The Jew and Other Stories | Page 2

the ranks of the great
novelists, along with Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Balzac, Dickens,
Thackeray, Meredith, Tolstoi, Flaubert, Maupassant, he is the greatest
of them all, in the sense that he is the supreme artist. As has been
recognised by the best French critics, Turgenev's art is both wider in its
range and more beautiful in its form than the work of any modern
European artist. The novel modelled by Turgenev's hands, the Russian
novel, became the great modern instrument for showing 'the very age
and body of the time his form and pressure.' To reproduce human life in
all its subtlety as it moves and breathes before us, and at the same time

to assess its values by the great poetic insight that reveals man's
relations to the universe around him,--that is an art only transcended by
Shakespeare's own in its unique creation of a universe of great human
types. And, comparing Turgenev with the European masters, we see
that if he has made the novel both more delicate and more powerful
than their example shows it, it is because as the supreme artist he filled
it with the breath of poetry where others in general spoke the word of
prose. Turgenev's horizon always broadens before our eyes: where
Fielding and Richardson speak for the country and the town, Turgenev
speaks for the nation. While Balzac makes defile before us an endless
stream of human figures, Turgenev's characters reveal themselves as
wider apart in the range of their spirit, as more mysteriously alive in
their inevitable essence, than do Meredith's or Flaubert's, than do
Thackeray's or Maupassant's. Where Tolstoi uses an immense canvas in
_War and Peace_, wherein Europe may see the march of a whole
generation, Turgenev in Fathers and Children concentrates in the few
words of a single character, Bazarov, the essence of modern science's
attitude to life, that scientific spirit which has transformed both
European life and thought. It is, however, superfluous to draw further
parallels between Turgenev and his great rivals. In England alone,
perhaps, is it necessary to say to the young novelist that the novel can
become anything, can be anything, according to the hands that use it. In
its application to life, its future development can by no means be
gauged. It is the most complex of all literary instruments, the chief
method to-day of analysing the complexities of modern life. If you love
your art, if you would exalt it, treat it absolutely seriously. If you would
study it in its highest form, the form the greatest artist of our time has
perfected--remember Turgenev.
EDWARD GARNETT.
November 1899.

CONTENTS
THE JEW
AN UNHAPPY GIRL
THE DUELLIST
THREE PORTRAITS
ENOUGH

THE JEW
...'Tell us a story, colonel,' we said at last to Nikolai Ilyitch.
The colonel smiled, puffed out a coil of tobacco smoke between his
moustaches, passed his hand over his grey hair, looked at us and
considered. We all had the greatest liking and respect for Nikolai
Ilyitch, for his good-heartedness, common sense, and kindly indulgence
to us young fellows. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, stoutly-built man;
his dark face, 'one of the splendid Russian faces,' [Footnote: Lermontov
in the _Treasurer's Wife_.--AUTHOR'S NOTE.] straight-forward,
clever glance, gentle smile, manly and mellow voice--everything about
him pleased and attracted one.
'All right, listen then,' he began.
It happened in 1813, before Dantzig. I was then in the E---- regiment of
cuirassiers, and had just, I recollect, been promoted to be a cornet. It is
an exhilarating occupation--fighting; and marching too is good enough
in its way, but it is fearfully slow in a besieging army. There one sits
the whole blessed day within some sort of entrenchment, under a tent,
on mud or straw, playing cards from morning till night. Perhaps, from
simple boredom, one goes out to watch the bombs and redhot bullets
flying.
At first the French kept us amused with sorties, but they quickly
subsided. We soon got sick of foraging expeditions too; we were
overcome, in fact, by such deadly dulness that we were ready to howl
for sheer ennui. I was not more than nineteen then; I was a healthy
young fellow, fresh as a daisy, thought of nothing but getting all the fun
I could out of the French... and in other ways too... you understand
what I mean... and this is what happened. Having nothing to do, I fell to
gambling. All of a sudden, after dreadful losses, my luck turned, and
towards morning (we used to play at night) I had won an immense
amount. Exhausted and sleepy, I came out into the fresh air, and sat
down on a mound. It was a splendid, calm morning; the long lines of
our fortifications were lost in the mist; I gazed till I was weary, and
then