- Project Runeberg -  Impressions of Russia /
289

(1889) [MARC] Author: Georg Brandes Translator: Samuel Coffin Eastman - Tema: Russia
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he hardly ever acted with any bold and forcible energy.
In reading his letters we are surprised to see with what
rascals he corresponded, — apparently not to make
enemies of them, — and with how little respect he speaks in
confidential letters of persons to whom in other letters
he shows great regard. When we find that Turgenief,
with a character in which will-power was so weakly
developed, during the whole of his life remained
inviolably faithful to the old liberal convictions of his youth,
we can scarcely err in attributing to Mme. Viardot no
small degree of honor for this result. If she had
influenced him in the opposite direction, he would probably
have become conservative, and if her house and circle
had not been decidedly liberal, perhaps an influence from
some other direction would have succeeded in swaying
him. On the contrary, he seems to have been entirely
independent in his obstinate position as the exponent
and pupil of Western Europe.

In perfect accord with the weak appearance of his
will-power in Turgenief’s character is the circumstance
that as an author he comes forward with a confidence
like that of a somnambulist. He said to Mikhaïlof,
Professor of Physiology in St. Petersburg (from whom I
have it): “I see a man who strikes me from some characteristic
or other, perhaps of little importance. I forget
him. And then, long after, the man suddenly starts up
from the grave of forgetfulness. About the characteristic
which I observed, others group themselves, and it is
of no use now if I want to forget him: I cannot do it;
he has taken possession of me; I think with him, live
in him; I can only restore myself to ease by finding
an existence for him.”

Turgenief, as a writer, is more elegant than forcible.
It is for that reason that female characters are so well
adapted to his talents.

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