Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/103

Rh to take a very depreciatory view of art, and still more of philosophising about art. "L'art gâte tout," Mably had said just before the French revolution; the sansculottes had other things to think about.

The nihilists, therefore, would have nothing to do with aesthetics either in externals or in the forms of social intercourse. This was the outcome of their fraternisation with the mužik and the operative. But in addition many of them were in truth extremely poor, and those that had any money to spare devoted it to the purchase of books and other things that seemed more important to them than arts and graces. Not without justice could their opponents censure them for lack of cleanliness, for being badly dressed, and so on.

As we see in Bazarov, in Rahmetov, and even in Pisarev's style, nihilism was hostile to all needless formalities. Pisarev wrote and spoke "without ceremony," as the Russians phrase it. For instance, when he differed from Goethe, this was enough to make him accuse Goethe of philistinism. He was ever fond of strong expressions. Whenever possible he minted new words to help him in the campaign against obsolete opinions and ideas. For example, the old-fashioned daughters of good families were by him designated "muslin girls," and so on. Pisarev, like his predecessors, was an enemy of phrases, but he knew (and declared occasionally) that phrases are indispensable, and he therefore coined nihilistic phraseology.

The nihilists, being a hunted minority, held firmly together, and without deliberate conspiracy a kind of secret society came into existence. The nihilists recognised one another by dress, language, methods of criticism, general views. To this extent, therefore, Mihailovskii was right in comparing the nihilists with the disciples of Tolstoi, and the former resembled the latter in their sectarian spirit.

In personal relationships, and above all in friendship and in marriage, the nihilists consistently carried out their ethical principles. In nihilist circles, friendship was based upon inexorable straightforwardness, all conventional trappings being discarded.

Side by side with friendship, the sex relationship, love and marriage was regarded as the truest of all the relationships of life. The love and the marriage of the "thoughtful" realist became "thoughtful" love and marriage. Thus nihilism was the most radical emancipator of the Russian