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- ;;: '- .:-:;M-- ; 3HHKHBii&lHfirIiiifi ; IVAN TURGENIEFF VOLUME VI FATHERS AND CHILDREN THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF (IVAN TURGENIEFFJ > c> FATHERS AND CHILDREN TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD <*- Iff' NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1903 .:.. .NOV. 2 Q.1397.... PREFACE " " FATHERS and Children first appeared in 1862, the first instalment being printed in the February (or March) number of the Russian Messenger. It was an important event, not only in Russian literature, but also in the personal life of its author. Its success transcended every- thing which had ever been achieved in the Rus- sian literary world, but its contents served to evoke prolonged and passionate discussion, and, still more, bitter personal recrimination. Turge- nieff was assailed from all quarters and on every point of his romance, beginning with the word " nihilist," which many persons (especially for- eigners) still believe to have been of his devising. l As a matter of fact, however, Nadezhdin had ap- plied the epithet to the poet Pushkin in 1829 as well as to Polevoy and other representatives of literary romanticism, and TurgenieiF merely adopted it in order to characterise the new social " " type which he was introducing. The Fathers were displeased with their portraits, while the " " Children showered down upon the author sharp reproaches, and called the man whom they 1 Nadezhdin, a many-sided savant and critic. Polevoy, a nent journalist. TRANSLATOR. PREFACE had so lately been revering as the destroyer of " serfdom, a traitor to the cause of freedom." The Russian students at Heidelberg, of whom there were many at that period, even decided to call Turgenieff to account, and demand from him an explanation as to the meaning and aim of his romance. Turgenieff accepted the chal- lenge, journeyed expressly from Baden-Baden to Heidelberg, and furnished the explanation in the presence of a throng of his accusers the explanation being approximately the same as that which he afterward printed. All these, and many other unpleasantnesses, produced such an oppressive effect upon Turgenieff that he began seriously to meditate withdrawing from his lit- erary career. This desire to abandon literature is painfully expressed in the lyrical fragment, "It is Enough!" (1864). The situation was well summed up in an arti- 1 cle, dating from 1862, by N. N. Strakhoff: ' When the romance ' Fathers and Children ' made its appearance, people suddenly attacked it ' with feverish and persistent questions : Whom does it praise? Whom does it condemn? Which of the characters is a model for imitation? What sort of a romance is it progressive or retro- ' grade? And on this theme innumerable discus- sions arose. The matter was carried to the point A well-known Russian philosophical writer a delightful man, whose acquaintance in Russia I was indebted to Count L. N. olstoy. TRANSLATOR. yi PREFACE of particulars, to the pettiest details : 'Ba- ' zaroff drinks champagne!'- Bazaroff plays ' cards!'- Bazaroff is negligent in his dress!' 'What is the meaning of it?' people asked in f perplexity. Ought he to do so, or ought he not?' Each person settled the question in his own way, but every body regarded it as indis- pensable to deduce a moral and jot it down at the end of an enigmatical fable. But the decis- ions thus arrived at turned out absolutely incon- ' gruous. Some think that Fathers and Chil- ' dren is a satire on the young generation, that all the author's sympathies are on the side of the fathers. Others say that it is the fathers who are ridiculed and discredited in the romance, while the rising generation, on the contrary, is extolled. Some think that Bazaroff himself is to blame for his unfortunate relations to the people with whom he comes in contact ; others assert that, on the con- trary, those people are responsible for Bazaroff finding life difficult. In spite of all this, the romance is being eagerly read and is arousing more interest, one may venture to say, than any work of Turgenieff up to this time." Let us now turn to what Turgenieff himself has to say about his book. In a letter to Y. P. " Polonsky (the poet), dated Paris, January 24 " (O. S.), 1862," he says: My novel has been de- spatched to the Russian Messenger and will probably appear in the February number, -f I vii PREFACE expect to be well reviled, but I am pretty indif- ferent on that score." F. M. Dostoievsky, the great author, and A. N. Maikoff, the noted poet, delighted him by thoroughly understanding his novel, as he tells them in letters dated in March of that year. But most interesting is his letter of 1 April 14-26 to K. K. Slutchevsky, who had written to him concerning the bad impression " " which Fathers and Children had made on the students at Heidelberg University: " I am very anxious that there should be no misunder- " standing as to my intentions," he writes. I answer point by point. " 1. Your first reproach reminds me of the one made to Gogol and others, because good people do not re- produce themselves in bad descendants. But Bazaroff, nevertheless, crushes all the other characters in the ro- mance. The qualities ascribed to him are not ac- cidental. I wished to make him a tragic personage there was no place for tenderness there. He is honest, upright, and a democrat to the very tips of his finger- nails. But you find no good sides in him. ' StofF und ' Kraft he recommends precisely because it is a popular, that is to say, a futile book; the duel with Pavel Petro- vitch is introduced precisely for the purpose of demon- strating, at a glance, the triviality of elegantly-noble chivalry, which is set forth in an almost exaggeratedly- 1 Slutchevsky, a well-known poet. After retiring from the guards he went abroad and studied at various universities, including that of Heidelberg, there winning his degree of Ph. D. On his return to Russia he served in the Ministry of the Interior, and in 1891 was the edftor-in-chief of the Governmental Messenger. TRANSLATOR. viii PREFACE for comic manner ; and he could not get out of it, Pavel Petrovitch would have thrashed him. Bazaroff, in my opinion, constantly defeats Pavel Petrovitch, and not the other way about; and if he calls himself a nihilist, the word must be read: a revolutionist. " . What you have said about Arkady, about the rehabilitation of the fathers, and so forth, merely proves pardon me! that I have not been under- stood. is directed the My whole novel against nobility , as the leading class. Look more closely at the characters of Nikolai Petrovitch, Pavel Petrovitch, and Arkady- weakness and languor and limitedness. The aesthetic sense made me select precisely good representatives of the nobility, in order that I might the more surely prove my point : if the cream is bad, what about the milk ? It would be coarse le pont aux anes and not true to nature to take officials, generals, thieves, and so forth. All the genuine repudiators whom I have known without exception (Byelinsky, Bakunin, Hertzen, Do- 1 broliuboff, Spyeshneff, and so forth) sprang from comparatively kind and honourable parents, and therein is contained a great thought: this removes from the actors, from the repudiators, every shadow of personal wrath, of personal irritation. They go their own way simply because they are more sensitive to the demands 1 Byelinsky, the most noted of Russian critics. Bakunin, a noted revolutionist, debarred from returning to Russia. He>tzen, who '* wrote under the name of Iskander," a famous publicist and revolu- tionist. Dobrolidboff, the most famous of the early Russian critics, after Byelinsky. Spyeshneff, one of the most famous men connected with the Petrashevsky conspiracy. He was banished to Siberia, where, later on, he filled governmental positions, and was the editor-in-chief of the Irkutsk Governmental News. Ogaryoff, a well-known poet, and writer on positivism and economical subjects. Stoly*pin, a writer, 1818-1893. Esakdff, an artist and academician. TRANSLATOR. ix PREFACE of popular life. Young Count S. is wrong when he says that persons like Nikolai Petrovitch and Pavel Petrovitch are our grandfathers: Nikolai Petrovitch is I myself, Ogaryoff and thousands of others; Pavel Pe- trovitch is Stolypin, Esakoff, Bosset, also our con- temporaries. They are the best of the nobles and precisely for that reason were chosen by me for the purpose of proving their insolvency. To depict on the one hand bribe-takers, on the other an ideal young man let others draw that picture. ... I wanted more than that. In one place I made Bazaroff say to Arkady (I excluded it on account of the censure), to that same Arkady in whom your Heidelberg com- 6 rades descry the most successful type, Thy father is fellow an honest ; but even were he the very worst sort of a bribe-taker, thou wouldst nevertheless have gone no further than well-bred submission or ebullition, be- cause thou art a noble.' " 3. O Lord ! Madame Kukshin, that caricature, is, in your opinion, the most successful of all! To that there is no answer. Madame Odmtzoff falls in love just as little with Arkady as with Bazaroff, how is it that you do not see that? She, also, is a represen- tative of our idle, dreamy, curious, and epicurean noble ladies our gentlewomen. Countess Salyas has under- stood that personage with perfect clearness. She would like first to stroke the fur of the wolf (Bazaroff), if only he would not bite then the curls of the little boy and to go on lying, well washed, on velvet.

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