sets out to denounce and deny everything, but it fails to dismiss passionate love—or to reconcile this love with his opinions regarding the simple animal character of love. Love turns out to be something more than man's biological pastime. The romantic fire that suddenly envelops his soul shocks him; but it satisfies the requirements of true art, since it stresses in Bazarov the logic of universal youth which transcends the logic of a local system of thought—of, in the present case, nihilism.
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Turgenev, as it were, takes his creature out of a self-imposed pattern and places him in the normal world of chance. He lets Bazarov die not from any peculiar inner development of Bazarov's nature, but by the blind decree of fate. He dies with silent courage, as he would have died on the battlefield, but there is an element of resignation about his decay that goes well with the general trend of mild submission to fate which colors Turgenev's whole art.
The reader will notice —I will direct his attention to those
passages in a moment—that the two fathers and the uncle
in the book are not only very different from Arkadi and
Bazarov, but also different from each other. One will also
note that Arkadi, the son, is of a much gentler and simpler
and more routine and normal nature than Bazarov. I shall
look through a number of passages that are especially vivid
and significant. One will mark, for instance, the following
situation. Old Kirsanov, Arkadi's father, has that quiet,
tender, altogether charming mistress, Fenichka, a girl of
the people. She is one of the passive types of Turgenev's
young women, and around this passive center three men
revolve: Nikolay Kirsanov, and also Pavel, his brother, who
by some twist of memory and imagination sees in her a
resemblance to a former flame of his, a flame that colored
his entire life. And moreover there is Bazarov, who is shown
flirting with Fenichka, a casual flirtation that brings on a
duel. However, not Fenichka but typhus will be the cause of
Bazarov's death.
One will observe a queer feature of Turgenev's structure.
He takes tremendous trouble to introduce his characters
properly, endowing them with pedigrees and recognizable
Nabokov's chart of the journeys in
traits, but when he has finally assembled them all, lo and
behold the tale is finished and the curtain has gone down
whilst a ponderous epilogue takes care of whatever is supposed to happen to his invented creatures beyond the horizon of his novel. I do not mean there are no events in this story. On the contrary, this novel is replete with action; there are quarrels and other clashes, there is even a duel—and a good deal of rich drama attends Bazarov's death. But one will notice that all the time throughout the development of the action, and in the margin of the changing events, the past lives of the characters are being pruned and improved by the author, and all the time he is terribly concerned with bringing out their souls and minds and temperaments by means of functional illustrations, for instance the way simple folks are attached to Bazarov or the way Arkadi tries to live up to his friend's new-found wisdom.
The art of translation from theme to theme is for an author the most difficult technique to master, and even a first-rate artist, as Turgenev is at his best, will be tempted (because of the kind of reader he imagines, a matter-of- fact reader accustomed to certain methods) to follow traditional devices in this passing from one scene to another. Turgenev's transitions are very simple, and indeed even trite. As we go through the story, and stop at various points of style and structure, we shall gradually accumulate a small collection of these simple devices.
There is first of all the introductional intonation: 'Well, anything in sight . . . was the question asked on May 20, 1859, by a gentleman of a little over forty'—et cetera, et cetera. Then Arkadi arrives; then Bazarov is introduced:
'Nikolay Petrovich turned around quickly and, going up to a tall man in a long, loose, rough coat with tassels, who had only just got out of the carriage, he warmly pressed the ungloved rough hand, which the latter did not at once hold out to him.
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' T am heartily glad,' he began, 'and very grateful for your kind intention of visiting us. . . . May I ask your name, and your father's?'
'Eugene Vasilievich,' answered Bazarov in a lazy but manly voice; and as he turned down the collar of his rough coat Nikolay Petrovich could see his whole face. Long and lean, with a broad forehead, a nose flat at the bridge but pointed at the tip, large greenish eyes, and sandy drooping side whiskers, it was lighted by a tranquil smile and showed self-confidence and intelligence.
' T hope, dear Eugene Vasilievich, you won't be bored at our place,' continued Nikolay Petrovich.
'Bazarov's thin lips moved just perceptibly, though he made no reply, merely taking off his cap. His long thick dark blond hair did not hide the prominent bumps on his head.'
Uncle Pavel is introduced in the beginning of chapter 4: '... at that instant a man of medium height, dressed in a dark English suit, a fashionable low cravat, and kid shoes, entered the drawing room. This was Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. He looked about forty-five: his close-cropped gray hair shone with a dark luster, like new silver; his face, yellow but free from wrinkles, was exceptionally regular and pure in line, as though carved by a light and delicate chisel, and showed traces of remarkable good looks; especially fine were his clear, black, almond-shaped eyes. The whole mien of Arkadi's uncle, exquisite and thoroughbred, had preserved the gracefulness of youth and that air of striving upward, of spurning the earth, which for the most part is lost after the twenties are past.
'Pavel Petrovich took out of his trousers pocket his exquisite hand with its long tapering pink nails, a hand which seemed still more beautiful because of the snowy whiteness of the cuff, buttoned with a single big opal, and gave it to his nephew.
After a preliminary handshake in the European style, he kissed him thrice after the Russian fashion, that is to say, he touched his cheek three times with his fragrant mustache, and said, 'Welcome.' '
He and Bazarov dislike each other at sight, and Turgenev's device here is the comedy technique of each confiding his feelings separately and symmetrically to a friend. Thus Uncle Pavel, talking to his brother, criticizes the unkempt appearance of Bazarov, and a little later, after supper, Bazarov in talking to Arkadi criticizes Pavel's beautifully groomed fingernails. A simple symmetrical device, which is especially obvious because the ornamentation of the conventional structure is artistically superior to the convention.
The first meal together, the supper, passes quietly. Uncle Pavel has been confronted by Bazarov but we have to wait for their first clash. Another person is introduced into Uncle Pavel's orbit at the very end of this chapter 4: Pavel Petrovich 'sat in his study until long past midnight, in a beautifully made, roomy armchair before the fireplace, on which the coals were smoldering into faintly glowing embers. . . . His expression was concentrated and grim, which is not the case when a man is absorbed solely in recollections. And in a small back room [of the house], a young woman in a blue, warm, sleeveless jacket, with a white kerchief thrown over her dark hair, was sitting on a large trunk. This was Fenichka. She was now listening, now dozing, now glancing at the open door through which one could see a child's crib and hear the regular breathing of a sleeping baby.'
It is important for Turgenev's purpose to tie up in the reader's mind Uncle Pavel with the mistress of Nikolay. Arkadi finds he has a baby brother, Mitya, a little later than the reader does.
The next meal, breakfast, begins without Bazarov. The ground has not yet been prepared, and Turgenev sends Bazarov away to collect frogs while he has Arkadi explain to Uncle Pavel about Bazarov's ideas:
