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Virgin Soil

by Ivan S. Turgenev

Translated from the Russian by R. S. Townsend




INTRODUCTION

TURGENEV was the first writer who was able, having both Slavic
and universal imagination enough for it, to interpret modern
Russia to the outer world, and Virgin Soil was the last word of
his greater testament. It was the book in which many English
readers were destined to make his acquaintance about a generation
ago, and the effect of it was, like Swinburne's Songs Before
Sunrise, Mazzini's Duties of Man, and other congenial documents,
to break up the insular confines in which they had been reared
and to enlarge their new horizon. Afterwards they went on to read
Tolstoi, and Turgenev's powerful and antipathetic fellow-
novelist, Dostoievsky, and many other Russian writers: but as he
was the greatest artist of them all, his individual revelation of
his country's predicament did not lose its effect. Writing in
prose he achieved a style of his own which went as near poetry as
narrative prose can do. without using the wrong music: while over
his realism or his irony he cast a tinge of that mixed modern and
oriental fantasy which belonged to his temperament. He suffered
in youth, and suffered badly, from the romantic malady of his
century, and that other malady of Russia, both expressed in what
M. Haumand terms his "Hamletisme." But in Virgin Soil he is easy
and almost negligent master of his instrument, and though he is
an exile and at times a sharply embittered one, he gathers
experience round his theme as only the artist can who has
enriched leis art by having outlived his youth without forgetting
its pangs, joys, mortifications, and love-songs.

In Nejdanov it is another picture of that youth which we see--
youth reduced to ineffectiveness by fatalism and by the egoism of
the lyric nature which longs to gain dramatic freedom, but cannot
achieve it. It is one of a series of portraits, wonderfully
traced psychological studies of the Russian dreamers and
incompatibles of last mid-century, of which the most moving
figure is the hero of the earlier novel, Dimitri Rudin. If we
cared to follow Turgenev strictly in his growth and contemporary
relations, we ought to begin with his Sportsman's Note Book. But
so far as his novels go, he is the last writer to be taken
chronologically. He was old enough in youth to understand old age
in the forest, and young enough in age to provide his youth with
fresh hues for another incarnation. Another element of his work
which is very finely revealed .and brought to a rare point of
characterisation in Virgin Soil, is the prophetic intention he
had of the woman's part in the new order. For the real hero of
the tale, as Mr. Edward Garnett has pointed out in an essay on
Turgenev, is not Nejdanov and not Solomin; the part is cast in
the woman's figure of Mariana who broke the silence of "anonymous
Russia." Ivan Turgenev had the understanding that goes beneath
the old delimitation of the novelist hide-bound by the law--"male
and female created he them."

He had the same extreme susceptibility to the moods of nature. He
loved her first for herself, and then with a sense of those
inherited primitive associations with her scenes and hid
influences which still play upon us to-day; and nothing could be
surer than the wilder or tamer glimpses which are seen in this
book and in its landscape settings of the characters. But Russ as
he is, he never lets his scenery hide his people: he only uses it
to enhance them. He is too great an artist to lose a human trait,
as we see even in a grotesque vignette like that of Fomishka and
Fimishka, or a chance picture like that of the Irish girl once
seen by Solomin in London.

Turgenev was born at Orel, son of a cavalry colonel, in ISIS. He
died in exile, like his early master in romance Heine--that is in
Paris-on the 4th of September, 1883. But at his own wish his
remains were carried home and buried in the Volkoff Cemetery, St.
Petersburg. The grey crow he had once seen in foreign fields and
addressed in a fit of homesickness

"Crow, crow,
You are grizzled, I know,
But from Russia you come;
Ah me, there lies home!"

called him back to his mother country, whose true son he remained
despite all he suffered at her hands, and all the delicate
revenges of the artistic prodigal that he was tempted to take.

E. R.

The following is the list of Turgenev's chief works:

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF WORKS: Russian Life in the interior: or,
the Experiences of a Sportsman, from French version, by J. D.
Meiklejohn, 1855; Annals of a Sportsman, from French version, by
F. P. Abbott, 1885; Tales from the Notebook of a Sportsman, from
the Russian, by E. Richter, 1895; Fathers and Sons, from the
Russian, by E. Schuyler, 1867, 1883; Smoke: or, Life at Baden,
from French version, 1868, by W. F. West, 1872, 1883; Liza: or, a
Nest of Nobles, from the Russian, by W. R. S. Ralston, 1869,
1873, 1884; On the Eve, a tale, from the Russian, by C. E.
Turner, 1871; Dimitri Roudine, from French and German versions,
1873, 1883; Spring Floods, from the Russian, by S. M. Batts,
1874; from the Russian, by E. Richter, 1895; A Lear of the
Steppe, From the French, by W. H. Browne, 1874; Virgin Soil, from
the French, by T. S. Perry, 1877, 1883, by A. W. Dilke, 1878;
Poems in Prose, from the Russian, 1883; Senilia, Poems in Prose,
with a Biographical Sketch of the Author, by S. J. Macmillan,
1890; First Love, and Punin and Baburin from the Russian, with a
Biographcal Introduction, by S. Jerrold, 1884; Mumu, and the
Diary of a Superfluous Man, from the Russian, by H. Gersoni,
1884; Annouchka, a tale, from the French version, by F. P.
Abbott, 1884; from the Russian (with An Unfortunate Woman), by H.
Gersoni, 1886; The Unfortunate One, from the Russian, by A. R.
Thompson, 1888 (see above for Gersoni's translation); The Watch,
from the Russian, by J. E. Williams, 1893.

WORKS: Novels, translated by Constance Garnett, 15 vols., 1894-
99. 1906. Novels and Stories, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood,
with an Introduction by Henry James, 1903, etc.

LIFE: See above, Biograpical Introductions to Poems in Prose and
First Love; E. M. Arnold, Tourgueneff and his French Circle,
translated from the work of E. Halperine-Kaminsky, 1898; J. A. T.
Lloyd, Two Russian Reformers: Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, 1910.



VIRGIN SOIL


"To turn over virgin soil it is necessary to use a deep plough
going well into the earth, not a surface plough gliding lightly
over the top."--From a Farmer's Notebook.

I

AT one o'clock in the afternoon of a spring day in the year 1868,
a young man of twenty-seven, carelessly and shabbily dressed, was
toiling up the back staircase of a five-storied house on Officers
Street in St. Petersburg. Noisily shuffling his down-trodden
goloshes and slowly swinging his heavy, clumsy figure, the man at
last reached the very top flight and stopped before a half-open
door hanging off its hinges. He did not ring the bell, but gave
a loud sigh and walked straight into a small, dark passage.

"Is Nejdanov at home?" he called out in a deep, loud voice.

"No, he's not. I'm here. Come in," an equally coarse woman's
voice responded from the adjoining room.

"Is that Mashurina?" asked the newcomer.

"Yes, it is I. Are you Ostrodumov?

"Pemien Ostrodumov," he replied, carefully removing his goloshes,
and hanging his shabby coat on a nail, he went into the room from
whence issued the woman's voice.

It was a narrow, untidy room, with dull green coloured walls,
badly lighted by two dusty windows. The furnishings consisted
of an iron bedstead standing in a corner, a table in the middle,
several chairs, and a bookcase piled up with books. At the table
sat a woman of about thirty. She was bareheaded, clad in a black
stuff dress, and was smoking a cigarette. On catching sight of
Ostrodumov she extended her broad, red hand without a word. He
shook it, also without saying anything, dropped into a chair and
pulled a half-broken cigar out of a side pocket. Mashurina gave
him a light, and without exchanging a single word, or so much as
looking at one another, they began sending out long, blue puffs
into the stuffy room, already filled with smoke.

There was something similar about these two smokers, although
their features were not a bit alike. In these two slovenly
figures, with their coarse lips, teeth, and noses (Ostrodumov was
even pock-marked), there was something honest and firm and
persevering.

"Have you seen Nejdanov?" Ostrodumov asked.

"Yes. He will be back directly. He has gone to the library with
some books."

Ostrodumov spat to one side.

"Why is he always rushing about nowadays? One can never get hold
of him."

Mashurina took out another cigarette.

"He's bored," she remarked, lighting it carefully.

"Bored!" Ostrodumov repeated reproachfully. "What self-
indulgence! One would think we had no work to do. Heaven knows
how we shall get through with it, and he complains of being
bored!"

"Have you heard from Moscow?" Mashurina asked after a pause.

"Yes. A letter came three days ago."

"Have you read it?"

Ostrodumov nodded his head.

"Well? What news?

"Some of us must go there soon."

Mashurina took the cigarette out of her mouth.

"But why?" she asked. "They say everything is going on well
there."

"Yes, that is so, but one man has turned out unreliable and must
be got rid of. Besides that, there are other things. They want
you to come too."

"Do they say so in the letter?"

"Yes."

Mashurina shook back her heavy hair, which was twisted into a
small plait at the back, and fell over her eyebrows in front.

"Well," she remarked; "if the thing is settled, then there is
nothing more to be said."

"Of course not. Only one can't do anything without money, and
where are we to get it from?"

Mashurina became thoughtful.

"Nejdanov must get the money," she said softly, as if to herself.

"That is precisely what I have come about," Ostrodumov observed.

"Have you got the letter?" Mashurina asked suddenly.

"Yes. Would you like to see it?"

"I should rather. But never mind, we can read it together
presently."

"You need not doubt what I say. I am speaking the truth,"
Ostrodumov grumbled.

"I do not doubt it in the least." They both ceased speaking and,
as before, clouds of smoke rose silently from their mouths and
curled feebly above their shaggy heads.

A sound of goloshes was heard from the passage.

"There he is," Mashurina whispered.

The door opened slightly and a head was thrust in, but it was not
the head of Nejdanov.

It was a round head with rough black hair, a broad wrinkled
forehead, bright brown eyes under thick eyebrows, a snub nose and
a humorously-set mouth. The head looked round, nodded, smiled,
showing a set of tiny white teeth, and came into the room with
its feeble body, short arms, and bandy legs, which were a little
lame. As soon as Mashurina and Ostrodumov caught sight of this
head, an expression of contempt mixed with condescension came
over their faces, as if each was thinking inwardly, "What a
nuisance!" but neither moved nor uttered a single word. The newly
arrived guest was not in the least taken aback by this reception,
however; on the contrary it seemed to amuse him.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked in a squeaky voice. "A
duet? Why not a trio? And where's the chief tenor?

"Do you mean Nejdanov, Mr. Paklin?" Ostrodumov asked solemnly.

"Yes, Mr. Ostrodumov."

"He will be back directly, Mr. Paklin."

"I am glad to hear that, Mr. Ostrodumov."

The little cripple turned to Mashurina. She frowned, and
continued leisurely puffing her cigarette.

"How are you, my dear . . . my dear . . . I am so sorry. I always
forget your Christian name and your father's name."

Mashurina shrugged her shoulders.

"There is no need for you to know it. I think you know my
surname. What more do you want? And why do you always keep on
asking how I am? You see that I am still in the land of the
living!"

"Of course!" Paklin exclaimed, his face twitching nervously. "If
you had been elsewhere, your humble servant would not have had
the pleasure of seeing you here, and of talking to you! My
curiosity is due to a bad, old-fashioned habit. But with regard
to your name, it is awkward, somehow, simply to say Mashurina. I
know that even in letters you only sign yourself Bonaparte! I beg
pardon, Mashurina, but in conversation, however--"

"And who asks you to talk to me, pray?"

Paklin gave a nervous, gulpy laugh.

"Well, never mind, my dear. Give me your hand. Don't be cross. I
know you mean well, and so do I... Well?

Paklin extended his hand, Mashurina looked at him severely and
extended her own.

"If you really want to know my name," she said with the same
expression of severity on her face, "I am called Fiekla."

"And I, Pemien," Ostrodumov added in his bass voice.

"How very instructive! Then tell me, 0h Fiekla! and you, Oh Pemien!
why you are so unfriendly, so persistently unfriendly to me when
I--"

"Mashurina thinks," Ostrodumov interrupted him, "and not only
Mashurina, that you are not to be depended upon, because you
always laugh at everything."

Paklin turned round on his heels.

"That is the usual mistake people make about me, my dear Pemien!
In the first place, I am not always laughing, and even if I were,
that is no reason why you should not trust me. In the second, I
have been flattered with your confidence on more than one
occasion before now, a convincing proof of my trustworthiness. I
am an honest man, my dear Pemien."

Ostrodumov muttered something between his teeth, but Paklin
continued without the slightest trace of a smile on his face.

"No, I am not always laughing! I am not at all a cheerful person.
You have only to look at me!"

Ostrodumov looked at him. And really, when Paklin was not
laughing, when he was silent, his face assumed a dejected, almost
scared expression; it became funny and rather sarcastic only when
he opened his lips. Ostrodumov did not say anything, however, and
Paklin turned to Mashurina again.

"Well? And how are your studies getting on? Have you made any
progress in your truly philanthropical art? Is it very hard to
help an inexperienced citizen on his first appearance in this
world?

"It is not at all hard if he happens to be no bigger than you
are!" Mashurina retorted with a self-satisfied smile. (She had
quite recently passed her examination as a midwife. Coming from a
poor aristocratic family, she had left her home in the south of
Russia about two years before, and with about twelve shillings in
her pocket had arrived in Moscow, where she had entered a lying-
in institution and had worked very hard to gain the necessary
certificate. She was unmarried and very chaste. "No wonder!" some
sceptics may say ( bearing in mind the description of her personal
appearance; but we will permit ourselves to say that it was
wonderful and rare).

Paklin laughed at her retort.

"Well done, my dear! I feel quite crushed! But it serves me right
for being such a dwarf! I wonder where our host has got to?"

Paklin purposely changed the subject of conversation, which was
rather a sore one to him. He could never resign himself to his
small stature, nor indeed to the whole of his unprepossessing
figure. He felt it all the more because he was passionately fond of
women and would have given anything to be attractive to them. The
consciousness of his pitiful appearance was a much sorer point
with him than his low origin and unenviable position in society.
His father, a member of the lower middle class, had, through all
sorts of dishonest means, attained the rank of titular
councillor. He had been fairly successful as an intermediary in
legal matters, and managed estates and house property. He had
made a moderate fortune, but had taken to drink towards the end
of his life and had left nothing after his death.

Young Paklin, he was called Sila--Sila Samsonitch, [Meaning strength,
son of Samson] and always regarded this name as a joke against
himself, was educated in a commercial school, where he had acquired
a good knowledge of German. After a great many difficulties he
had entered an office, where he received a salary of five hundred
roubles a year, out of which he had to keep himself, an invalid
aunt, and a humpbacked sister. At the time of our story Paklin
was twenty-eight years old. He had a great many acquaintances
among students and young people, who liked him for his cynical
wit, his harmless, though biting, self-confident speeches, his
one-sided, unpedantic, though genuine, learning, but occasionally
they sat on him severely. Once, on arriving late at a political
meeting, he hastily began excusing himself. "Paklin was afraid!"
some one sang out from a corner of the room, and everyone
laughed. Paklin laughed with them, although it was like a stab in
his heart. "He is right, the blackguard!" he thought to himself.
Nejdanov he had come across in a little Greek restaurant, where
he was in the habit of taking his dinner, and where he sat airing
his rather free and audacious views. He assured everyone that
the main cause of his democratic turn of mind was the bad Greek
cooking, which upset his liver.

"I wonder where our host has got to? " he repeated. "He has been
out of sorts lately. Heaven forbid that he should be in love!

Mashurina scowled.

"He has gone to the library for books. As for falling in love, he
has neither the time nor the opportunity."

"Why not with you?" almost escaped Paklin's lips.

"I should like to see him, because I have an important matter to
talk over with him," he said aloud.

"What about?" Ostrodumov asked. "Our affairs?"

"Perhaps yours; that is, our common affairs."

Ostrodumov hummed. He did not believe him. "Who knows? He's such
a busy body," he thought.

"There he is at last!" Mashurina exclaimed suddenly, and her
small unattractive eyes, fixed on the door, brightened, as if lit
up by an inner ray, making them soft and warm and tender.

The door opened, and this time a young man of twenty-three, with
a cap on his head and a bundle of books under his arm, entered
the room. It was Nejdanov himself.

II

AT the sight of visitors he stopped in the doorway, took them in
at a glance, threw off his cap, dropped the books on to the
floor, walked over to the bed, and sat down on the very edge. An
expression of annoyance and displeasure passed over his pale
handsome face, which seemed even paler than it really was, in
contrast to his dark-red, wavy hair.

Mashurina turned away and bit her lip; Ostrodumov muttered, "At
last!"

Paklin was the first to approach him.

"Why, what is the matter, Alexai Dmitritch, Hamlet of Russia? Has
something happened, or are you just simply depressed, without any
particular cause?

"Oh, stop! Mephistopheles of Russia!" Nejdanov exclaimed
irritably. "I am not in the mood for fencing with blunt
witticisms just now."

Paklin laughed.

"That's not quite correct. If it is wit, then it can't be blunt.
If blunt, then it can't be wit."

"All right, all right! We know you are clever!

"Your nerves are out of order," Paklin remarked hesitatingly. "Or
has something really happened?"

"Oh, nothing in particular, only that it is impossible to show
one's nose in this hateful town without knocking against some
vulgarity, stupidity, tittle-tattle, or some horrible injustice.
One can't live here any longer!"

"Is that why your advertisement in the papers says that you want
a place and have no objection to leaving St. Petersburg? "
Ostrodumov asked.

"Yes. I would go away from here with the greatest of pleasure, if
some fool could be found who would offer me a place!"

"You should first fullfil your duties here," Mashurina remarked
significantly, her face still turned away.

"What duties?" Nejdanov asked, turning towards her.

Mashurina bit her lip. "Ask Ostrodumov."

Nejdanov turned to Ostrodumov. The latter hummed and hawed, as if
to say, "Wait a minute."

"But seriously," Paklin broke in, "have you heard any unpleasant
news?"

Nejdanov bounced up from the bed like an india-rubber ball. "What
more do you want?" he shouted out suddenly, in a ringing voice.
"Half of Russia is dying of hunger! The Moscow News is triumphant!
They want to introduce classicism, the students' benefit clubs
have been closed, spies everywhere, oppression, lies, betrayals,
deceit! And it is not enough for him! He wants some new
unpleasantness! He thinks that I am joking. . . . Basanov has
been arrested," he added, lowering his voice. "I heard it at the
library."

Mashurina and Ostrodumov lifted their heads simultaneously.

"My dear Alexai Dmitritch," Paklin began, "you are upset, and for
a very good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in
what country we are living? Amongst us a drowning man must
himself create the straw to clutch at. Why be sentimental over
it? One must look the devil straight in the face and not get
excited like children--"

"Oh, don't, please!" Nejdanov interrupted him desperately,
frowning as if in pain. "We know you are energetic and not afraid
of anything--"

"I--not afraid of anything?" Paklin began.

"I wonder who could have betrayed Basanov? "Nejdanov continued.
"I simply can't understand!"

"A friend no doubt. Friends are great at that. One must look
alive! I once had a friend, who seemed a good fellow; he was
always concerned about me and my reputation. 'I say, what
dreadful stories are being circulated about you!' he would greet
me one day. 'They say that you poisoned your uncle and that on
one occasion, when you were introduced into a certain house, you
sat the whole evening with your back to the hostess and that she
was so upset that she cried at the insult! What awful nonsense!
What fools could possibly believe such things!' Well, and what do
you think? A year after I quarrelled with this same friend, and
in his farewell letter to me he wrote, 'You who killed your own
uncle! You who were not ashamed to insult an honourable lady by
sitting with your back to her,' and so on and so on. Here are
friends for you!"

Ostrodumov and Mashurina exchanged glances.

"Alexai Dmitritch!" Ostrodumov exclaimed in his heavy bass voice;
he was evidently anxious to avoid a useless discussion. "A letter
has come from Moscow, from Vassily Nikolaevitch."

Nejdanov trembled slightly and cast down his eyes.

"What does he say? " he asked at last.

"He wants us to go there with her." Ostrodumov indicated to
Mashurina with his eyebrows.

"Do they want her too?'

"Yes."

"Well, what's the difficulty?

"Why, money, of course."

Nejdanov got up from the bed and walked over to the window.

"How much do you want?"

"Not less than fifty roubles."

Nejdanov was silent.

"I have no money just now," he whispered at last, drumming his
fingers on the window pane, "but I could get some. Have you got
the letter?"

"Yes, it . . . that is . . . certainly. . ."

"Why are you always trying to keep things from me?" Paklin
exclaimed. "Have I not deserved your confidence? Even if I were
not fully in sympathy with what you are undertaking, do you think
for a moment that I am in a position to turn around or gossip?"

"Without intending to, perhaps," Ostrodumov remarked.

"Neither with nor without intention! Miss Mashurina is looking at
me with a smile . . . but I say--"

"I am not smiling!" Mashurina burst out.

"But I say," Paklin went on, "that you have no tact. You are
utterly incapable of recognising your real friends. If a man can
laugh, then you think that he can't be serious--"

"Is it not so?" Mashurina snapped.

"You are in need of money, for instance," Paklin continued with
new force, paying no attention to Mashurina; "Nejdanov hasn't
any. I could get it for you."

Nejdanov wheeled round from the window.

"No, no. It is not necessary. I can get the money. I will draw
some of my allowance in advance. Now I recollect, they owe me
something. Let us look at the letter, Ostrodumov."

Ostrodumov remained motionless for a time, then he looked around,
stood up, bent down, turned up one of the legs of his trousers,
and carefully pulled a piece of blue paper out of his high boot,
blew at it for some reason or another, and handed it to Nejdanov.
The latter took the piece of paper, unfolded it, read it
carefully, and passed it on to Mashurina. She stood up, also read
it, and handed it back to Nejdanov, although Paklin had extended
his hand for it. Nejdanov shrugged his shoulders and gave the
secret letter to Paklin. The latter scanned the paper in his
turn, pressed his lips together significantly, and laid it
solemnly on the table. Ostrodumov took it, lit a large match,
which exhaled a strong odour of sulphur, lifted the paper high
above his head, as if showing it to all present, set fire to it,
and, regardless of his fingers, put the ashes into the stove. No
one moved or pronounced a word during this proceeding; all had
their eyes fixed on the floor. Ostrodumov looked concentrated and
business-like, Nejdanov furious, Paklin intense, and Mashurina as
if she were present at holy mass.

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