Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Impressions of Russian Literature - V
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
With trailquil tenderness he draws the young girls
who have his full sympathy, Helen and Gemma, and with
an indulgent love which, nevertheless, excludes all praise
and admiration on the part of the author. Every word
which is said of them is determinative, limiting. One,
in play of features, gestures, laughter, train of ideas and
love is wholly Italian; the other is impressed on the
mind of the reader as the most beautiful type of Russian
womanhood. Only the best authors of the world have
produced anything so natural, so well sustained. And
the worship of beauty that is to be found there has done
no harm to the study of nature. They are not women
whom the author has arbitrarily created, and who dwell
in the fancy-land of poetry, like the forms of women in
the works of so many other authors. They are not
products of Turgenief’s personal enthusiasm for the
womanly, not merely an expression of his ideal alone,
but studies built up on a foundation of a delicate sense
of reality, and by the force of a thorough knowledge of
the real.
In the more important male characters, from the
nature of the material, Turgenief found his task
especially difficult. While the chief aim of an author
usually is to sustain his characters and let them escape
self-contradiction, the finest characters of Turgenief
are made up of contradictions. He understood how to
treat inconsistency as a fundamental trait of
character without having the character disorganized thereby.
With the regular Russian, as he describes him, there is
nothing certain to be depended upon except instability.
As Alexis, in “A Correspondence,” leaves Maria in the
lurch, so Rúdin abandons Natalia, Sanin, in “Spring
Floods,” Gemma, Litvinof, in “Smoke,” Tatyana, etc.;
they abandon youth, freshness, goodness of heart, beauty,
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
