nekrasov's "A Landowner of Twenty-Three Souls," with its long passages on hunting dogs, appeared inMay 1843 (see also scene 10 of Nekrasov's vaudeville "Peterburgskii rostovshchik" [Petersburg Mon eylender], inwhich the character Rostomakhov, who believes that the dog is "nature's most won drous creation, superior to man," sings a song on the glories and expenses of coursing with hounds (Nekrasov, PSS 6: 154-55)). Khomiakov's tendentious 1845 article for The Muscovite [Moskvitianin] entitled "Sport, Hunting" [Sport, okhota], is his translation from, and jingoistic commentary on, hunting sketches published the previous year in an unspecified British journal. The mid-1840s also witnessed the creation of Russia's first lengthy monograph on hunting dogs, Napoleon Reurt's two-volume Coursing with Hounds [Psovaia okhota], published in St. Peters burg in 1846. That same year Sergei Aksakov completed the first edition of his Notes on Fishing [Zapiski ob uzhen 'e ryby], and inOctober 1847 a Russian translation of Louis Viardot's memoirs of his Russian hunting trips?organized in part by Turgenev four years earlier?appeared in The Journal ofHorse Breeding and Hunting (Odesskaia 241; Turgenev PSS (Pis'ma) 1: 202). 13. This was the first issue edited by Nekrasov, a fellow hunter who the following month published in his newly acquired journal "Coursing with Hounds" [Psovaia okhota], a satiric verse reply to Turgenev's "Before the Hunt"; Nekrasov took both his title and epigraph from Reurt's 1846 treatise. 458 Slavic and East European Journal
holiday forme" (PSS (Pis'ma) 2: 117).14Aksakov's book appeared inMarch 1852, and Turgenev,exactly one week beforehis arrestin St. Peterburgfor writingthe Gogol obituary,published his firstreview of Aksakov's Notes of an Orenburg-ProvinceHunter in theApril issueof The Contemporary.This no ticeconsists of a one-paragraphintroduction to theAksakov work, theneight longexcerpts from it (each prefacedwith a singlesentence), capped offby a briefconclusion: "It is impossibleto read thisbook without a kindof joyful, brightand completefeeling similar to thosefeelings that nature herself awak ens inus; we knowof no higherpraise thanthis" (PSS (Soch.) 4: 508). While in exile at his home estateof Spasskoe-Lutovinovofrom 1852 to 1853,Turgenev immersed himself in theworld of huntingand corresponded frequentlywith Aksakov. InAugust 1852 thebook versionof Turgenev's Notes of a Hunterwas published.In theautumn of 1852,he finallycompleted his second,much fullerand more complexreview of Aksakov's treatise;this reviewappeared, with certainpassages removedby thecensor, in theJanuary 1853 issueof The Contemporary.In earlyMarch of thatyear, Aksakov out linedhis plan to foundand edita huntingjournal and invitedTurgenev, along withKhomiakov andYury Samarin,among others,to contribute;Turgenev eagerlyaccepted (Nikitina231, 234).15 Inmid-May 1853,Turgenev strolled along an aspen grove and vividly described his impressions in a letter to Aksakov thenext day; nearlya decade later,Turgenev would recyclethis de scriptionalmost verbatim for Nikolai PetrovichKirsanov's lyricalreverie in Chapter 11 of Fathers and Children (Nikitina238).16 Two weeks later,Tur genev met Fet, who would become a hunting companion in both Russia and France over thenext decade. During thatsame month, Turgenev entered into an epistolarydiscussion with his friendLev NikolaevichVaksel ofAksakov's huntingtreatise; Vaksel went on towrite thestandard nineteenth-century Rus sianhunting manual, A PocketGuide forBeginning Hunters, first published in 1856 and going throughfour new, enlargededitions over thenext two de cades.17In July1853, Turgenev went huntingfor two weeks along theRiver Desna, inRussia's so-called"forest belt" [poles'e]with a peasantguide named Egor; initially Turgenev tried to work up his account of the experience as a contributiontoAksakov's huntingjournal, but eventuallypublished it in 1857 as thefictionalized tale "A Journeyinto the Forest Belt" [Poezdka vpoles'e], which containssome of Turgenev'smost importantcommentary on thenatu ralworld.18 Aksakov's huntingjournal failed to receive publication permission
14. Turgenev toAksakov, 2 (14) February 1852, St. Petersburg. 15. Aksakov to Turgenev, 9 (21) March 1853, and Turgenev toAksakov, 2 (14) April 1853. 16. Turgenev toAksakov, 12, 16 (24, 28) May 1853. were 17. The book was greatly expanded for its later editions, of which there at least five through 1898, and retitled Rukovodstvo dlia nachinaiushchikh okhotifsia [...]. 18. Note that Turgenev had included a footnote in his story "Pevtsy" [The Singers] from Za an piski okhotnika describing what a poles'e was and, in early draft ofthat note, promising to write further on that theme someday (PSS (Soch.) 3: 221). The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 459
fromthe censorship, the other authors apart fromTurgenev reneged on their promisesto contribute, and Aksakov convertedthe project into a one-volume miscellany,published in 1855,entitled A Sportsman'sStories and Memoirs on VariousKinds ofSport, with an AppendedArticle on Nightingales by I. S. Tur genev.19Turgenev's contribution was actuallyhis embellishedtranscription of a narrativerelated to him by his serfand longtimehunting guide, Afanasy Al ifanov,the prototype for the character Ermolai in theNotes of a Hunter stories. The failureof SergeiAksakov's journalisticenterprise represents a crucial turningpoint forhunting literature in Russia: itbecame clear thatthe genre had been abandonedby the luminariesand appropriatedby thewriters of manuals: "Having outlived its efflorescencein the 1840s-50s, thehunting tale [was] appropriatedby dilettantewriters who strove to conserve the genre" (Odesskaia 249). I suggestthat Turgenev, who retainedhis zeal for sport to the end of his life, now for the most part submerged the thematic complexof huntingliterature into his storiesand novels, includingFathers and Children,and okhotapermeated his fiction,most oftenat thelevel of sub text.Such is the legacyof what one Russian critichas recentlydescribed as the "Aksakov-Turgenevtradition" [aksakovsko-turgenevskaia traditsiia] (Kudel'ko 115-16). Nonetheless, thevagaries of the 1860s behindhim, Turgenev did produce a fewworks in the 1870s and 1880s thatwere explicitlydevoted tohunting themesand which are strikinglyconsistent with his earlywriting about field sport.The firstof theseworks is "Pegase,"written in Paris inDecember 1871 as a tributeto Turgenev's eponymous hunting dog, a belovedGerman shep herd-Englishsetter cross who had accompaniedthe writer on some extraordi naryadventures in the field.20A fewyears later,Turgenev codified his per sonal interpretationof thesporting strictures observed by noblemen-hunters ina little-knownarticle entitled "A Hunter's Fifty Flaws andFifty Flaws of a HuntingDog," publishedin Hunting Journal [Zhurnal okhoty] in 1876 (PSS (Soch.) 10: 272-77).21 Turgenevreturned to sportingsubjects in the seriesof "poems inprose" [stikhotvoreniiav proze] he composed from1878 to 1882, especially "The Sparrow" [Vorobei]and "The Partridges"[Kuropatki]. In "The Sparrow," dated April 1878, the narrator returns from a hunting sally with his dog Tre sorand witnesses an adultsparrow boldly defend a fallenfledgling. "The Par tridges"(1882) depictsa singlepartridge, wounded by a hunter,lying terni
19. See Aksakov 1956, 4: 636-37. 20. In a letter to I. P. Borisov, 28 January (9 February) 1865, Turgenev writes, "He is such a fine dog that the entire universe is astonished at him?crowned heads [...] pay homage to him and offer enormous sums for him. He searches out any wounded beast or bird so well that he is truly becoming a legend [...]. Ask any urchin in the Grand Duchy of Baden if he's heard of P?gase, the dog belonging to a local Russian, and he won't know anything about the Russian, buthe'll knowP?gase!" (PSS (Pis'ma) 6: 98). 21. For an analysis and complete translation, see Hodge. 460 Slavic and East European Journal
fied,under cover, as thehunting dog approaches.The lasthunting story he completedbefore his deathwas "The Quail" [Perepelka],a shortwork that Turgenev,invited by SofiaTolstaia, wrote in theautumn of 1882 as a contri bution toTolstoy's Storiesfor Children [Rasskazydlia detei],published in early1883. Turgenev tells a storyfrom his childhoodin which he grievesover a motherquail who iskilled by his father'sdog when she fliesout todistract thehunters from her hidden young. Itshould come as no surprisethat Turgenev's conception of thenatural world was profoundlyinfluenced by his identityas a hunter,or thathis most deeply thoughtout excursuson natureshould appear inhis ecstaticsecond reviewof Aksakov's Notes of an Orenburg-ProvinceHunter (PSS (Soch.) 4: 509-22). Writingat theheight of his associationwith huntingliterature, Turgenev de clares,"I passionatelylove nature, especially inher livingmanifestations" (4: 516), both to clarifythat his affectionis forflora and fauna- as opposed to inanimateelements of thenatural landscape -and to assert thateven a man who kills animals forsport paradoxically loves what he destroys.Aksakov himselfhad said asmuch inhis Notes: "we [hunters]have our own logic: the more respectyou have fora bird, theharder you tryto shoot it" (1998, 131). Turgenevexplicitly asserts that humans and animalsare one- fellowbeings on thesame continuum of existence(PSS (Soch.) 4: 516). This holism isdeepened andmade more complex,however, in thepassage thatfollows: Withoutquestion, in her [nature's]entirety she constitutesone great,well-proportioned whole everypoint within her isunited with everyother point-but at thesame timeher aspiration is that preciselyeach point,each separateunit within her, exist exclusively for itself, consider itself the centerof theuniverse, turn to itsown advantageeverything around it,negate the independence of thosesurroundings and takepossession of themas itsown property[...]. Direct yourattention for a few moments to the fly that freely flits from your nose to a lump of sugar, to a drop of honey in theheart of a flower-and youwill understandwhat Imean; youwill understandthat she is decidedlybeing herselfjust as much as you are being yourself.How, fromthis separation and breakinginto pieces bymeans ofwhich everythingseems to liveonly foritself, how thatself same universal,endless harmnony, inwhich, conversely,all thatlives lives foranother and only inanother attains its reconciliation or itsresolution, and all livesmerge intoa single,world-wide life-this is one of those"open" secretsthat we all see and do not see. (4: 516-17) Turgenevrightly suspected that this quasi-mystical passage with itsDarwin ianovertones would be cutby thecensor, yet he also believed thatit consti tutedthe chief interestof thisreview fornon-hunters, even if it seemed to vergeon what he called "pantheism."22 The prose-poem"Nature" [Priroda],composed in 1879, sheds lighton Turgenev'sview of thenatural struggle for survival he had outlined in the secondAksakov review."Nature" offers a dream-visionin which a majestic woman, clad in green and lost in thought, is the personification of Nature. The
22. See Turgenev's letters toAnnenkov, 10 January 1853 (PSS (Pis'ma) 4: 672) and Sergei Aksakov, 5 and 9 February1853 (PSS (Pis'ma) 2: 203). The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 461 narratoraddresses her as "ouruniversal mother [nasha obshchaia mat']" and asksher about her plans forhumanity. The goddess-likefigure replies that she is contemplatinghow best to impartmore power to the legsof theflea to re storeequilibrium [ravnovesie] between attack and defense.To thenarrator's shockedresponse - Is notMan Nature's favoritechild? -Nature declares All creaturesare my children[...] and I look afterthem equally-and destroythem equally [...] I know neithergood nor evil... I gave you life-and Iwill take itaway and give it toothers, to worms and topeople... it's all thesame tome... (PSS (Soch.) 10: 165) The crucialmessage is clear:Nature's goal is balance [ravnovesie],and she can attainthis only throughperfect indifference [ravnodushie]. The same con clusionhad been reachedat theconclusion of Turgenev's "Journey to theFor est Belt" nearly a quarter-centuryearlier, when thehunter-narrator finally graspedwhat JaneCostlow has called the"elemental indifference" of nature at story'send (PSS (Soch.) 5: 147;Costlow 109). In "TheTit" [Sinitsa],a short poem Turgenev wrote in 1863 as a song-text to be set tomusic by Pauline Viardot,the penultimate stanza runs B nieceHKeTBoeI IHpHBeTHoIl In your songof greeting CJiyxnIieHH yweJInxc MOBI Ismy hearingheld captive JIHMbHpHpoqI 6e30TBeTHo0i Only by the indifferentplay PaBioHyIaHoIoHIFpoH? Of unansweringnature? [my italics] (PSS (Soch.) 12: 298) Ifone characteristicremains consistent in all Turgenev's writing about nature, it is thatthe organic world, in spiteof itsmaternal beauty, is utterly indiffer ent tohuman beings.23 I have already noted the hunter's love for game animals, in spite of their status as prey to be killed, but an even stronger emotional bond exists be tweenhunter and dog. Satirizedby Gogol inhis portrayalof Nozdrev's ardor forhunting dogs in thefourth chapter of Dead Souls, fascinationwith dogs is a commonplace in Turgenev's writing, as A. D. P. Briggs has amply demon strated.A directresult of countlesshours spentshooting, Turgenev's sympa thy for dogs is perhaps most famously displayed in the story "Mumu," which he wrote in the springof 1852 while under arrest.An evenmore striking example is to be found in "The Dog" [Sobaka], a very short poem in prose Turgenevcompleted in February 1878: "I understandthat in thismoment, in both [my dog] and inme, there lives one and the same feeling, that there is no differencebetween us. We are identical;in each of us burnsand shinesthe same tremblinglittle flame" (10: 129). Turgenev's love fordogs intensifiesthe agony and pathos in "The Spar row,""The Partridges,"and "TheQuail" -all tales inwhich a dog kills, or
23. See Jackson's analysis of nature's indifference (230-32) in his brilliant delineation of Turgenev's aesthetic world-view vis-?-vis that of Dostoevsky; Allen (56-57) deftly extends Jackson's conception into a discussion of the psychology of pain in Turgenev's work. 462 Slavic and East European Journal presages imminentdeath for,a defenselessbird. The basic plotof "The Spar row" and "The Quail" revolvesaround the instinctof parentbirds to decoy predatorsaway fromtheir young, a formof behaviorfrequently noted by Ak sakov,especially among shorebirds and waders.24 "The Partridges"was com pleted in June1882, when Turgenevwas alreadytortured by thespinal can cer thatwould take his life fourteenmonths later. Lying in bed, in agony, late at night, the narrator asks why he must suffer and declares that his torment is undeserved.A vision comes tohim of a whole familyof about twentyyoung partridges.They are happilyhidden in theunderbrush, when suddenlya dog flushes them, they fly up in unison, a shot is heard, and one of them falls, its wing broken.As thedog searches thebushes forthe wounded bird, itasks, "Why, out of those twenty,must I die? How do I deserve thismore thanmy sisters?It's not fair!"The narratorconcludes thesketch by bringingthe dying partridgeto bear on his own life,with thisdesolate, self-directed imperative: "Justlie there,ailing creature, until death findsyou" (10: 187). InChapter 27 ofFathers and Children,Bazarov liesdying of thetyphus in fectionhe carelesslyacquired while autopsyinga peasantwho had failed to seekmedical help fromBazarov's father,Vasily Ivanovich,soon enough to staveoff thedeadly rickettsia.When Vasily finallylearns of his son'smishap and applies silvernitrate -ominously knownas adskiikamen' [hell-stone]in nineteenth-centuryRussian parlance-it is fartoo late to save him. In a stateof partialdelirium, the moribund nihilist expresses his thoughts in a series of animal and classical images, calling Arkady a fledgling and a jackdaw; implyingthat he will setout forthe Elysian Fields; callinghimself a "half-crushed worm"; and declaring that he won't "wag his tail" [viliat' khvostom]in the faceof death (7: 178, 183). Of all his deliriouscomments, however,perhaps themost strikingand suggestiveis Bazarov's vision of the "red dogs." As he struggles to ask his father to bring Odintsova to his deathbed,Bazarov says,
LIOKa X JIe)KaJI,MHe BCe Ka3aJIoCb, IITOBoKpyr MeHA1KpaCHbIe Co6aKH 6eraflH, a TbI HagO MHOI CTOHKY aeJIaR, KaK Hag TeTepeBOM. To'lHO A nbAHblI. TbI xopoino MeHA IOHHMaeInb? (7: 177) Even now I'm not too sure I'm expressingmyself clearly.When I was lyingthere before, I seemed to see reddogs runningall aroundme and you pointingat me as if Iwere a woodcock. Justlike Iwas drunk.Can you understandme well? (1994, 148) Bazarov's hallucinationhas elicitedsplendid commentary from Jane Costlow (Costlow 133-37), prominentmention in a recentdetective novel by Leonid luzefovich,and even seems to have prompteda popular rock song by the Novosibirskband Kalinov Most. The passage has been translatedmany differentways, but almostalways misleadingly,when we keep inmind Turgenev's peerless expertise in thespe
24. See Aksakov's comments inAksakov 1998 on great snipe (33), black-tailed godwits (44), redshanks (54), coots (142), curlews (174-75), and plovers (180). The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 463
cific terminologyand techniqueof hunting,and thatearlier evidence in the novel clearlyshows thatBazarov, too, is conversantwith the lexiconof field sport.25A cynegeticallyinformed literal translation, in my view, shouldread somethinglike this: While Iwas lyinghere, itseemed all the timethat Irish setters were runningaround me, while you [Vasily Ivanovich] performed a set over me, as if over a black grouse. While thisis amoment of delirium,the scenario is clearlya representationof wildfowling,not coursingwith hounds;only bird-dogs "set" over theirmas ters'prey. In thatcontext, the krasnye sobaki are readilyrecognizable as kras nyesettera, a commonname forIrish setters in mid-nineteenth-century Rus sia (Sabeneev 182-218). Bazarov sees himselfas a black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix),one of themost prizedof all game birds in thenineteenth century, and a particularfavorite of Turgenevhimself.26 Turgenevhas carefullychosen a specificsporting combination (Irish setters pointing to a black grouse), and assigned particular roles to a father and son (Vasily Bazarov as a setter and Evgeny Bazarov as the black grouse). In her groundbreakingstudy, Costlow has suggestedthat this scene points to thefa mous myth of Actaeon, who is devouredby his hounds afterbeing trans formed into a stag by Diana, angry that the young hunter has seen her naked body as shebathed (Costlow 133-37).While thisinsight is a brilliantone, I propose tomodify and extend itby analyzing -in cynegetic context -the ele mentsof Bazarov's vision and suggestingfurther links to classical antiquity. In his othernovels and stories,Turgenev mentions black grouse in two basic contexts.The firstis thebird's strangevocalizations, which Turgenev employsmetaphorically to describe indistinctspeech inboth A GentryNest and VirginSoil.27 The secondcontext is a literalone: huntingfor the bird. In thisconnection, the black grouse ismentioned prominently in nine of the Notes of a Hunter sketches:as a signof environmentalhealth and a luxurious gentrypursuit ("Khor andKalinych"); a relativelyeasy quarryfor Ermolai ("Ermolaiand theMiller's Wife"); and one of themost frequententicements forthe narrator to embark on huntingtrips.28
25. "You have a little marsh here along the aspen grove. I scared up about five common snipe; you can kill them, Arkady" (PSS (Soch.) 1: 27). 26. Richard Hare's translation (219) is therefore the most accurate of all: "blackcock" is a term denoting the male black grouse. Stevens's "grouse" (341), though considerably more ac curate than "woodcock" or "partridge," is of little help, since the Russian glukhar', teterev, riabchik, and belaia kuropatka are all "grouse" of one species or another. 27. See Dvorianskoe gnezdo, Chapter 19 ("oh 6opMOTan, Kaie TeTepe?") andNov', Chapter 30 ("Be;p> Bee o#ho h to ace flOJi?HJi,Kax TeTepeB KaKo?!"). 28. Within the Zapiski okhotnika cycle, the black grouse appears in "Khor' iKalinych" (open ing paragraph), "Ermolai imel'nichikha," "Bezhin lug," "Kas'ian sKrasivoi Mechi," "Burmistr" (opening paragraph), "Smert"' (opening paragraph), "Chertopkhanov iNedopiuskin" (opening paragraph), "Zhivye moshchi" (opening paragraph), and "Stuchit" (opening sentence). 464 Slavic and East European Journal
Turgenevstudied and relishedAksakov's commentaryon black grouse: the penultimatepassage inTurgenev's first Aksakov reviewis a longexcerpt from Aksakov's descriptionof themating habits of black grouse,and in thesecond review,Turgenev famously singled out thebird inorder to pay Aksakov a con spicuouscompliment: "If a black grousecould talkabout himself, he would, I am sure, add not a word to what Mr. Aksakov has related about him" (PSS (Soch.) 4: 518). The longestchapter of Aksakov's Orenburg-ProvinceHunter isdevoted to black grouse, and itdivulges many detailscrucial to any interpre tationof Bazarov's delirium.We learnfrom Aksakov thatthough partridge are veryhard tokill, only theblack grouse is tougher(1998, 186). In themating call [tokovanie]of themale black grouse,Aksakov assertsthat "There isnoth ingpleasing to theear about thenotes themselves,yet in themone subcon sciously senses and understandsthe harmony of life in natureas a whole" (230,my italics).The elaboratelyflirtatious mating ritual,which takesplace in a particularmating-ground [tokovishche], is awell-known spectacle: the site is
[...] unchangingand regularlyfrequented [...]. Determined human efforts are requiredto com pel thegrouse to leave it and choose another [...] The blackcock sit on theupper branches, ceaselessly extendingtheir necks downward,as thoughmaking low bows, curtsyingand then straighteningup, stretchingtheir distended necks to thelimit, hissing, muttering and calling,and lettingtheir wings droopduring their more energeticmovements inorder tomaintain theirbal ance [...]. Furious fightingerupts: the males seize one anotherby theneck and dragone another about,pecking and scratchingmercilessly, while blood spattersand feathersfly [...] and at the edge of thearena thelucky ones, or thenimblest, copulate with thefemales, who are utterlyin differentto thebattles being foughtfor their favors. (Aksakov 1998, 231-32; my italics)
One of the popular forms of hunting for black grouse, Aksakov tells us, is the pursuitof thejuvenile birds [tetereviata],and in thisform of sportthe hunter reliesnot on his prowesswith a gun,but on his dog (Aksakov 1998, 234). The hunting-dog'sset foryoung black grouse isdescribed: "A good dogwith a superior sense of smell will not scratch for long at the traces but will circle and scout close to itsmaster, soon picking up the scent of a covey, pointing [sdelaet stoiku] - sometimes at distances of a hundred paces or more - and lead itsmaster straightto thebirds" (235). Inprecisely this setting, Turgenev comments,in his "FiftyFlaws," thatill-trained dogs will attackthe juvenile birds: "[Canine flawno.] 7: Rushes fromthe set and seizes thegame, which happensparticularly often with youngblack grouse [molodyetetereva]" (PSS (Soch.) 10: 275; Hodge 305). Female black grousedo theirbest todecoy the hunteraway fromtheir young, "But thefowler who knows theseploys will kill themother straight away; then his dog will seek out all the young one by one, and a good shot [...] will bring them all down without fail [...] a dog will seek them all out if ithas been trained to do so" (Aksakov 1998, 235; my ital ics).Older juvenilesare readilyshot while perched,almost suicidallyrefus ing to budge: "nothing is easier than shooting every last one, as nothing will induce themto flyfrom the tree" (236). Some huntersemploy blinds and The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 465
place decoys forthe easily duped black grouse: "In thisrespect black grouse are so stupid that if you put a charred stump, a tussock, or a cap on a perch theywill fly to join it, or so I am told" (242). It shouldbe clear by now thatTurgenev's selectionof black grouse for Bazarov's alter-egowas no randomchoice. The bird's toughness,stubborn ness, associationwith naturalharmony, fervor in pursuit of amate, oblivious ness to lethalthreats, and ultimate stupidity can all be seen as reinforcingkey aspectsof Bazarov's behavior,especially in his pursuitof amate inOdintsova, andher refusalto couple with Bazarov is akin to theindifference Aksakov ex plicitlyascribes to thefemale black grouseat mating time.At a deeper level, however,given Turgenev's habitual linking of indifferencetonature itself, the black-grousemetaphor suggests that Bazarov's anguishedpursuit of love is a matterof no consequencenot only toOdintsova, but also in thegrand scheme of "ouruniversal mother." The accountsof huntingdogs as theytake up a set foryoung black grouse illustratevividly the imagesof pursuitand discoveryevoked by Bazarov's feveredvision. Dimly reflectingthe playful imageof peasantboys chasing afterBazarov "like littledogs" [sobachonki]in Chapter 10,29these are not houndswho chase and pin down or devour thehapless black grouse,as Ac taeon'scoursing hounds consumed the man-stag; Turgenev has explicitlytold us elsewhere that only a bad setter would do such a thing. The "red dog" imagein Chapter 27 ofFathers and Children-carefully couched in thetech niques of nineteenth-centurywildfowling ismore subtle,and perhapsmore terrifying.The dogs' set [stoika]merely representsthe moment of unmasking, theinstant when thefearful bird isfound out, exposed; death will come later, throughthe agency of thepatient hunter who inexorablyfollows thedog's lead.Thus the Irishsetters of Bazarov's delirium,less overtlyharmful than theblood-thirsty hounds of antiquity,are in theirmethodical way of inform ingon theirquarry more chilling,more deliberate-more productsof moder nity-thanOvid's vicious stag-hounds.That Bazarov's own fatheris one of them ("you performed a set over me, as if over a black grouse") provides the coup de grace, the diseased son's clairvoyant recognition of what is so un nervinglypowerful about parents: theyfind us. Theyknow us sowell, we par take so much of their essence, that they can discover us -unmask us, expose us, point to us- at life's most important junctures -moments of love and death. Perhaps this helps clarify why, a few sentences later,Bazarov mentions thesetters one last time,with suchpointed intimacy: "And now Imust return tomy dogs. Strange! Iwant to focus my thought on death, and nothing comes of it. I see some sort of spot... and nothing more" (PSS (Soch.) 7: 178; my ital ics).Vasily Ivanovich'sprofound love forhis son equips him to see through Bazarov's attemptsat self-concealment.
29. PSS (Soch.) 7: 44: "/jBOpOBtie MajibHHimcH ?erajiH 3a '/joxrypOM', Kaie co?anoHKH." 466 Slavic and East European Journal
Albeit retrospectively,further poignancy is added toBazarov's delirium whenwe recall that"The Partridges,"in which thenarrator is being searched out by a relentlesshunting dog, was Turgenev'sway of dramatizinghis own wretchednessas he awaited, in thesummer of 1882, his own death. In "The Partridges,"Turgenev chooses not todescribe the moment of death,and we are suspendedin a lethallimbo reminiscent of theone Turgenev likened to another formof sport near the conclusion of On theEve: "Death is like a fishermanwho has caught a fish in his net and leaves it in thewater for a time: the fish still swims, but the net is around it, and the fisherman will take it up -when he wishes" (6: 299).30 We must also recall that Bazarov is the son of a meta phorical "hen partridge"[kuropatitsa], Arina Vlasevna: "Vasily Ivanovich compared her to a 'partridge': the cropped tail of her short jacket actually did make her look a bit likea bird" (7: 171; 1994, 142). Fittingly,she considers dogs tobe "uncleananimals" [nechistyezhivotnye] (7: 113).31What a horrify ingbiological demotion we witness, then,when Arina's beloved son-whom she calls a falcon [sokol] (7:128) and whom Katia identifiesas a predator [khishchnyi](7: 156)-sees himselfas a black grouse,a fearfulprey species muchmore akin tohis skittish,partridge-like mother than to a raptor. Ifwe takeBazarov's hallucinationof theIrish setters seriously, an impor tantquestion looms:who is theirfigurative master? Surelynot theclassical goddess,who would have pursuedher quarrywith gazehounds,but another deity,who metaphoricallyemploys field-dogs to uncover his game.This is a God who stalks his prey by stealth and flushes it before the fatal shot. The subtle implicationof a God-like hunter-figurelurking beyond thepage -if there are field dogs, theremust be a hunter close behind -lends textual reso nance to thenovel's famouslyChristian concluding lines ("eternal reconcili ation and life everlasting"; 7: 188) which allude to theOrthodox funeral can ticle"So sviatymiupokoi" as well as toPushkin's "indifferentnature" at the close of "WhetherIwander downnoisy streets"[Brozhu li ia vdol' ulitsshum nykh,1829] (see PSS (Soch.) 7: 429). Or is thepatient hunter merely a figure forthe author, Turgenev himself, as he preparesto dispatch his most notori ous fictionalcharacter? 32 By nomeans does theforegoing erase Costlow's linkingof Bazarov's dogs
30. The passage could well be a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 9:12: "Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them" (NIV). 31. "[ApHHa BjiacLeBHa...] ?oajiacb Mtiine?, y?ce?, jurrynieic, BOpo?beB, m?rBOK, rpoMa, xojio?Ho? BOflM, CKB03Horo BeTpa, jioniaAe?, K03JIOB, pbi^cHx jiio^en h nepHbix KOineK h noHHTajia CBepnKOB h co?aK HenncTbiMH ?KHBOTHbiMH."Also noteworthy in this context isArina Vlasevna's distaste for red-heads [ryzhie liudi], reminding us of Bazarov's Irish setters. Intrigu ingly, in her fear of grass-snakes and drafts, Arina resembles Odintsova. 32. Another question remains: why does Turgenev have Bazarov see more than one dog (plural sobaki)! The orthodox use of field dogs prescribes one dog per hunter, which implies that Bazarov senses the presence of more than one hunter-figure. The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 467
to theActaeon myth: theconnection to Diana isvalid and vital.To conclude, I will thereforeexplore how huntingmotifs and nature-imagesbring Tur genev's reader into provocative encounterswith classical antiquitythat deepen our sense of the timelessnessof Bazarov's predicament.The abun dance and complexityof Turgenev's references,explicit and implicit,to the classicalworld make it impossibleto treatall of themhere. Instead,I will focuson two: stoicismand thegoddess Diana. In thesimplest terms, stoical ethics can be summarizedas holding thata good lifeis achieved throughrecognition that the four primary passions - ap petite, pleasure, fear, distress - are failures of the rational mind to come to correctconclusions and must thereforebe discarded.33Striving to remove the irrationalityof passion fromone's lifebrought the stoic sage closer tohar monywith nature'sown equanimity. In theopening of Chapter26, Turgenevplayfully satirizes his characters' vain attemptsto liveout thestoic prescription. By placing themin a carefully described"Greek portico [portik] made ofRussian bricks,"the author makes a clear referenceto theancient stoa poikile, or "paintedportico" in theagora of ancientAthens, where thephilosopher Zeno (335-263 BCE) and his disci ples foundedthe new strainof Hellenistic thinkingthat took itsname, sto icism,from the building they frequented.34 The structureitself reflects the ideal of indifferenceespoused in itsancient predecessor: even atmidday, according to thenarrator, itwas cool insidethe portico. Tellingly, Katia oftenvisits this part of the estate, and it is here, we learn, that she seemingly takes the place of themothballed statue of the"goddess of Silence" and communeswith nature: "Surroundedby freshnessand shade,she used to read,work, or surrenderher self to thatfeeling of completesilence which isprobably familiar to everyone and thecharm of which consistsin a barelyconscious, mute watchfulness for thebroad wave of lifeceaselessly rolling around and within us" (PSS (Soch.) 7: 164).Katia's meditativemood here invokesfamiliar elements of Turgenev's conceptionof nature-unconsciousness, quietness,watchfulness, ubiquity, holism-and she is the most successful of all the novel's characters in ap proachingthe stoic idealof harmonywith naturethrough suppression of pas sion. It comes as no surprise that her sister Anna Odintsova, a bad stoic be cause her life is largelygoverned by fear,dislikes the portico,having encountered there a frightening element of the natural world: a grass snake. Yet in this late chapter, at least one of the novel's "children" will submit to his emotionsand abandonthe stoic ideal: indefiance of thatideal, Arkady specifi
33. See Long and Sedley 419-20. One prominent historian of philosophy has recently la beled this aspect of the stoic project as "the extirpation of the passions" (Nussbaum 2: 359-401). 34. Turgenev explicitly addresses stoic ethics through the character of Baburin, who is fas cinated by Zeno's teachings in the story "Punin i Baburin" (1872-74) (PSS (Soch.) 9: 33, 445). See also Finch 119-20. 468 Slavic and East European Journal
cally invitesKatia to theportico -the templeof stoicism- inorder to propose marriageto her. She receiveshis haltingpreamble to theproposal with consid erable aplomb: "Katia said nothingin reply [...].Katia stilldidn't raise her eyes; she seemednot tounderstand where all thiswas leadingand keptwait ingfor something more [...]. She was sittingin thesame position[...]. 'You're not answering?'[...]"(7: 165-67; 1994, 137-38). (Here Turgenev,with the hunter'sexpert knowledge of birds,mockingly has a chaffinch[ziablik], a classical symbolof bachelorhood,sing merrily in a birchbranch over poor Arkady's head.35)Katia's assent to thematch is dispassionate,and she seems amused at herself for succumbing:"after a long pause for thought,with scarcelya smile,she said, 'Yes.'[...] shewept innocently,laughing softly at her own tears"(7: 167; 1994, 139).Katia, a stand-infor the Goddess of Silence, and a habitue of the stoic temple, is thusmade akin to the indifferent figure of Nature in theprose-poem "Nature" thatTurgenev would write nearly two decades later. It is no surprise, therefore, to read in Chapter 17 of Fathers and Childrenthat "Katia adorednature [obozhala prirodu]."36 ThoughCostlow has dulynoted Katia's associationwith thenatural world and rightly asserted that she is "at home" with it, in direct contrast to her sis ter's fear of it, it is Odintsova whom Costlow sees as theDiana figure in the novel.While Costlow pointsout thatthe classical motif of thebath is associ atedwith bothOdintsova andDiana (135),Odintsova's discomfortin thenat ural world is uncharacteristic of the goddess of the hunt. In pointed contrast to Katia's -and Diana's -adoration of nature, Odintsova is described as "ratherindifferent [dovol'no ravnodushna]"to it. The cynegeticevidence in thenovel points to a much more likelyDiana figurein Katia herself.Gazehounds are invariablyassociated with thegod dess of the hunt inWestern art and literature, and the only representative of thisancient canine group inFathers and Children isFifi, a "beautifulborzoi" who firstappears inChapter 16 (7: 77). Consistentlydepicted as Katia's faith fulcompanion, Fifi enters the room before her mistress (7: 80), preciselyas a huntinghound would precede itsmaster in thefield. As Arkadypets Fifi for show, the narrator tells us thatKatia, not unlike the bashful Diana, "was hid ing,having retreated into herself [...]. Shewasn't exactlyshy, merely distrust ful" (7: 82; 1994, 67). Fifi is nextmentioned, prominently, in theopening paragraph of Chapter 25: she lies on the ground, stretched out "like a hare, as huntersput it [u okhotnikovslyvet 'rusach'eipolezhkoi']," while Katia and
35. The chaffinch's Latin name, Fringilla coelebs, means "celibate finch"; it is "derived from the Latin word for 'without marriage,' and acknowledges the preponderance of male chaffinches thatwinter in northern parts of their range, while females migrate further to the south" (Freed man and Hoyle 323-39). 36. The archaic, primary meaning of obozhaV was the same as modern obozhestvliat ': to make a god out of (someone or something). The root Bog in obozhaV thus hints much more clearly than English adore that Katia views nature as tantamount to a goddess. The "Hunter inTerror of Hunters" 469
Arkady feedsparrows in thegarden (7: 154).Here we learnthat Fifi's coat is yellow,which distancesher furtherfrom the ruddy setters of Bazarov's later hallucination,and in thisscene Katia, with a huntress'sexpertise, classifies Bazarov as predatory[khishchnyi], and herself and Arkady as tame[ruchnoi] (7: 156). In spiteof Fifi's amiablepersonality, Odintsova is presentedin this chapteras "standingon thepath and scratchingFifi's earswith thetip of her closed parasol" (7: 159; 1994, 132), as thoughshe prefersto keep a healthy distance fromwhat is, after all, themost dangerous animal to appear in Fa thersand Children.This lastdetail furthersupports the notion thatKatia, not Odintsova, ismistress of thegazehound and therefore,to judge fromhunting motifs,a closer counterpartto Diana. Turgenevwas well awareof theancient literature of huntingand cognizant of the linksbetween theworld of nineteenth-centuryRussian sportand the venaticworld of biblical and classical antiquity.In his secondAksakov re view,Turgenev states bluntly, "I could adduce strikingproof that hunting oc cupies farfrom last place inhuman lifeand thehistory of humanity...Iwill remarkonly thathunting must justlybe consideredone ofman's most impor tantundertakings" (PSS (Soch.) 4: 514).37 TheActaeon-Diana allusionnear theend of Fathers and Children is,how ever,merely thecentral panel of a Diana triptychthat Turgenev crafted over the span of severaldecades. His updated recastingof theActaeon storyis spreadover threeseparate works thatspan Turgenev's lifeas a writer:one, in verse, fromthe beginning of his career;one, inprose, fromthe middle (Fa thersand Children);and one, a "poem inprose," fromthe end. The firstof thesethree, "Summer Hunting," recreates Ovid's settingfor Ac taeon'sencounter with Diana. The one anachronismin thenineteenth-century atmosphereof "SummerHunting" -the presenceof dryads[driady], which are
37. Turgenev then goes on to trace ancient hunting references, beginning with Nimrod in Hebrew scripture, who is described in the Book of Genesis as "the mighty hunter before the Lord" (Genesis 10:9); when Turgenev describes Bazarov as a great fancier [velikii okhotnik] of women and womanly beauty" in Chapter 17 of Fathers and Children, he is probably paro dying this same biblical reference (the original Church Slavonic for the passage is "ce? 6e HcnojiHH jiOBeu; npefl IbcnofleM"; the standard Russian translation is "chjibhbih 3BepojiOB, KaK HHMpo?, npe/? TocnoflOM"). Next in the Aksakov review Turgenev cleverly quotes a quatrain from The Odyssey which describes Odysseus's vision of Orion's ghost in the eleventh canto: Odysseus is here invoking the souls of departed heroes, just as Turgenev is reminding his own readers of prominent ancient hunters. An immediate rhetorical leap takes us from the hunters of old to hunters in his native Russia, including Vladimir Monomakh, Aleksei Mikhailovich, and finally Aksakov. Turgenev's own hunting dogs also dramatically illustrate the way he played with links to classical mythology. As we have already seen, one of his favorite dogs was called "P?gase," the French for Pegasus. An equally cherished animal, the yellow-piebald En glish pointer who even makes a fictional appearance in "Bezhin Meadow" [Bezhin lug], he named "Diana" (fl,HaHa) (Turgenev, PSS (Soch.) 3: 88). Turgenev so loved this dog that he buried her with his own hands under the oak tree he had planted on his estate at Spasskoe-Lu tovinovo; see Shapochka 42. 470 Slavic and East European Journal woodland nymphs-points directlytoward Ovid's text.38Unlike theviolent tale inMetamorphoses, Turgenev's narrative here emphasizesa nourishing mother-sonrelationship between the "eternal mother" and theweary hunters. "Nymphs,"one of Turgenev'spoems inprose, was writtenin December 1878, and ishis lastfiction devoted toDiana. The piece isbased on a famous talefrom Plutarch's "De DefectuOraculorum" [On thedisappearance of ora cles], inwhich, duringthe reign of Tiberius,the pilot of a shipon theAegean Sea is ordered by a mysterious voice to declare that "Great Pan is dead" as he passes theisland of Palodes, and theannouncement is met by great lamenta tion.39Turgenev's brief talebegins with thenarrator standing before a range of beautiful,forest-covered mountains under a southernsky and thererecall ing thefirst-century tale of thepilot's cry.A "strangethought" then enters his head to repeatthe ancient proclamation of Pan's death,but thebeauty around himprompts the narrator to call out, instead,"He is risen!Great Pan is risen!" (PSS (Soch.) 10: 158).40Nymphs, dryads,and bacchantsjoyously descend fromthe mountains to thevalley, amid scarletflashes of nakedbodies and the whiteof billowingtunics. Diana joins therevelers, but Turgenev's story con cludes sadly,with thegoddess's abruptdeparture as she descries a Christian churchglowing on thehorizon. "Nymphs" functions as Turgenev'slament for thepassing of pagan intimacywith thenatural world, and his narrator's glimpse of the goddess is, once again, not a threatening or fatal one, as itwas inActaeon's case. Turgenev's Diana triptych-Fathers and Children and two volets-is complete. The philosopherJose Ortega yGasset wrote that"Every good hunteris un easy in the depths of his conscience when faced with the death he is about to inflicton theenchanting animal" (102). No doubt thisunease stems inpart fromthe hunter's inevitableact of empathy,of consideringthe horror he would feel in the animal's place. In Book V of his Dionysiaca, Nonnos mem orablycaptures this emotion when he calls the transformedActaeon, fleeing throughthe forestin fearof his life,"the hunter in terrorof hunters"[Gk. theretertromeon theretoras] (Nonnos 190-91, 1.325). A readingof Fathers and Sons in itscynegetic context suggests that Tur genev,a good hunter,painstakingly explored this terror. For him, theActaeon/ Diana mythechoed therevulsion he feltwhen meditating upon his own death;
38. Though Ovid's account of Actaeon's confrontation with Diana refers to nymphs without explicit mention of dryads, the Roman poet does mention them elsewhere inBook 3, in the story of Narcissus. see 39. For an exhaustive analysis of this story and its complex hermeneutic legacy, Borgeaud. The death of Pan has been taken up by many writers, among them Rabelais, Walter de laMare, Robert Frost, and Eugene O'Neill (Irwin 160). 40. "Voskres! Voskres Velikii Pan!" is an irreverent modification of the Orthodox Christian
practice of proclaiming, on Easter, "Christ is risen, verily He is risen!" (Khristos voskres, vois com tine voskres!), especially in view of the tradition, dating from the patristic period, that the era manding voice in Plutarch's tale was the voice of God declaring the end of the pagan and commencement of the age of Christ; see PSS (Soch.) 10: 506, and Borgeaud 260 ff. The "Hunterin Terror of Hunters" 471
when hunterand huntedreverse roles, Turgenev seems to imply,we experi ence afreshthe awful frissonof impendingextinction. Actaeon's houndsare indifferentto theirmute master, just as indifferentnature shinesupon the graveof thepoet inPushkin's "WhetherI wander down noisy streets."Per haps one of theelemental attractions of hunting,for Turgenev, was thatit put him close to thenatural world he loved and studied.Being a hunterallowed him at once a pagan proximity to the "eternal mother" and a Christian sense of non-indifference-of thekeenest possible interestin his quarry.Turgenev's fiction,in its extensivere-imaginings of Actaeon's encounterwith Diana, echoes, in literaryterms, these twin identities, most prominentlyin thefinal paragraphof Fathers and Children.Here, and in thestrange vision of theIrish setters,God becomes a nineteenth-centuryhunter, stalking carefully toward thewounded prey,firing the merciful final shot toput thecreature out of its misery. If "Nymphs" illustratesTurgenev's affectionfor the simple liberty and naturalness of pagan life, perhaps its conclusion hints faintly at his yearn ing for the restrictivebut consolatoryrole of Christianity.The cynegetic episodes of Fathers and Children representthe firstmature expressionsof thatpagan-Christian tension in Turgenev's fiction. JaneCostlow rightlyviews Bazarov as an unmasker,an exposerof euphe mism (127). Seen thisway, Bazarov's role as an attackerfits in neatly with Nature's conceptionof existenceas a struggle"between attack and defense" (10: 165), as doesKatia's classificationof people as eithertame or predatory (7: 156).Ultimately, however, a cynegeticreading of Turgenev's work yields theunsettling truth that these binary categories are notmutually exclusive, but overlap constantly: in the face of love and death, Bazarov the falcon, Bazarov the hunter, is also Bazarov the black grouse, precisely akin to the quaking,perdecine narrator of "Partridges."Far frombeing meaningless, however,the categories of hunterand hunted,especially their classical incar nations, are crucial reminders that all denizens of nature are in some sense both predator and prey, and that the only ultimate, omnipotent hunter isNa tureherself. Such a conceptionmerely confirmswhat Turgenevhad asserted in his second reviewof Aksakov's huntingtreatise: Nature's "aspirationis thatprecisely each point,each separateunit within her, exist exclusively for itself,consider itselfthe centerof theuniverse, turn to itsown advantage everythingaround it, negate theindependence of thosesurroundings and take possessionof themas itsown property"(4: 516).
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