The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-07-18
Turgeneff's Mother.

Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen, who has fire.
quently confessed his great admiration for
Ivan Turgeneff, and who has written
charmingly of his intimate friendship with
the novelist gives an entertaining account
of the latter's mother in The Century.
His life was clouded, Mr. Boyesen believes,
by an unhappy childhood and by the tyr
amy and abuse of his mother. Turgo-
neff referred to his mother but twice in
the presence of Mr.. Boyesen, once when he
declared that she was the typical noble
lady of Russia, and afterward when he
said, 1.-The utter responsibility of the
master in his intercourse with the serf has
the most detrimental effect upon character
as saw exemplified In the case of my
own motser. "
Mr.. Boyesen writes:
Il concluded from this that his mother
had been a hard and tyrannical woman,
and that he was unable to cherish her
memory. But never did l dream, until
his sisters narration Tell into my hands,
that she was the female counterpart of
Ivan the Terrible. She delighted In the
most arbitrary exercise of power, and from
sheer ennui tormented every one who
came within the reach of her authority.
Shejhad herself been cruelty maltreated in
her childhoos-nay, she had been direfully
insulted by her stepfather and compelled
in consequence to flee from home and seek
refuge with relative. BY the death of
her uncle Ivan Loutovinoff, she inherited
an immense fortune, on the receipt Of
which she Enthusiastically remarked,
Now l can do anything l like CMainte-
nant je peuX toutD. Among the many
suitors who competed for her favor, she
chose for n husbanCS Sergius Nicdlaevitch
| Turgeneff because of his extraordinary
beauty. She established herself in prince
| ly opulence on her estate of Spasskoe and
as she was determined upon keeping tho
reins of authority in her own hands her
| husband thought it wiser to indulge her
caprices and refrain as far as possible
from interfering with her wishes Prob
ably he had by this time discovered with
whom he had to deal. He was too prudent
a man to provoke quarrel with woman
of so formidable a temperament.
1T was in fact not only he whom she
governed, but she insisted upon regulat-
ing the affairs of every one who approached
her or entered into any sort of relation
with her, however remote. Her autocratiC
will did not tolerate even suspicion OF
criticism, far less opposition, and the de-
vices she hit upon for humiliating those
who manifested what she regarded as q
spirit of INSTRUMENTATION were worthy OF
her imperial prototype Catherine, mis-
named the Great When her daughter
was i'll with typhoid fever, she gave the
physician, who was a highly educated
serf, the choice between complete cure
and Siberia. A favorite serf, whom il
pleased her from sheer caprice to perse
cute, she degraded from the position of 4
waiter to that of field laborer and mad,
him exchange his fine livery for the
coarse garb Of peasant. Her major domo
Paliakotf, she assaulted in fit Of uncon
trollable fury with crutch and would
have killed him if her brother in law hat
not interfered She separated him from
his wife and children, to whom he wa
warmly devoted, and exercised n diabolica
ingenuity In devising new fortunes for tn,
unhappy man. His oi1onse was that h,
had out of love for his young master
, Nicholas Turgeneff deceived her regard
ing the latter's relation to u certain beau
tiful German governess with whom Mich
olas was deeply in love and whom he ha,
, secretly married"