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FATHERS AND SONS. SMOKE. LIZA. ON THE EVE. DIMITRI ROUDINE. SPRING FLOODS; LEAR. VIRGIN SOIL. ANNALS OF A SPORTSMAN.

LIZA

"A NEST OF NOBLES"

BY IVAN S. TURG?NIEFF

BY W.R.S. RALSTON

PREFACE

M. Turg?nieff has written a great number of very charming short stories, most of them having reference to Russia and Russian life; for though he has lived in Germany for many years, his thoughts, 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" and "Smoke" . 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.

The last novelette which M. Turg?nieff has published, "The Unfortunate One" 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. Turg?nieff'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;" but, unfortunately, the French translation from which they were rendered, was one which had been so "cooked" for the Parisian market, that M. Turg?nieff 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.

Still more vigorously had M. Turg?nieff 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; but as the translation was published on the other side of the Atlantic, it has as yet served but little to make M. Turg?nieff's name known among us.

I, too, have kept as closely as I possibly could to the original. Indeed, the first draft of the translation was absolutely literal, regardless of style or even idiom. While in that state, it was revised by the Russian friend who assisted me in my translation of Krilofs Fables--M. Alexander Onegine--and to his painstaking kindness I am greatly indebted for the hope I venture to entertain that I have not "traduced" the author I have undertaken to translate. It may be as well to state that in the few passages in which my version differs designedly from the ordinary text of the original, I have followed the alterations which M. Turg?nieff made with his own hand in the copy of the story on which I worked, and the title of the story has been altered to its present form with his consent.

I may as well observe also, that while I have inserted notes where I thought their presence unavoidable, I have abstained as much as possible from diverting the reader's attention from the story by obtrusive asterisks, referring to what might seem impertinent observations at the bottom of the page. The Russian forms of name I have religiously preserved, even to the extent of using such a form as Ivanich, as well as Ivanovich, when it is employed by the author.

INNER TEMPLE, June 1, 1869.

LIZA.

A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but to be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond.

At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that name--it was in the year 1842--there were sitting two ladies, the one about fifty years old, the other an old woman of seventy.

The name of the first was Maria Dmitrievna Kalitine. Her husband, who had formerly occupied the post of Provincial Procurator, and who was well known in his day as a good man of business--a man of bilious temperament, confident, resolute, and enterprising--had been dead ten years. He had received a good education, and had studied at the university, but as the family from which he sprang was a poor one, he had early recognized the necessity of making a career for himself and of gaining money.

Maria Dmitrievna married him for love. He was good-looking, he had plenty of sense, and, when he liked, he could be very agreeable. Maria Dmitrievna, whose maiden name was Pestof, lost her parents while she was still a child. She spent several years in an Institute at Moscow, and then went to live with her brother and one of her aunts at Pokrovskoe, a family estate situated fifteen versts from O. Soon afterwards her brother was called away on duty to St. Petersburgh, and, until a sudden death put an end to his career, he kept his aunt and sister with only just enough for them to live upon. Maria Dmitrievna inherited Pokrovskoe, but she did not long reside there. In the second year of her marriage with Kalitine, who had succeeded at the end of a few days in gaining her affections, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for another estate--one of much greater intrinsic value, but unattractive in appearance, and not provided with a mansion. At the same time Kalitine purchased a house in the town of O., and there he and his wife permanently established themselves. A large garden was attached to it, extending in one direction to the fields outside the town, "so that," Kalitine, who was by no means an admirer of rural tranquillity, used to say, "there is no reason why we should go dragging ourselves off into the country." Maria Dmitrievna often secretly regretted her beautiful Pokrovskoe, with its joyous brook, its sweeping meadows, and its verdant woods, but she never opposed her husband in any thing, having the highest respect for his judgment and his knowledge of the world. And when he died, after fifteen years of married life, leaving behind him a son and two daughters, Maria Dmitrievna had grown so accustomed to her house and to a town life, that she had no inclination to change her residence.

In her youth Maria Dmitrievna had enjoyed the reputation of being a pretty blonde, and even in her fiftieth year her features were not unattractive, though they had lost somewhat of their fineness and delicacy. She was naturally sensitive and impressionable, rather than actually good-hearted, and even in her years of maturity she continued to behave in the manner peculiar to "Institute girls;" she denied herself no indulgence, she was easily put out of temper, and she would even burst into tears if her habits were interfered with. On the other hand, she was gracious and affable when all her wishes were fulfilled, and when nobody opposed her in any thing. Her house was the pleasantest in the town; and she had a handsome income, the greater part of which was derived from her late husband's earnings, and the rest from her own property. Her two daughters lived with her; her son was being educated in one of the best of the crown establishments at St. Petersburgh.

"What is the matter?" she suddenly asked. "What are you sighing about?"

"Nothing," replied Maria Dmitrievna. "What lovely clouds!"

"You are sorry for them, I suppose?"

Maria Dmitrievna made no reply.

"Why doesn't Gedeonovsky come?" continued Marfa Timofeevna, rapidly plying her knitting needles. "He would have sighed with you. Perhaps he would have uttered some platitude or other."

"How unkindly you always speak of him! Sergius Petrovich is--a most respectable man."

"Respectable!" echoed the old lady reproachfully.

"And then," continued Maria Dmitrievna, "how devoted he was to my dear husband! Why, he can never think of him without emotion."

"He might well be that, considering that your husband pulled him out of the mud by the ears," growled Marfa Timofeevna, the needles moving quicker than ever under her fingers. "He looks so humble," she began anew after a time. "His head is quite grey, and yet he never opens his mouth but to lie or to slander. And, forsooth, he is a councillor of state! Ah, well, to be sure, he is a priest's son."

"Who is there who is faultless, aunt? It is true that he has this weakness. Sergius Petrovich has not had a good education, I admit--he cannot speak French--but I beg leave to say that I think him exceedingly agreeable."

"Oh, yes, he fawns on you like a dog. As to his not speaking French, that's no great fault. I am not very strong in the French 'dialect' myself. It would be better if he spoke no language at all; he wouldn't tell lies then. But of course, here he is, in the very nick of time," continued Marfa Timofeevna, looking down the street. "Here comes your agreeable man, striding along. How spindle-shanked he is, to be sure--just like a stork!"

Maria Dmitrievna arranged her curls. Marfa Timofeevna looked at her with a quiet smile.

"Isn't that a grey hair I see, my dear? You should scold Pelagia. Where can her eyes be?"

"That's just like you, aunt," muttered Maria Dmitrievna, in a tone of vexation, and thrumming with her fingers on the arm of her chair.

"Sergius Petrovich Gedeonovsky!" shrilly announced a rosy-cheeked little Cossack, who suddenly appeared at the door.

A tall man came into the room, wearing a good enough coat, rather short trousers, thick grey gloves, and two cravats--a black one outside, a white one underneath. Every thing belonging to him was suggestive of propriety and decorum, from his well-proportioned face, with locks carefully smoothed down over the temples, to his heelless and never-creaking boots. He bowed first to the mistress of the house, then to Marfa Timofeevna, and afterwards, having slowly taken off his gloves, he approached Maria Dmitrievna and respectfully kissed her hand twice. After that he leisurely subsided into an easy-chair, and asked, as he smilingly rubbed together the tips of his fingers--

"Is Elizaveta quite well?"

"Yes," replied Maria Dmitrievna, "she is in the garden."

"And Elena Mikhailovna?"

"Lenochka is in the garden also. Have you any news?"

"Rather!" replied the visitor, slowly screwing up his eyes, and protruding his lips. "Hm! here is a piece of news, if you please, and a very startling one, too. Fedor Ivanovich Lavretsky has arrived."

"Fedia!" exclaimed Marfa Timofeevna. "You're inventing, are you not?"

"Not at all. I have seen him with my own eyes."

"That doesn't prove any thing."

"He's grown much more robust," continued Gedeonovsky, looking as if he had not heard Marfa Timofeevna's remark; "his shoulders have broadened, and his cheeks are quite rosy."

"Grown more robust," slowly repeated Maria Dmitrievna. "One would think he hadn't met with much to make him robust."

"That is true indeed," said Gedeonovsky. "Any one else, in his place, would have scrupled to show himself in the world."

"And why, I should like to know?" broke in Marfa Timofeevna. "What nonsense you are talking! A man comes back to his home. Where else would you have him betake himself? And, pray, in what has he been to blame?"

"A husband is always to blame, madam, if you will allow me to say so, when his wife behaves ill."

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