Page:Phelps - Essays on Russian Novelists.djvu/105

 Insarov determines to go away like Lancelot, without saying farewell. Elena, however, meets him in a thunderstorm — not so sinister a storm as the Aeneas adventure in Torrents of Spring — and says "I am braver than you. I was going to you." She is actually forced into a declaration of love. This is an exceedingly difficult scene for a novelist, but not too difficult for Turgenev, who has made it beautiful and sweet. Love, which will ruin Bazarov, ennobles and stimulates Insarov; for the strong man has found his mate. She will leave father and mother for his sake, and cleave unto him. And, notwithstanding the anger and disgust of her parents she leaves Russia forever with her husband.

All Turgenev's stories are tales of frustration. Rudin is destroyed by his own temperament. The heroes of A House of Gentlefolk and Torrents of Spring are ruined by the malign machinations of satanic women. Bazarov is snuffed out by a capriciously evil destiny. Insarov's splendid mind and noble aspirations accomplish nothing, because his lungs are weak. He falls back on the sofa, and Elena, thinking he has fainted, calls for help. A grotesque little Italian doctor, with wig and spectacles, quietly remarks, "Signora, the foreign gentleman is dead — of aneurism in combination with disease of the lungs."

This novel caused great excitement in Russia,