A NOVEL
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
1873
PREFACE.
The author of the Dvoryanskoe Gnyezdo, or “Nest
of Nobles,” of which a translation is now offered
to the English reader under the title of “Liza,”
is a writer of whom Russia may well be proud.[A] And
that, not only because he is a consummate artist,—entitled
as he is to take high rank among those of European
fame, so accurate is he in his portrayal of character,
and so quick to seize and to fix even its most fleeting
expression; so vividly does he depict by a few rapid
touches the appearance of the figures whom he introduces
upon his canvas, the nature of the scenes among which
they move,—he has other and even higher
claims than these to the respect and admiration of
Russian readers. For he is a thoroughly conscientious
worker; one who, amid all his dealings with fiction,
has never swerved from his regard for what is real
and true; one to whom his own country and his own people
are very dear, but who has neither timidly bowed to
the prejudices of his countrymen, nor obstinately
shut his eyes to their faults.
[Footnote A: Notwithstanding the unencouraging
opinion expressed by Mr. Ralston in this preface,
of the probable fate of “Fathers and Children,”
and “Smoke,” with the English public, both
have been translated in America and have met with
very fair success. Of course, even more may be
hoped for the author’s other works.]
His first prose work, the “Notes of a Sportsman”
(Zapiski Okhotnika), a collection of sketches
of country life, made a deep and lasting impression
upon the minds of the educated classes in Russia,
so vigorous were its attacks upon the vices of that
system of slavery which was then prevalent. Those
attacks had all the more weight, inasmuch as the book
was by no means exclusively devoted to them. It
dealt with many other subjects connected with provincial
life; and the humor and the pathos and the picturesqueness
with which they were treated would of themselves have
been sufficient to commend it to the very favorable
attention of his countrymen. But the sad pictures
he drew in it, occasionally and almost as it were
accidentally, of the wretched position occupied by
the great masses of the people, then groaning under
the weight of that yoke which has since been removed,
stirred the heart of Russian society with a thrill
of generous horror and sympathy; and the effect thus
produced was all the more permanent inasmuch as it
was attained by thoroughly legitimate means. Far
from exaggerating the ills of which he wrote, or describing
