to the large class of reasoners really existing in Russia, and numbering many members, who will take nothing for granted, who disclaim anything like a blind obedience to authority, and who refuse to accept any conclusions but those which have been arrived at by scientific processes. But he is also represented as belonging to the much smaller class of destructives, who for a time made themselves notorious by their somewhat blatant outeries against all social laws, all reli

ities he resembles one of the most eccentric of the young Russian philosophers, the author of the novel which describes that happy future time when, "by means of a reorganiz ed community, people will live in perpetual enjoyment of happiness, surrounded by the perfection of all material comfort, making love without the cares and anxieties of family duties, and lodging in houses with floors of aluminium;" but his rudeness, his coarse

cial laws seem to claim him as a member of the weaker minded part of the followers of that really original and exceedingly clever enthusiast. Bazarof, the hero of Fathers and Children, is an uncompromising sceptic, as may be seen from the following passage, in which he is disputing with an opponent who asks him what are the principles in accordance with which his party acts:

Liberals who had for so many years toiled and suffered in the perilous struggle for progress and reform, he set to work to paint a by no means flattering portrait of a representative of the new school of Radicals. As a moderate man, free from any viewy or crotchety ideas, he could not sympathize with the fantastic but violent projects of theorists who disbelieved in almost everything but their own infallibility; as a genuine artist, in the highest sense of the word, he could not avoid being wroth with philos-gious institutions. In some of his peculiarophers whose realism led them to sneer at and to speak slightingly of music, painting, and sculpture. Every army is impeded by a swarm of camp-followers, who often bring it into discredit, and the band of young enthusiasts who flocked around the banuers of Liberalism in Russia counted in its number a good many social marauders whose zeal was somewhat prejudicial to its good name. The peculiarities of these objectionable members of the party M. Turguenicf has hit offness, and his outspoken contempt for all sowith admirable fidelity and rare humour, exposing them unmercifully to the very disrespectful recognition of the world. There can be no question about the talent displayed in the series of pictures contained in Fathers and Children, and its successor, Smoke. Whether they are to be looked upon as serious portraits or as humorous caricatures is not so clear. It is probable that the artist has only aimed at depicting the absurdity of certain extremes, without wishing to throw any ridicule upon what lies between them. M. Turguenief has done good service in exposing the insincerity and selfishness of some of the most plausible men, the hopeless imbecility of some of the most fluent women, who have imposed upon the young enthusi asts of the advanced school of liberal opinions in Russia; but he would have committed an injustice if he had stated that they were fair representatives of the whole of that school. But he has never done anything of the kind. He has painted certain pictures, and left them to tell their own tale. He has laughed at many extravagances, he has traced certain social aberrations to their logical end, but we cannot see that he has anywhere scoffed at generous enthusiasms, or that he has wished to cool the noble ardour which glows in youthful breasts. A satirist always runs the risk of being called a cynic; but there are times when the very warmth of a man's feelings, the very disinterestedness of his character, impels him towards the peril ous realm of satire.

The hero of Fathers and Children is a young physician, who is a leading man among what has, since the appearance of the book, been called the Nihilist party. He belongs

"We act in accordance with that which we recognise to be useful,' said Bazarof. At the present moment the most useful thing is denial, so we deny.'

I

666

Everything?'

"Yes, everything.'

am afraid of saying
"What! not only art, poetry, but also

"Everything,' repeated Bazarof."

According to his opinion, "Raphael is not worth a brass farthing," and as to religion and morality he values them about as high as he does art. As to principles, he denies their existence, saying that we act in accordance with sensations only; that if a man behaves honourably, for instance, it is only because honourable behaviour happens to yield him an agreeable sensation. Altogether he is thoroughly sceptical, irreverent, defiant, and aggressive; but, on the other hand, he is brave and upright and incorruptible, and he is generally popular, especially among young people, although he never thinks of taking pains to please. One of his most loving disciples is a young student named Arcady Kirsanof, who has accepted all Bazarof's philosophy without ever having

* An interesting account of" Nihilism in Russia" is to be found in M. Boboruikin's article on that subject in the Fortnightly Review, Aug. 1868.

taken the trouble to test it, and who sets up for being an original and a cynic, when he is in reality an amiable young man of a thoroughly commonplace character. At the commencement of the story we find the two friends staying in the country-house belonging to Arcady's father. Arcady has just taken his degree at the University, and his father, Nicolai Petrovich Kirsanof, is delighting in his presence, though somewhat unable to appreciate his son's new philosophical ideas, and very ill at ease in presence of his son's extraordinary friend. The elder Kirsanof is a simple, kindly gentleman, not very enlightened, of no great natural ability, and of somewhat confused ideas on the subject of morality. He has been looking forward with great joy to his son's return, but when it takes place he finds, to his extreme regret, that his son and he are no longer in accord, and that his son's thoughts seem to move in a sphere to which his own cannot gain access.

The character of Paul Kirsanof, the representative of another branch of the elder generation, has been carefully studied and portrayed by M. Turguenief. Like his brother, he prides himself upon being, what he really is, a thorough gentleman, in the English sense of the word, but his nature is harder than his brother's, and has received a higher polish. Formerly one of the most distinguished ornaments of the fashionable society of the capital, he has taken in middle life to leading a hermit-like existence in his brother's country-house. He reads a good deal, and chiefly English books. All his manner of life, indeed, is arranged in accordance with English ideas. He seldom visits his neighbours, and scarcely ever appears in public except at the elections of the Marshals of the Nobility, and on other similar occasions. Even then he rarely opens his lips, but if he does speak it is only to shock the Conservative proprietors by Liberal sallies, which, however, do not conciliate the representatives of the rising generation. "We have servel our time, our song is Every one thinks him proud, but at the sung,' he says to his brother Paul one evening. same time respects him on account of his "Well, perhaps Bazarof is right. But there is one thing, I must confess, which I find very thoroughly aristocratic manner and his exhard: I had hoped that Arcady and I would quisite taste in dress; also because he alhave been in the most thorough friendly ac- ways occupies the best rooms in the chief cord with each other; but it turns out that I hotels wherever he goes, and never underhave fallen behind, and he has gone ahead, and takes a journey without providing himself we cannot understand each other at all,...I with a portable bath and a silver travelling fancy I do everything I can to prevent my full-service, and perfumes himself with choice ing behind our age. I have introduced the mélayer system on my estate, and tried to give my peasants a better position than they had before, so that I have even got credit throughout the province for being a red republican. I read, I study, I do my best in general to rise to the level of the wants of the day, and then I am told that my song is sung; and indeed, brother, I begin myself to think that it really is sing.'

"What makes you think that?' "I'll tell you. I was sitting to-day reading Pushkin. I remember it was his poem of "The Gipsies" I happened to have opened at, when Arcady suddenly came up to me, and, without saying a word, with a sort of pitying tenderness expressed in his look, took my book quietly away from me, just as one would do to a child, and placed another in front of me, a German one, then smiled and went away, carrying off Pushkin with him."

The book which Aready wishes his father to read is Büchner's Stoff und Kraft, but the elder Kirsanof finds he cannot understand the learned materialist's work on Matter and Force, although he has not yet forgotten his German. The old gentleman fears the time has come for him and his equals in age to order their coffins and lie down quietly to die, but his brother thinks otherwise.

essences, and has once dined with the Duke of Wellington at Louis Philippe's table; and also because he is perfectly honest and honourable. Ladies recognise in his melancholy, which is due to an unhappy love af fair, something very charming, but Bazarof scoffs at it. That hard utilitarian cannot see the use of continually regretting a lost love, and declares that a man is unworthy of the name of man, "who, having staked all his life on the card of a woman's love, and having lost that card, is so cut up and upset that he becomes absolutely fit for nothing." He goes on to laugh at the idea of there being anything romantic or mysterious in the relations which can exist between man and woman, and then proceeds to fall in love with a great lady, who gives him a good deal of marked encouragement, and then suddenly treats him with unexpected coldness. Her strange character is very cleverly drawn, but the best part of the story is that which describes what takes place after her conduct has sent Bazarof home to his father's house in disgust with the world.

His father is an old retired army surgeon, as simple-hearted as the elder Kirsanof, and as devoted to his son, whom he adores, and

the village in which the accident takes place, and before he can return home and procure some it is too late. A few days afterwards he dies. This part of the story is worked out with great power. The young man's defiant behaviour on what he knows to be his deathbed, the repressed grief of the poor old father and mother, the visits of the lady whose coldness had driven Bazarof to despair, and who comes to see him when it is too late, all are related in M. Turguenief's most impressive style. It is thus that the scene ends:

who has always behaved irreproachably to Wards him. Bazarote mother is an old la: dy who ought to have lived two centuries earlier, being a perfect type of what the wives of the petty nobility used to be. She is very pious, very good, very superstitious. She believes religiously in dreams, in ghosts, and in evil spirits. She never reads, scarcely ever writes, but makes excellent preserves. She looks on the peasants as beings of a lower nature than her own, but is very kind to them, and never refuses to give alms to a beggar. Ignorant, prejudiced, and amiable, she lives in a very little world of her own, and does not take the slightest inter-wards evening he fell into a state of complete "Bazarof was never to wake again. Toest in what goes on outside it. It may easi-insensibility, and on the next day he died. ly be supposed that two such quiet, simple Father Alexis performed the last rites of the old people do not quite know what to make church by his bedside. At the moment when of their extraordinary son. And he soon the sacrament of extreme unction was being finds himself tired of the dull life he leads conferred on the dying man, just as the conseunder his father's old-fashioned roof. His crated oil touched his breast, one of his eyes first visit, after taking his degree at the Uni- opened, and it seemed as if at the sight of the versity, lasts a very short time. The old of the candies burning before the sacred pie priest in his vestments, of the reeking censer, people had counted on keeping him several tures, something like a shudder of fear passed weeks at least, but after a few days he goes for a moment across his fast whitening face. off again. His carriage drives away, and When at length he had breathed his last, and they are left alone. His father, Vassily a general sound of lamentation began to make Ivanovich, waves his handkerchief briskly itself heard throughout the house, a sudden from the front door as long as the vehicle is frenzy seemed to seize upon the father. 'I in sight, then throws himself on a chair and hoarse voice, his cheeks burning, and the whole swore I would speak out,' he cried with a lets his head fall on his breast, crying that expression of his face changing, while he shook he is alone indeed now; that his son has his fists in the air as if he were theatening grown tired of him, and abandoned him. some one- and I will speak out, I will speak out!' But the mother flung herself, all in tears, on his neck, and they two fell down together on the ground. Just like lambs in the heat of the day, they let their heads droop and fell down side by side,' said Anfisuchka afterwards in the servants' room."

"Then Arina Vlasievna (his wife) drew near to him, and said, resting her grey head on his, 'How can it be helped, Vasia? A son is a chip from the block. He is like a falcon. He felt inclined, he flew here. Again he felt inclined, and he has flown away. But we two never move, we are always at each other's side, like two lichens in the hollow of a tree. I only shall always remain just the same for you, and you too for me.' Then Vassily Ivanovich took away his hands from before his face, and embraced his wife, his companion, more warmly than he used to embrace her even in the days of his youth. For she had

consoled him in the time of his sorrow."

The young Bazarof returns once more home, and his parents are for a time perfectly happy. The old doctor tells all the peasants who come to consult him how fortunate they are in arriving at a time when his son is able to assist him. He even keeps a tooth which his son had extracted, and shows it to his friends as something wonderful. After a while, however, he remarks that his son is sad and restless, and he talks the matter over very mournfully with his wife. One day young Bazarof cuts his finger while engaged in dissection. He applies in vain for caustic to the doctor of

Six months later a happy scene is to be witnessed in the house of the Kirsanofs. The young Arcady has been led astray from his philosophic studies by the bright eyes of a young lady who gladly consents to make him happy; and his delighted father is giv ing an entertainment in honour of the marriage. Arcady has not forgotten Bazarof, but he has entirely emancipated himself from the influence of that ill-starred materialist's theories. He has descended from those heights of speculation round which sweep keen winds, destructive of romance and earthly enjoyments, and he is content to dwell in the fat plains over which gentle breezes waft the scent of flowers and the song of birds. Life is now very pleasant to him, and he feels no longer the slightest inclination to don that cynical robe which has so easily slipped off his shoulders, but which Bazarof drew even more closely round himself before he died. The story ends with the following words;—

of attractive, she dresses in the worst possible taste, she does not care about even not quite fair. As a caricature it is well personal cleanliness. But this picture is worthy of praise; but it must not be taken as a trustworthy representation of even a very advanced specimen of that class of Russian women which it is intended to typify-the class that has for years been striving to raise its members above the been generally content to rest. The same dead level of thought at which their sex has remark holds good also for M. Turguenief's story called Smoke, in which he has introduced three female characters, and has painted only one of them in favourable colful and clever and accomplished, but she is There is a great lady, who is beautithoroughly unprincipled and selfish; there is a specimen of the class to which Madame Kukshine belonged, who is represented as utterly absurd and intolerably tiresome; and, lastly, there is a quiet simple girl, who has a sweet face and an honest, loving heart, and who is made to contrast very advantageously with the other two.