Obryv. English Read online

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  THE PRECIPICE

  Original Russian Title: _OBRYV_

  By Ivan Goncharov

  TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN; TRANSLATOR UNKNOWN{This text is condensed from the original.}

  PREFACE

  Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891) was one of the leading membersof the great circle of Russian writers who, in the middle of thenineteenth century, gathered around the _Sovremmenik_ (Contemporary)under Nekrasov's editorship--a circle including Turgenev, Dostoyevsky,Tolstoy, Byelinsky, and Herzen. He had not the marked genius of thefirst three of these; but that he is so much less known to the westernreader is perhaps also due to the fact that there was nothingsensational either in his life or his literary method. His strength wasin the steady delineation of character, conscious of, but not deeplydisturbed by, the problems which were obsessing and distracting smallerand greater minds.

  Tolstoy has a characteristically prejudiced reminiscence: "I rememberhow Goncharov, the author, a very sensible and educated man but athorough townsman and an aesthete, said to me that, after Turgenev,there was nothing left to write about in the life of the lower classes.It was all used up. The life of our wealthy people, with theiramorousness and dissatisfaction with their lives, seemed to him full ofinexhaustible subject-matter. One hero kissed his lady on her palm, andanother on her elbow, and a third somewhere else. One man isdiscontented through idleness, another because people don't love him.And Goncharov thought that in this sphere there is no end of variety."

  In fact, his greatest success was the portrait of Oblomov in the novelof that name, which was at once recognised as a peculiarly nationalcharacter--a man of thirty-two years, careless, bored, untidy, lazy, butgentle and good-natured. In the present work, now translated for thefirst time into English, the type reappears with some differences.Raisky seems to have been "born tired." He has plenty of intelligence,some artistic gifts, charm, and an abundant kindliness, yet he achievesnothing, either in work or in love, and in the end fades ineffectuallyout of the story. "He knew he would do better to begin a big piece ofwork instead of these trifles; but he told himself that Russians did notunderstand hard work, or that real work demanded rude strength, the useof the hands, the shoulders, and the back," "He is only half a man,"says Mark Volokov, the wolfish outlaw who quotes Proudhon and talksabout "the new knowledge, the new life." This rascal, whose violentpursuit of the heroine produces the tragedy of the book, is a much lessconvincing figure, though he also represents a reality of Russian lifethen, and even now.

  The true contrast to Raisky of which Goncharov had deep and sympatheticknowledge is shown in the splendid picture of the two women--Vera, theinfatuated beauty, and Aunt Tatiana, whose agony of motherly concern andshamed remembrance is depicted with great power. The book is remarkableas a study in the psychology of passionate emotion; for the westernreader, it is also delightful for the glimpses it gives of the oldRussian country life which is slowly passing away. The scene lies besideone of the small towns on the Volga--"like other towns, a cemetery ...the tranquillity of the grave. What a frame for a novel, if only he knewwhat to put in the novel.... If the image of passion should float overthis motionless, sleepy little world, the picture would glow into theenchanting colour of life." The storm of passion does break over theedge of the hill overlooking the mighty river, and, amid the wreckage,the two victims rise into a nobility that the reckless reformer and thepleasant dilettante have never conceived.

  Goncharov had passed many years in Governmental service and had, in fact,reached the age of thirty-five when his first work, _"A CommonStory,"_ was published. _"The Frigate Pallada,"_ which followed,is a lengthy descriptive account of an official expedition to Japan andSiberia in which Goncharov took part. After the publication of _"ThePrecipice,"_ its author was moved to write an essay, _"Better LateThan Never,"_ in which he attempted to explain that the purpose ofhis three novels was to present the eternal struggle between East andWest--the lethargy of the Russian and the ferment of foreign influences.Thus he ranged himself more closely with the great figures among hiscontemporaries. Two other volumes consist of critical study andreminiscence.