“Stories of a businesslike, incriminating nature leave a very difficult impression on the reader, therefore, while recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken exclusively such a gloomy direction.”
This is what quite a lot of people say, apparently not stupid, or, better to say, they said so until the peasant question became the real subject of all thoughts, all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I don’t know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read perhaps the only good new story, from which, from the first pages, one could already expect a completely different content, a different pathos, than from business stories. There is no chicanery with violence and bribery, no dirty swindlers, no official villains explaining in elegant language that they are the benefactors of society, no philistines, peasants and little officials tormented by all these terrible and disgusting people. The action is abroad, away from all the bad surroundings of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane, imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called dark sides of life. Here, I thought, my soul will rest and be refreshed. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals until the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are unlike the first, and after reading the story, the impression left is even more bleak than the stories about disgusting bribe takers with their cynical robbery. They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; It is not from them that we expect improvements in our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put a barrier to their harmful influence, that will change the nature of our life with their nobility. This illusion is most bitterly rejected in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half.
Here is a man whose heart is open to all high feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has absorbed everything for which our century is called the century of noble aspirations. So what is this man doing? He makes a scene that would put the last bribe-taker to shame. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; all day and all night his thoughts draw him a beautiful image of her; the time of love has come for him, you think, when the heart is drowned in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness nothing interferes with, and the moment is approaching when their fate will be decided forever - for this Romeo must only say: “I love you, do you love me?” - and Juliet will whisper: “Yes...” And what does our Romeo (as we will call the hero of the story, whose last name was not told to us by the author of the story) do when he goes on a date with Juliet? With trembling love, Juliet awaits her Romeo; she must learn from him that he loves her - this word was not uttered between them, it will now be uttered by him, they will unite forever; bliss awaits them, such a high and pure bliss, the enthusiasm of which makes the solemn moment of decision barely bearable for the earthly organism. People died from less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, covering her face from the radiance of the sun of love appearing before her; she is breathing quickly, trembling all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremblingly when he enters and calls her name; she wants to look at him and cannot; he takes her hand - this hand is cold, lies as if dead in his hand; she wants to smile; but her pale lips cannot smile. She wants to talk to him, and her voice breaks. They both were silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and so Romeo says to his Juliet... and what does he say to her? “You are guilty before me,” he tells her: “you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you compromise me, and I must end my relationship with you; It’s very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here.” What it is? What is her fault? Was it because she considered him a decent person? compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? This is amazing! Every feature in her pale face says that she is waiting for her fate to be decided by his word, that she has irrevocably given her whole soul to him and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she is compromising him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? what kind of low rudeness is this? And this man, who acts so vilely, has been presented as noble until now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very serious mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent person. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel.
Such was the impression made on many by the completely unexpected turn in the relationship of our Romeo to Juliet. We have heard from many that the whole story is spoiled by this outrageous scene, that the character of the main person is not maintained, that if this person is what he appears to be in the first half of the story, then he could not have acted with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could have done so, then From the very beginning he should have appeared to us as a completely crappy person.
It would be very comforting to think that the author was really mistaken; but the sad dignity of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps, if this character were such as people would like to see him, dissatisfied with his rudeness on a date, if he were not afraid to give himself to the love that took possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first date scene would be followed by several other highly poetic minutes, the quiet charm of the first half of the story would rise to pathetic charm in the second half, and instead of the first act from Romeo and Juliet with an ending in the style of Pechorin, we would have something really similar to Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of Georges Sand's novels. Anyone looking for a poetically complete impression in a story must really condemn the author, who, having lured him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some kind of vulgar, absurd vanity of petty, timid egoism in a man who started out like Max Piccolomini and ended up like some Zakhar Sidorich, playing penny preference.
But was the author really wrong about his hero? If he made a mistake, this is not the first time he makes this mistake. No matter how many stories he had that led to a similar situation, each time his heroes emerged from these situations in no other way than being completely embarrassed in front of us. In Faust, the hero tries to cheer himself up by the fact that neither he nor Vera have serious feelings for each other; sitting with her, dreaming about her is his business, but in terms of determination, even in words, he behaves in such a way that Vera herself must tell him that she loves him; For several minutes the conversation had been going on in such a way that he should definitely have said this, but he, you see, did not guess and did not dare to tell her this; and when the woman who must accept the explanation is finally forced to make the explanation herself, he, you see, “froze,” but felt that “bliss was running like a wave through his heart,” only, however, “from time to time,” but strictly speaking, he “completely lost his head” - it’s just a pity that he didn’t faint, and even that would have happened if he hadn’t come across a tree to lean against. As soon as the man had time to recover, the woman he loves, who expressed her love for him, comes up to him and asks what he intends to do now? He... he was "embarrassed." It is not surprising that after such behavior of a loved one (otherwise the image of this gentleman’s actions cannot be called “behavior”) the poor woman developed a nervous fever; It’s even more natural that he then began to cry about his fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in “Rudin”. Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the previous heroes: he is so decisive that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak of his own free will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her for a date. But when Natalya on this date tells him that she will marry him, with or without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, as long as he loves her, when he says the words: “Know, I will be yours,” - Rudin only finds an answer exclamation: “Oh God!” - an exclamation more embarrassed than enthusiastic - and then he acts so well, that is, to such an extent he is cowardly and lethargic, that Natalya is forced to invite him on a date herself to decide what to do. Having received the note, “he saw that the denouement was approaching, and was secretly troubled in spirit.” Natalya says that her mother told her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than to see Rudin’s wife, and again asks Rudin what he intends to do now? Rudin answers as before: “My God, my God,” and adds even more naively: “So soon!” what am I going to do? My head is spinning, I can’t think of anything.” But then he realizes that he should “submit.” Called a coward, he begins to reproach Natalya, then lectures her about his honesty, and to the remark that this is not what she should hear from him now, he replies that he did not expect such decisiveness. The matter ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for the coward.
But perhaps this pitiful trait in the characters’ characters is a feature of Mr. Turgenev’s stories? Perhaps it is the nature of his talent that inclines him to portray such faces? Not at all; the nature of the talent, it seems to us, means nothing here. Remember any good story true to life by any of our current poets, and if there is an ideal side to the story, be sure that the representative of this ideal side acts exactly the same as the people of Mr. Turgenev. For example, the nature of Mr. Nekrasov’s talent is not at all the same as Mr. Turgenev’s; You can find any shortcomings in him, but no one will say that Mr. Nekrasov’s talent lacks energy and firmness. What does the hero do in his poem “Sasha”? He explained to Sasha that, he said, “one should not weaken in soul,” because “the sun of righteousness will rise above the earth,” and that one must act to realize one’s aspirations; and then, when Sasha gets down to business, he says that all this is in vain and will lead nowhere, that he was “talking empty talk.” Let us remember how Beltov acts - and in the same way he prefers retreat to any decisive step. There could be a lot of similar examples. Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet, whatever his personal concepts about the actions of his hero, the hero acts in the same way as all other decent people, similar to him, bred from other poets: while there is no talk of business, but you just need to occupy idle time, to fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; As the matter approaches to directly and accurately express their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel clumsy in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and tongue-tiedly express something that gives a vague idea of their thoughts; but if anyone decides to grab hold of their desires, to say: “You want such and such; we are very happy; start acting, and we will support you,” - with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others begin to very rudely reproach you for putting them in an awkward position, they begin to say that they did not expect such proposals from you , that they are completely losing their heads, cannot figure out anything, because “how is it possible so quickly,” and “besides, they are honest people,” and not only honest, but very humble, and do not want to expose you to trouble, and that in general, is it really possible to bother about everything that is talked about out of nothing to do, and what is best is not to take on anything, because everything is connected with troubles and inconveniences, and nothing good can happen yet, because, as already it is said that they “did not expect or expect at all,” and so on.
These are our “best people” - they are all like our Romeo. How much trouble for Asya is that Mr. N. did not know what to do with her, and was decidedly angry when courageous determination was required of him; We don’t know how much trouble there is in this for Asya. The first thought that comes to her is that this will cause her very little trouble; on the contrary, and thank God that the crappy impotence of character in our Romeo pushed the girl away from him even before it was too late. Asya will be sad for several weeks, several months and will forget everything and may surrender to a new feeling, the object of which will be more worthy of her. Yes, but that’s the trouble, she’s unlikely to meet a more worthy person; This is the sad comedy of our Romeo’s relationship with Asya, that our Romeo is truly one of the best people in our society, that there are almost no people better than him in our country. Only then will Asya be satisfied with her relationship with people, when, like others, she begins to limit herself to beautiful reasoning, until the opportunity presents itself to start making speeches, and when the opportunity presents itself, she will bite her tongue and fold her hands, as everyone else does. Only then will others be pleased with her; and now, first of all, of course, everyone will say that this girl is very sweet, with a noble soul, with amazing strength of character, in general a girl whom one cannot help but love, whom one cannot help but revere; but all this will be said only as long as Asya’s character is expressed in words alone, as long as it is only assumed that she is capable of a noble and decisive act; and as soon as she takes a step that in any way justifies the expectations inspired by her character, hundreds of voices will immediately shout: “For mercy, how is this possible, this is madness! Give a rendez-vous to a young man! After all, she is destroying herself, destroying herself completely uselessly! After all, nothing can come of this, absolutely nothing, except that she will lose her reputation. Is it possible to risk yourself so insanely?” - “Risk yourself? That would be nothing, others will add. “Let her do what she wants with herself, but why put others in trouble?” What position did she put this poor young man in? Did he think she would want to take him this far? What should he do now given her recklessness? If he follows her, he will destroy himself; if he refuses, he will be called a coward and he will despise himself. I don’t know whether it is noble to put people in such unpleasant situations who, it seems, have not given any special reason for such incongruous actions. No, this is not entirely noble. And the poor brother? What is his role? What bitter pill did his sister give him? He won't be able to digest this pill for the rest of his life. Nothing to say, my dear sister borrowed it! I don’t argue, all this is very good in words - noble aspirations, self-sacrifice, and God knows what wonderful things, but I will say one thing: I would not want to be Asya’s brother. I will say more: if I were in her brother’s place, I would lock her in her room for six months. For her own good, she needs to be locked up. She, you see, deigns to be carried away by high feelings; but what is it like to dispense to others what she deigned to brew? No, I will not call her action, I will not call her character noble, because I do not call those noble who frivolously and impudently harm others.” This way the general cry will be explained by the reasoning of sensible people. We are partly ashamed to admit, but still we have to admit that these reasoning seems to us to be thorough. In fact, Asya harms not only herself, but also everyone who had the misfortune of being related or lucky enough to be close to her; and we cannot help but condemn those who, for their own pleasure, harm all their loved ones.
By condemning Asya, we justify our Romeo. In fact, what is his fault? had he given her a reason to act recklessly? did he incite her to an act that could not be approved? didn't he have the right to tell her that it was in vain that she entangled him in an unpleasant relationship? You are indignant that his words are harsh, you call them rude. But the truth is always harsh, and who will condemn me if even a rude word escapes me, when I, innocent of anything, are entangled in an unpleasant matter, and even pester me so that I rejoice at the trouble into which I was dragged?
I know why you so unfairly admired Asya’s ignoble act and condemned our Romeo. I know this because I myself for a moment succumbed to the unfounded impression that remained in you. You have read about how people in other countries acted and acted. But realize that these are other countries. You never know what is being done in the world in other places, but what is very convenient in a certain situation is not always and not everywhere possible. In England, for example, the word “you” does not exist in the spoken language: a manufacturer to his worker, a landowner to the digger he hires, a master to his footman always says “you” and, wherever it happens, they insert sir [2] in conversation with them, that is, everyone is the same as the French monsieur [3], but in Russian there is no such word, but it comes out as politeness in the same way as if a master said to his peasant: “You, Sidor Karpych, do me a favor, come to me for a cup of tea, and then straighten the paths in my garden.” Will you judge me if I speak to Sidor without such subtleties? After all, I would be ridiculous if I adopted the language of an Englishman. In general, as soon as you begin to condemn what you don’t like, you become an ideologist, that is, the funniest and, to tell you the truth, the most dangerous person in the world, you lose the solid support of practical reality from under your feet. Beware of this, try to become a practical person in your opinions and for the first time try to reconcile at least with our Romeo, by the way we are already talking about him. I am ready to tell you the path by which I reached this result, not only regarding the scene with Asya, but also regarding everything in the world, that is, I became happy with everything that I see around me, I am not angry at anything, I am not upset by anything (except for failures in matters that are personally beneficial to me), I do not condemn anything or anyone in the world (except for people who violate my personal benefits), I do not wish for anything (except for my own benefit) - in a word, I will tell you how I became a man from a bilious melancholic so practical and well-intentioned that I wouldn’t even be surprised if I received a reward for my good intentions.
I began with the remark that one should not blame people for anything or anything, because, as far as I have seen, the most intelligent person has his own share of limitations, sufficient to ensure that in his way of thinking he cannot stray far from society in which he was brought up and lives, and the most energetic person has his own dose of apathy, sufficient for him to not stray too far from routine in his actions and, as they say, to float with the flow of the river, where the water carries. In the middle circle, it is customary to paint eggs for Easter; at Shrovetide there are pancakes - and everyone does it, although some people do not eat colored eggs, and almost everyone complains about the weight of pancakes. This is true not just in trifles, but in everything. It is accepted, for example, that boys should be kept more freely than girls, and every father, every mother, no matter how convinced they are of the unreasonableness of such a distinction, raises their children according to this rule. It is accepted that wealth is a good thing, and everyone is happy if, instead of ten thousand rubles a year, thanks to the happy turn of affairs, they begin to receive twenty thousand, although, rationally speaking, every intelligent person knows that those things that, being unavailable with the first income , become available during the second, cannot bring any significant pleasure. For example, if with ten thousand income you can make a ball of five hundred rubles, then with twenty you can make a ball of a thousand rubles; the latter will be somewhat better than the first, but still there will not be any special splendor in it, it will be called nothing more than a fairly decent ball, and the first one will also be a decent ball. Thus even the sense of vanity with an income of twenty thousand is satisfied with very little more than with ten thousand; As for pleasures that can be called positive, the difference in them is completely imperceptible. Personally, a person with ten thousand in income has exactly the same corner, exactly the same wine and a chair in the same row at the opera as a person with twenty thousand. The first is called a fairly rich man, and the second is also not considered an extremely rich man - there is no significant difference in their position; and yet, according to the routine accepted in society, everyone will rejoice when his income increases from ten to twenty thousand, although in fact he will notice almost no increase in his pleasures. People are generally terrible routineists: you only have to look deeper into their thoughts to discover this. Some gentlemen will greatly puzzle you at first with the independence of his way of thinking from the society to which he belongs; will seem to you, for example, a cosmopolitan, a person without class prejudices, etc., and he, like his acquaintances, imagines himself like this from a pure soul. But observe more precisely a cosmopolitan, and he will turn out to be a Frenchman or a Russian with all the peculiarities of concepts and habits belonging to the nation to which he is classified according to his passport, he will turn out to be a landowner or official, a merchant or a professor with all the shades of the way of thinking belonging to his class. I am sure that the large number of people who have the habit of being angry with each other, blaming each other, depends solely on the fact that too few are engaged in observations of this kind; but just try to start peering into people in order to check whether this or that person, who at first seems different from others, really differs in anything important from other people of the same position - just try to engage in such observations, and this analysis will be so captivating you will be so interested in your mind, will constantly deliver such calming impressions to your spirit that you will never be left behind by it and will very soon come to the conclusion: “Every person is like all people, in each there is exactly the same as in others.” " And the further you go, the more firmly you will become convinced of this axiom. Differences seem important only because they lie on the surface and are striking, but beneath the visible, apparent difference, perfect identity is hidden. And why on earth would a person really be a contradiction to all the laws of nature? After all, in nature, cedar and hyssop feed and bloom, elephants and mice move and eat, rejoice and get angry according to the same laws; under the external difference of forms lies the internal identity of the organism of a monkey and a whale, an eagle and a chicken; one has only to delve into the matter even more carefully, and we will see that not only different creatures of the same class, but also different classes of creatures are constructed and live according to the same principles, that the organisms of a mammal, a bird and a fish are the same, that a worm breathes like a mammal, although he has neither nostrils, nor a windpipe, nor lungs. Not only would the analogy with other beings be violated by non-recognition of the sameness of the basic rules and springs in the moral life of each person, but the analogy with his physical life would also be violated. Of two healthy people of the same age in the same mood, one’s pulse beats, of course, somewhat stronger and more often than the other’s; but is this difference great? It is so insignificant that science does not even pay attention to it. It’s a different matter when you compare people of different ages or in different circumstances: a child’s pulse beats twice as fast as an old man’s, a sick person’s pulse beats much more often or less often than a healthy person’s, someone who drank a glass of champagne beats more often than someone who drank a glass of champagne. who drank a glass of water. But here it is clear to everyone that the difference is not in the structure of the organism, but in the circumstances under which the organism is observed. And the old man, when he was a child, had a pulse as fast as the child with whom you compare him; and a healthy person’s pulse would weaken, like a sick person’s, if he fell ill with the same disease; and Peter, if he drank a glass of champagne, his pulse would have increased in the same way as Ivan’s. You have almost reached the boundaries of human wisdom when you are confirmed in this simple truth that every person is the same person as everyone else. Not to mention the gratifying consequences of this conviction for your everyday happiness; you will stop being angry and upset, stop being indignant and blaming, you will meekly look at what you were previously ready to scold and fight for; in fact, how would you become angry or complain about a person for such an act, which would be done by everyone in his place? An undisturbed, gentle silence settles into your soul, sweeter than which can only be the Brahminical contemplation of the tip of the nose, with the quiet, incessant repetition of the words “om-ma-ni-pad-mekhum.” I’m not even talking about this invaluable spiritual and practical benefit, I’m not even talking about how many monetary benefits wise condescension towards people will bring you: you will completely cordially welcome a scoundrel whom you would have driven away from yourself before; and this scoundrel may be a man of importance in society, and a good relationship with him will improve your own affairs. I’m not even saying that you yourself will then be less embarrassed by false doubts of conscience in taking advantage of the benefits that come your way; Why should you be embarrassed by excessive ticklishness if you are convinced that everyone would have acted in your place exactly the same as you? I do not expose all these benefits, with the goal of pointing out only the purely scientific, theoretical importance of the belief in the sameness of human nature in all people. If all people are essentially the same, then where does the difference in their actions come from? Striving to achieve the main truth, we have already found in passing the conclusion from it that serves as the answer to this question. It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and on circumstances, that is, in the final result everything depends exclusively on circumstances, because social habits, in turn, also arose from circumstances. You blame a person - first look at whether he is to blame for what you blame him for, or whether the circumstances and habits of society are to blame, look carefully, perhaps it is not his fault at all, but only his misfortune. When talking about others, we are too inclined to consider every misfortune as guilt - this is the true misfortune for practical life, because guilt and misfortune are completely different things and require treatment, one not at all the same as the other. Guilt causes censure or even punishment against the person. Trouble requires assistance to a person through the elimination of circumstances stronger than his will. I knew a tailor who poked his apprentices in the teeth with a hot iron. Perhaps he can be called guilty, and he can be punished; but not every tailor pokes a hot iron into his teeth; examples of such fury are very rare. But almost every craftsman happens to get into a fight after drinking on a holiday - this is not a fault, but simply a misfortune. What is needed here is not punishment of an individual, but a change in living conditions for the whole class. The harmful confusion of guilt and misfortune is all the sadder because it is very easy to distinguish between these two things; We have already seen one sign of difference: wine is a rarity, it is an exception to the rule; trouble is an epidemic. Intentional arson is a fault; but out of millions of people there is one who decides to do such a thing. There is another sign needed to complement the first. Trouble falls on the very person who fulfills the condition leading to trouble; guilt falls on others, benefiting the guilty. This last sign is extremely accurate. A robber stabbed a man to rob him, and finds it beneficial for himself - this is guilt. A careless hunter accidentally wounded a man and is the first to suffer from the misfortune he caused - this is not guilt, but simply misfortune.
The sign is correct, but if you apply it with some insight, with a careful analysis of the facts, it turns out that there is almost never guilt in the world, but only misfortune. Now we have mentioned the robber. Is life sweet for him? If it weren’t for special, very difficult circumstances for him, would he have taken up his craft? Where will you find a person for whom it would be more pleasant to hide in dens in cold and bad weather and wander through the deserts, often endure hunger and constantly tremble at his back, awaiting the lash - for whom this would be more pleasant than comfortably smoking a cigar in quiet armchairs or play jumble in the English club, as decent people do?
It would also be much more pleasant for our Romeo to enjoy the mutual pleasures of happy love than to remain a fool and cruelly scold himself for his vulgar rudeness with Asya. From the fact that the cruel trouble to which Asya is exposed brings him not benefit or pleasure, but shame in front of himself, that is, the most painful of all moral griefs, we see that he is not in guilt, but in trouble. The vulgarity he did would have been done by very many other so-called decent people or the best people of our society; therefore, this is nothing more than a symptom of an epidemic disease that has taken root in our society.
A symptom of a disease is not the disease itself. And if the matter were only that some, or, better to say, almost all of the “best” people offend a girl when she has more nobility or less experience than them, this matter, we admit, would interest us little. God be with them, with erotic questions - the reader of our time, busy with questions about administrative and judicial improvements, financial reforms, and the emancipation of the peasants, has no time for them. But the scene made by our Romeo Ace, as we noticed, is only a symptom of a disease that in exactly the same vulgar way spoils all our affairs, and only we need to look closely at why our Romeo got into trouble, we will see what we all like him, to expect from himself and to expect for himself and in all other matters.
Let's start with the fact that the poor young man does not understand at all the business in which he is taking part. The point is clear, but he is obsessed with such stupidity that he is unable to reason with the most obvious facts. We absolutely do not know what to compare such blind stupidity to. The girl, incapable of any pretense, not knowing any cunning, tells him: “I myself don’t know what’s happening to me. Sometimes I want to cry, but I laugh. You shouldn't judge me... by what I do. Oh, by the way, what is this story about Lorelei? After all, this is her rock visible? They say that she drowned everyone first, and when she fell in love, she threw herself into the water. I like this fairy tale." It seems clear what feeling awoke in her. Two minutes later, with excitement reflected even by the pallor on her face, she asks if he liked that lady whom, somehow jokingly, was mentioned in a conversation many days ago; then asks what he likes in a woman; when he notices how well the sky shines, she says, “Yes, good! If you and I were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly!.. So we would drown in this blue... but we are not birds.” “But we can grow wings,” I objected. - “How so?” - “Wait and you’ll find out. There are feelings that lift us from the ground. Don't worry, you will have wings." - “Did you have them?” - “How can I tell you... it seems that I haven’t flown yet.” The next day, when he came in, Asya blushed; I wanted to run away from the room; she was sad and, finally, remembering yesterday’s conversation, told him: “Remember, yesterday you talked about wings? My wings have grown."
Chernyshevsky “Russian man on randez-vouz” Main ideas
The article “Russian man at rendez-vouz” was published in 1858 and is a response to Turgenev’s story “Asya”, published in the same year.
At the beginning of the article, Chernyshevsky writes about his impressions of the story, saying that “the story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called black sides of life.” The action takes place abroad, all the characters are educated, imbued with the noblest way of thinking. But his bright expectations collapse at a decisive moment. Despite the fact that there are no obvious villains in the story, everyone recognizes them as bad people (disgusting bribe takers), Chernyshevsky’s final impression of the story is very sad and desolate (the hero is recognized by everyone as a good person 1
) Next he proceeds to explain this ending.
The main character (our Romeo) is a nobleman, a noble, educated and quite wealthy man. In the meeting scene, when all the readers are expecting his connection with Asya, he “makes a scene that would put the last bribe-taker ashamed,” namely, he says: “You are guilty before me, you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you are compromising me, and I must end my relationship with you; It’s very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here ».(2)
Chernyshevsky cites the opinion of readers who believe that the writer made a mistake in his hero, that his character is not consistent, but the critic does not agree with this opinion and says: “It would be very comforting to think that the author was really mistaken, but that’s the
sad thing
The dignity of his story is that the character of the hero is true to our society” (3). He further proves this thesis with two arguments.
Firstly,
the critic believes that the author could not have been mistaken and deliberately showed this “pathetic trait in the character of the heroes” in his other works, in particular in the novel “Rudin” and the story “Faust”.
Secondly
, Chernyshevsky does not consider this trait a personal feature of Turgenev’s talent, noting: “Remember any good, true to life story of any of our current poets, and if there is an ideal side to the story, be sure that the representative of this ideal side acts just like the faces of Mr. Turgenev.”
As examples, he cites the hero of Nekrasov’s poem “Sasha” and Beltov from Herzen’s novel “Who is to blame?” ( 4)
. He formulates this “pathetic trait” as follows: “As long as there is no talk of action, but one only needs to occupy idle time, fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; As the matter approaches to directly and accurately express their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel clumsy in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and tongue-tiedly express something that gives a vague idea of their thoughts; but if anyone decides to grab hold of their desires, to say: “You want such and such; we are very happy; start acting, and we will support you,” - with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others begin to very rudely reproach you for putting them in an awkward position...”
Having formulated this trait, Chernyshevsky returns to the story “Asya” and asks the question, is there a lot of trouble for Asya in the fact that “our Romeo” did not know what to do with her? And he himself answers that Asya is unlikely to meet a more worthy person, since our hero is “one of the best people in our society,” but at the same time, if the heroes were reunited, Asya’s life would become as petty and vulgar as the life of our Romeo . Chernyshevsky says that he justifies the hero, since he cannot be blamed for anything.
The critic’s first argument is the idea that “every person is a person like everyone else.” And to the natural question, if all people are the same, where does the difference in their actions come from, Chernyshevsky answers: “It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and circumstances (6)
, that is, in the final result everything depends solely on the circumstances, because social habits, in turn, also arose from the circumstances.”
Before blaming a person for something, you need to figure out whether he is really to blame, or whether the circumstances that gave birth to him are to blame, and in this case it is not his fault, but a misfortune.
Chernyshevsky further explains the difference between “guilt” and “trouble”: “Trouble falls on the very person who fulfills the condition leading to trouble; guilt falls on others, benefiting the guilty.” But, having analyzed the example of a robber who kills people for profit, the critic comes to the conclusion that there is practically no guilt in the world, but only misfortune, and draws the following conclusion: “From the fact that the cruel trouble that Asya is exposed to brings him (N .And) not benefit or pleasure for himself, but shame before himself, that is, the most painful of all moral griefs, we see that he is not in guilt, but in trouble.”
Chernyshevsky calls the “pathetic trait” a symptom of the disease
society.
And the disease itself, in his opinion, is the lack of habit of participation in civil affairs (5)
“It is better for a person not to develop than to develop without the influence of thoughts about public affairs, without the influence of feelings awakened by participation in them.”
A society without a civic position becomes vulgar and petty, “limited to a closely measured circle of its private interests.” A person who observes this all his life cannot be truly noble and strong: “It is impossible for someone who lives in a tavern not to be saturated with the drunken smell, even if he himself has not drunk a single glass; it is impossible not to be imbued with the pettiness of will for someone who lives in a society that has no aspirations other than petty everyday calculations.” Chernyshevsky addresses the nobility through the hero “Asi” and says that he wishes him well: “But although with shame, we must admit that we take part in the fate of our hero. We do not have the honor of being his relatives; There was even dislike between our families, because his family despised everyone close to us (nobles and commoners 8
).
But we still cannot break away from the prejudices that have crammed into our heads from false books and lessons that educated and ruined our youth, we cannot break away from the petty concepts instilled in us by the surrounding society; it all seems to us as if he has rendered some kind of service to our society, as if he is a representative of our enlightenment, as if he is the best among us, as if without him we would be worse off,” after which he remarks: “The thought is developing stronger and stronger in us, that this opinion about him is an empty dream, we feel that we will not be under its influence for long; that there are people better than him, precisely those whom he offends.” Further, Chernyshevsky says that in the life of every person there are happy circumstances, and everything depends on whether the person knows how to take advantage of them or not; although perhaps the nobles were not worthy, the circumstances turned out fortunately for them, but nevertheless they could not grasp the right moment. Based on this, the critic sets a goal for himself: “we want to give them instructions on how to get rid of the troubles that are inevitable for people who do not know how to realize their situation in time and take advantage of the benefits that a fleeting hour represents.” In conclusion, Chernyshevsky appeals to the nobility with a demand to act, because a decisive moment has come, and their future depends on the ability of the nobles to take advantage of it: “Will you understand the requirement of the time, will you be able to take advantage of the position in which you are now placed - that’s what for you the question of happiness or unhappiness forever ” (7).
