REMINISCENCES OF TOURGURNEFF.*
THE passion to know all about the personality of a great man is rarely gratified without a certain amount of disillusionment. It is as well, therefore, to say at once that with the exception of one episode in his youth, there is little or nothing in this moat interesting -volume that is calculated to lower or impair the
esteem which the perusal of Tourgu6neff's works awakes in most readers. Simplicity, sympathy, and generosity were the leading traits in his character. It has been well said of Darwin that "he belonged to that rare class of great minds who can make them- selves at home with commonplace people." These reminiscences prove that this also was true of Tourgagneff wherever he dis-
covered a spark of sincerity or earnestness or sympathy in those with whom he came in contact. He had the gift, as M. Pavlovsky remarks, of making a friend at the first meeting, a faculty which greatly aided him in extending the sphere of his observations of character. The origin of his friendship with the writer of this volume illustrates, again, another agreeable trait in his nature, his readiness to recognise talent in beginners. Through the media- tion of another Russian friend, to whom, for obvious reasons, he gives a fictitious name—Polivanoff—M. Pavlovsky had been enabled to submit to Tourganeff's consideration the manuscript of a story of his, no other than the much-discussed Mentoires tfuu Rihiliste. Towne:len verdict, when it arrived, fairly took the author's breath away. M. Pavlovsky's comment on the incident is worth quoting :- " In relating this and other personal anecdotes, I feel that I ought to state at once that I do so not out of vanity, but because they illus- trate one of Tonrgueneff's characteristic traits. If he discovered in any one a spark of talent, or any sign of sympathetic originality in his character, he went into naive and kindly raptures, with the exaggeration of a child. He would talk to you of his protégé, praise him everywhere, display enthusiasm and awaken it in others. He would forget his own work, beg his friends to find occupation for the new-comer, offer him money, books, credit at his tailor's, and the use
of his linen Polivanoff was one day propounding to him with amazing warmth the mysticosocial views which he had brought back with him from America. Tourgueneff was listening to him with pleasure. His countenance had assumed the expression of ingenuous kindliness usual with him in such cases- When Polivanoff had made an end and was taking his leave, Tonrgueneff suddenly addressed him in a nervous fashion,—' I say, Polivanoff, they've sent me some shirts which are too tight for me ; you may as well take them.'—' But why should I? I've got some of my own !' Tour. gneneff insisted on it, and Polivanoff made his escape with great difficulty by declaring that, although the shirts might be too tight for Tourgueneff, they would be too long for him."
Perhaps the most interesting part of M. Pavloveky's volume is that devoted to the account of Tourganeff's relations with his two great literary rivals, Tolstoi and Dostoieffsky. With the former, in spite of repeated estrangements in early life, he remained on terms of close intimacy to the end. Of the latter he had a poor opinion as a writer, and ended by detesting him as a man. For Tolstoi's works he had an almost limitless admiration. He spoke of him as the greatest of all contemporary writers of fiction, and declared The Cossacks to be the finest romance written in the Russian language. On the other hand, Tolstoi's personality was exceedingly irritating to him in the early period of their friendship. At a distance, he could feel even affection for him, but directly they met, Tolstoi began to rub him the wrong way, generally with malice prepense, ac- cording to M. Pavlovsky, and out of a perverse desire to exhaust Tonrgudneff's seemingly inexhaustible forbearance. Their inter- course, a tissue of quarrels and reconciliations, finally reached a crisis. Tolstoi succeeded in exasperating his friend beyond the bounds of endurance. A duel was imminent, and the world of letters was threatened with an irreparable loss. Some difficulty in agreeing as to the conditions of the conflict caused a slight delay, and eventually a reconciliation was patched up, though it was long before complete harmony was restored between them. Tourgudneff's enthusiasm for Tolstoi:3 works by no means blinded him to their faults of style and construction. He found the latter part of Anna Sarenine, for instance, tediously minute. -A. great artist in the matter of condensation, he was keenly
• Souvenirs ear Tourguineff. Par Isaac Pavlova,. Pula Albert Bovine.
sensible to the inartistic diffuseness of his friend's works. He read them critically and impartially, and for the rest acted as a sort of literary mentor towards the younger writer, whose excursions beyond the confines of romance he deeply resented.
He did not gainsay the sincerity of Tolstoi's Confession, but declared that his convictions could only lead to the most gloomy negation of all active and natural life. He was heart-broken that Tolstoi, "the most remarkable Russian alive," should stifle his creative impulse, and it was this feeling which impelled him to dictate from his death-bed one of the moat profoundly affecting letters that were ever written. We will not spoil it by translation, but give it as it is quoted by M. de Vogiie and M. Pavlovsky
" Hon bon et ober ami, ii y a longtempe qua je DO yowl ai e'er% parse qua j'etais et je Inds, it parler franc, stir mon lit de wort. Is no pens pas gnerir, it n'y a pas I y penser. Is vans eerie avant tout pour vans dire combien j'ai ate heureux d'etre votre contemporain, et pour roue exprimer ma dernihre et instants priere. Mon ami, revenez I la litterature ! Bongez que ce don le. vons est venu d'od vient touts chose. Ah ! que je semis henrenx si je pinwale penser que ma priers aura de l'inflaence our vons ! Quant a moi, je anis nu homme fini, les medecins ne savent mime pas comment appeler ma maladie Is ne pule ni marcher, ni manger, ni dormir, male qua! cola m'eunnie de repeter tont eels encore one foie ! Mon ami, grand eorivain de Is terra rune, exancez ma pribre! Faites-moi aavoir si vows ave. ma ce bout de papier, et permettez.moi encore use foie de volts embrasser
bien fort, bien fort, roes, votre femme, tons lea 'cares Je ne pens plus je sale fatigue."
Nothing could be more admirable than the zeal and activity displayed by Tourgudneff in helping to spread his friend's fame in other countries. He was forestalled in his project of trans- lating The Cossacks, but took an energetic part in the necessary negotiations with the French publishers ; and when War and Peace appeared in a French dress, took upon himself to distribute copies to all the principal critics and leading literary men of his acquaintance. Flauberea verdict, which TourguSneff transmitted to Tolstoi, is worth transcribing in its original form :—
" lierci de m'avoir fait lire le roman de Tolstoi. Crest de premier ordre. Quel peistre et quel psychologne ! Lee deux premiers volumes sont sublimes; male le troisieme degringole affreasement. II se repute! at it as philosophise EDfill on volt Is monsieur, l'antear et Is Busse,—tandia que jusque lit on n'avait vn quo la Nature et l'Humanite. Il me zombie qu'il y a parfois des °hoses I In Shake- speare ! Je ponssais des cris d'admiration pendant Bette lecture et elle est longue' Osi, &est fort, bien fort."
For Dostoieffsky alone among his literary contemporaries, he had a feeling which amounted to a repulsion, and which the account of their intercourse, as recorded by M. Pavlovsky, goes a long way to justify. The extracts from Dostoieffeky's correspondence which are here given thoroughly bear out the following graphic description of his individuality ;—" Maladif, d'abord trop vita cffiebre, phis trop malheureux, it fat tonjonrs ddskuilibr6." The exact cause of Dostoieffsky's turning round upon Tourgueneff does not transpire. With a man so morbidly sensitive, it is quite easy to imagine misapprehension to have been at the bottom of it. Tourga6neff took no notice of his onslaught —Dostoieffeky caricatured him savagely, under the name of Karmazinoff, in one of his later novels—but it cannot be said he spared his assailant, the charge which he brought against his character being about the most terrible that one man could lay to the door of another. And it must be borne in mind that Tonrgueneff was slow to wrath, and of extraordinary kindness of heart. His generosity and devotion to his compatriots are the theme of some moat touching anecdotes recorded in these pages. He had an untiring fertility of resource in devising innocent stratagems for helping those who were too proud to accept help directly. He could never resist an appeal for pecuniary aid, and when his parse failed, took endless trouble in organising concerts or performances for charitable purposes, in which his remarkable talents as a reader were of the greatest service. He was a past master, too, in the art of composing begging-letters in behalf of others, at which he was the first to laugh, though not without a certain pride in his skill. Another hobby of his was a Russian Blab and reading-room in Paris, which owed their origin and maintenance to his energy, and in the latter case, to his generosity. Of his other special characteristics, IL Pavlovsky notices an astonishing memory for persons, names, and facts. He seems to have known Shakespeare almost by heart; and his estimates, as here recorded, of the leading French writers of the century, prove him to have possessed a singularly unbiassed and acute judgment. For example, be acknowledged the force and boldness of Zola, but declared that his work made all literature to stink. The anecdotes of Victor Hugo, for whom, as a lyric poet, he bad unstinted admiration, are perhaps the most amusing things in this fascinating book ; but it is a pity to discount the
pleaimre of its perusal by extracting such passages. In dealing with a work of this sort, a reviewer should set before him the aim of exciting the curiosity of his readers rather than that of satisfying it, and for this reason we have confined our extracts in the main to such matter as was available to M. Pavlovnky in common with other writers about Tonrgueneff.
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