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Years later, in her last illness, Turgenev made repeated attempts to see her, all of which she angrily repulsed. He endeavoured to see her at the very last, but she died before his arrival. He was then informed that on the evening of her death she had given orders to have an orchestra play dance-music in an adjoining chamber, to distract her mind during the final agony.
Garnett's supple and faithful renderings of Turgenev, Tolstoi, Dostoievski, and Tchekov have, for example, a great following but we do not adventure much beyond the French and the Russians; whereas I learn that English versions of hundreds of other foreign books are eagerly bought in America. Such curiosity seems to me to be very sensible.
His childhood was anything but cheerful, and late in life he said he could distinctly remember the salt taste of the frequent tears that trickled into the corners of his mouth. Fortunately for all concerned, the father died while Turgenev was a boy, leaving him with only one even if the more formidable of his parents to contend with.
As an artist, Turgenev in reality stands with the classics who may be studied and admired for their perfect form long after the interest of their subject has disappeared. But it seems that in his very devotion to art and beauty he has purposely restricted the range of his creations.
The radical critic Antonovich condemned the book in the following terms: "From an artistic standpoint the novel is entirely unsatisfactory, not to say anything more out of respect for the talent of Turgenev, for his former merits, and for his numerous admirers.
About 1860 Ivan Turgenev, in common with many of the Russian writers of the period, found himself being carried away towards the study of social reform.
All these writers have such a direct and powerful influence on contemporary youth that we are going to study them separately in this book, not excepting Tchekoff, whose influence is still enormous. Since the death of the prophet of Yasnaya-Polyana, Russian literature cannot boast of any writers who compare with Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Goncharov, or the dramatist Ostrovsky.
Edward Garnett loves him, though in his Introduction to Constance Garnett's translation, he says, "we love him." Bazarov, as every one knows, was drawn from life. Turgenev had once met a Russian provincial doctor,* whose straightforward talk made a profound impression upon him.
Another contemporary writer, Korolenko, whose poetic talent recalls Turgenev to our minds, is distinguished, on the contrary, by the attempts he has made to set free the spark of life which exists in human beings who have broken down morally.
His Diary of a Sportsman contains some of the best of his short stories, and his Country Inn, written a few years later, in the maturity of his talent, is as good as Tolstoi's little masterpiece, Polikushka. He was certainly able to paint all classes and conditions of Russian people. But in his greater works Turgenev lays the action exclusively with one class of Russian people.
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