THE RUSSIAN NOVEL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1025, 14 January 1911, Page 14

THE RUSSIAN NOVEL.

IVAN TERGENEV. It is surprising to find how littlo the Russian novel is read in England. Possibly the morbid tone of nearly all Russian literature accounts for this. But tho gloomy note is found also in tho national music, yet its popularity is unquestioned. In Tschaikowsky's Symphonies, as in Tergenev's novels, there is an underlying pathos. It is not to bo found ill tho art of any other country; at times it comes near to despair, and yet,'as in tho trumphaut march that cuts through the sombre atmosphere of the "Symphonie Pathetiquo," there is-a suggestion that out of that very despair all that is strong and'vigorous in the nation will struggle to the light.

It is impossible to read Tergenev's novels' without being struck by the charactor of tho Russian women. Probably no ono has ever drawn such .wonderful lovers. Yet always their own personal passion is merged in a deeper one, their mutual passion for tho causo of freedom. 'They hardly pause to embraco when they realise tlioir love, all is surrendered to the servico of tho cause.

In "On tho Eve" the unflinching character of Elena is remarkable. From the time that sho is aware of her lovo for tho man to whom sho gives her life, there is no looking back. She goes with him although he is poor aud ill,' leaving home and friends, in the teeth of tho fiercest opposition, to nurse him and stay with him in foreign lands; and when he dies sho does not go homo to her ■ parents, where she might have found shelter'and. comfort, sho stays and'continues his work as f far as she is able.

Again- arid again, in almost all his novels,'. Torgenov' shows tho weak 'vacillating, naturo'of th'o' Russian man compared'to that of the woman.

His "Rudin".is a convincing study of a-typo of man who' must havo been quite "common among the intellectual set in Russia; 'who, feeling the stir of a great movement beneath and around them, conscious of injustice and of tho need. for action, yet are capable only of; words, never- deeds.

Rudin goes through life convincing others by words, alyrays words. Ho lm tho'gift of; the", orator,, and' uses'.' it mercilessly. At tlio end of life, though he lias been full of' ideals, ho has dono nothing. Natalva, tho heroine, in direct contrast to'him, is ready to givo up everything for him, while Rudin is incapable of being certain whether ho loves her or not —and when . Natalya asks.with regard to tho disapproval of her mother of. their love:—

"What do you think we must do?" "What wo must" do?" replied Rudin; "of course submit. . . . Submit to destiny," continued Rudin. "What is to bo done?" / Again, in "Virgin Soil," the last, and in -some ways surely -the finest, of Tergenov's. works, "Marinnna" seems to typify tlio character' of Russian women at the-time of the beginning of tho Nihilist movement in Russia.

She never falters in her determination to go to "tho people" and help them, nor.even,', after she has discovered that sho docs not love tho man with whom she has left her uncle's house, docs sho falter in her allegianco to him. There is something liko iron in the Russian women's character. They are by no means cold and hard, but everything about them is strong and intense.'. They havo no time to bo trivial. In his short stories, Tergonov is equally successful. The delicacy and strength with which "Tho Diary',of a Superfluous Man" is written is a revelation. "April 1. "It is over. . . , Life is over. I .shall certainly dio to-day. It's hot out- , - i almost suffocating . . , or is it that my lungs, are already refusing to breathe? My little comedy, is played out. The curtain is falling. , "Sinking into nothing, I ccasc to bo superfluous. ..."

And again in his' short ' stories, so many of them contain, really wonderful descriptions of naturo. Tho power of them is that they aro so natural—they convince. One of ■ Torgonev's * own countrymen has said that his stylo is so easy and natural that it is almost though he .wero "thinking aloud." That is just the impression that somo Russian-literature .'gives ono. There, is nothing unnecessary, there aro serious things afoot —best talk of them in tho simplest, most direct way possible. Yet Tergcnev was an 'artist, and becauso of it he could not talk about tlio most, grim facts of life without making poetry of them. One. must renumber, too, that he-wrote almost entirely of the intellectual typo of Russian. It remained for Maxim Gorky to give a picture, drawn crudely and without mercy,-of'a-Russian peapant. Those who wrote during the Nihilist phase in Russia -must convey a moro gloom than later writers, because it was a time -when old ideas wero- being- swept away -and nothing very real • and vigorous substituted. Perhaps that partly accounts for the vacillating naturo of so /many of tho men, especially the educated ones.

The description that follows is characteristic of Tcrgenev:—

"And pn a winter day to walk over tho high"snowdrifts like hares; tb broatho tho keen frosty air, whilo halfclosing the eyes involuntarily at the fine blinding sparklo of tho soft snow; to admire the emerald sky above the reddish forest! ... . , And the first spring day when everything is shining, and breaking up, when across the heavy streams, from the melting snow, ther'o is already tho scent of the thawing earth; when on tho bare thawed places, under t-lio slanting sunshine, the larks aro singing confidingly, and, with glad splash and roar, the torrents roll from ravine to. ravine. . . .

"But.it is time to end —By tho way; 1,-have spoken of spring: in spring it is easy to part,, in the spring even tlio happy are drawn away to tho distance. . . . Farewell, • reader 1 I

wish you unbroken prosperity."—Alico C. Gates, in "The Commonwealth."