Liza | Page 2

whenever he takes up his pen, almost always seem to go back to his
native land. Besides these, as well as a number of critical essays, plays,
and poems, he has brought out several novels, or rather novelettes, for
none of them have attained to three-volume dimensions. Of these, the
most remarkable are the one I have now translated, which appeared
about eleven years ago, and the two somewhat polemical stories, called
"Fathers and Children" (Otsui i Dyeti) and "Smoke" (Duim). The first
of the three I may leave to speak for itself, merely adding that I trust
that--although it appears under all the disadvantages by which even the
most conscientious of translations must always be attended--it may be
looked upon by English readers with somewhat of the admiration
which I have long felt for the original, on account of the artistic finish
of its execution, the purity of its tone, and the delicacy and the
nobleness of the sentiment by which it is pervaded.
The story of "Fathers and Children" conveys a vigorous and
excessively clever description of the change that has taken place of late
years in the thoughts and feelings of the educated classes of Russian
society One of the most interesting chapters in "Liza"--one which may
be skipped by readers who care for nothing but incident in a
story--describes a conversation which takes place between the hero and
one of his old college friends. The sketch of the disinterested student,
who has retained in mature life all the enthusiasm of his college days, is
excellent, and is drawn in a very kindly spirit. But in "Fathers and
Children" an exaggeration of this character is introduced, serving as a
somewhat scare-crow-like embodiment of the excessively hard
thoughts and very irreverent speculations in which the younger thinkers

of the new school indulge. This character is developed in the story into
dimensions which must be styled inordinate if considered from a purely
artistic point of view; but the story ought not to be so regarded.
Unfortunately for its proper appreciation among us, it cannot be judged
aright, except by readers who possess a thorough knowledge of what
was going on in Russia a few years ago, and who take a keen and lively
interest in the subjects which were then being discussed there. To all
others, many of its chapters will seem too unintelligible and wearisome,
both linked together into interesting unity by the slender thread of its
story, beautiful as many of its isolated passages are. The same
objection may be made to "Smoke." Great spaces in that work are
devoted to caricatures of certain persons and opinions of note in Russia,
but utterly unknown in England--pictures which either delight or
irritate the author's countrymen, according to the tendency of their
social and political speculations, but which are as meaningless to the
untutored English eye as a collection of "H.B."'s drawings would be to
a Russian who had never studied English politics. Consequently neither
of these stories is likely ever to be fully appreciated among us[A].
[Footnote A: A detailed account of both of these stories, as well as of
several other works by M. Turgénieff, will be found in the number of
the North British Review for March, 1869.]
The last novelette which M. Turgénieff has published, "The
Unfortunate One" (Neschastnaya) is free from the drawbacks by which,
as far as English readers are concerned, "Fathers and Children" and
"Smoke," are attended; but it is exceedingly sad and painful. It is said
to be founded on a true story, a fact which may account for an intensity
of gloom in its coloring, the darkness of which would otherwise seem
almost unartistically overcharged.
Several of M. Turgénieff's works have already been translated into
English. The "Notes of a Sportsman" appeared about fourteen years ago,
under the title of "Russian Life in the Interior[A];" but, unfortunately,
the French translation from which they were (with all due
acknowledgment) rendered, was one which had been so "cooked" for
the Parisian market, that M. Turgénieff himself felt bound to protest

against it vigorously. It is the more unfortunate inasmuch as an
admirable French translation of the work was afterwards made by M.
Delaveau[B].
[Footnote A: "Russian Life in the Interior." Edited by J.D. Meiklejohn.
Black, Edinburg, 1855.]
[Footnote B: "Récits d'un Chasseur." Traduits par H. Delavea, Paris,
1858.]
Still more vigorously had M. Turgénieff to protest against an English
translation of "Smoke," which appeared a few months ago.
The story of "Fathers and Children" has also appeared in English[A];
but as the translation was published on the other side of the Atlantic, it
has as yet served but little to make M. Turgénieff's name known among
us.
[Footnote A: "Fathers and Sons." Translated from the Russian by
Eugene Schuyler. New York 1867.]
The French