r which time can only
heighten one's admiration. _Fathers and Sons_ is as beautifully
constructed as a drama of Sophocles; the events move inevitably to a
tragic close. There is not a touch of banality from beginning to end,
and not an unnecessary word; the portraits of the old father and
mother, the young Kirsanov, and all the minor characters are perfect;
and amidst the trivial crowd, Bazarov stands out like Lucifer, the
strongest--the only strong character--that Turgenev created, the first
Nihilist--for if Turgenev was not the first to invent the word, he was
the first to apply it in this sense.

Bazarov is the incarnation of the Lucifer type that recurs again and
again in Russian history and fiction, in sharp contrast to the meek
humble type of Ivan Durak. Lermontov's Pechorin was in some respects
an anticipation of Bazarov; so were the many Russian rebels. He is
the man who denies, to whom art is a silly toy, who detests
abstractions, knowledge, and the love of Nature; he believes in
nothing; he bows to nothing; he can break, but he cannot bend; he does
break, and that is the tragedy, but, breaking, he retains his
invincible pride, and

"not cowardly he puts off his helmet,"

and he dies "valiantly vanquished."

In the pages which describe his death Turgenev reaches the high-water
mark of his art, his moving quality, his power, his reserve. For manly
pathos they rank among the greatest scenes in literature, stronger
than the death of Colonel Newcome and the best of Thackeray. Among
English novelists it is, perhaps, only Meredith who has struck such
strong, piercing chords, nobler than anything in Daudet or Maupassant,
more reserved than anything in Victor Hugo, and worthy of the great
poets, of the tragic pathos of Goethe and Dante. The character of
Bazarov, as has been said, created a sensation and endless
controversy. The revolutionaries thought him a caricature and a libel,
the reactionaries a scandalous glorification of the Devil; and
impartial men such as Dostoyevsky, who knew the revolutionaries at
first hand, thought the type unreal. It is possible that Bazarov was
not like the Nihilists of the sixties; but in any case as a figure in
fiction, whatever the fact may be, he lives and will continue to live.

In _Virgin Soil_, Turgenev attempted to paint the underground
revolutionary movement; here, in the opinion of all Russian judges, he
failed. The revolutionaries considered their portraits here more