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Turgenief’s relation to Mme. Viardot was that of
passionate devotion and admiration. He could not do
without her, and took counsel with her about his affairs
of every description. Genuine Slav as he was, susceptible
to impressions, intellectually productive and almost
destitute of will-power, he was fortunate in having a
fair ruler over his life. When any friend complained to
him of his own irregular and unfortunate career, he
usually answered: “Do as I do, my dear fellow; I
allow myself to be ruled.” He did what Mme. Viardot
told him he ought to do, and was contented therewith.
She seems to have been the only woman of importance
in his life. Naturally, he had known women in
his youth. At the age of nineteen, in Berlin, he was
the friend of a little sewing-girl and was chagrined that
Bakunin, with whom he was living, could tell by his
looks when he had been to see her.[1] At first in the
beginning of the fifties he lived in Russia, and then,
1851-53, with a Russian serf, Avdotya Yermolayevna
Ivánova, who must have been very beautiful, but to
whom it appeared to be impossible to impart the
mysteries of the art of reading. She bore to him, in 1842,
the daughter whom he married to a Frenchman in 1864.
His letters show that he did not at that time even know
where the mother, who had married a Russian official,
was living. (Letter to Maslof, December 26, 1864.)
But he was a good father as well as a faithful friend
and a magnanimous protector.
His character was noble; refined and pure even to the
point of tenderness; but gentle and undecided.
Probably he was not obliged to go far, as a young man, to
find the model of single traits of character in Rúdin. He
was never guilty of any low act; but, on the other hand,
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