Superfluous Men: A Grand Russian Tradition
Laevsky’s Zeitgeist
“I understood Laevsky from the very first month of our acquaintance,” he continued, addressing the Deacon. “We arrived here at the same time. People like him love to make friends, establish intimacy, solidarity and the like, because they always need company for Vint, drinks and a bite to eat. What’s more, they’re garrulous and they require listeners. We became friends, that is, he would hang around my place every day, disturbing my work and confiding way too much about his concubine. In the beginning, I was dumbstruck by his extraordinary mendacity, which I found simply nauseating. In my capacity as a friend, I scolded him about his way of life, about how he drinks too much, how he does not live according to his means and incurs debts, how he has done nothing and has read nothing, how he is so uncultured and knows so little—and in reply to all of my questions he would smile bitterly, sigh and say, “I’m a good-for-nothing, a superfluous man,” or “What do you, old chap, want from the splinters of serfdom?” or “We are degenerating …” Or he would begin to wax on about Onegin, Pechorin, Byron’s Cain, Bazarov, of who he would say: “These are our fathers in flesh and in spirit.” Meaning something along the lines of, it’s not he that is guilty of letting bureaucratic packets lie unopened for weeks or that he himself drinks, and gets others drunk, but that Onegin, Pechorin and Turgenev are to blame for creating the good-for-nothing and the superfluous man. The principle cause for this lack of discipline and grace isn’t with him, you see, but somewhere out there, in the periphery. And what’s more—here’s a good joke for you!—it’s not him alone that’s guilty of being licentious, mendacious and vile but all of us … “We are people of the eighties. We are the inert, neurotic offspring of the age of serfdom. We have been crippled by civilization.” In a word, we are expected to understand, that a great man like Laevsky is also great in his collapse; that his debauchery, ignorance and defilement are a naturally occurring phenomena based in history, consecrated by necessity, the cause of which is global, spontaneous and that we should hang a sconce before Laevsky, since he—is the victim of the times, the spirit of the times, our inheritance and so forth. All the functionaries and ladies that listened to him, all oohed and aahed, but for the longest time I couldn’t understand who I was dealing with: a cynic or a skilled mazurka dancer? Subjects such as he, who have the appearance of intelligence, are a tad well-manner and drone on about their own honorable pedigrees are capable of pretending to have unusually complicated natures.”
—from Von Koren’s first assessment of Laevsky in Chekhov’s The Duel.
In the beginning, Byron created Cain
CAIN: And this is Life?—Toil!
And wherefore should I toil?—because
My father could not keep his place in Eden?
What had I done in this?—I was unborn:
I sought not to be born; nor love the state
To which that birth has brought me. Why did he
Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or
Yielding—why suffer? What was there in this?
The tree planted, and why not for him?
If not, why place him near it, where it grew
The fairest in the center? They have but
One answer to all questions, “ ’Twas his will,
And he is good.” How know I that? Because
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?
I judge but by the fruits—and they are bitter—
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
Why do I exist? Why art all things wretched?
Ev’n he who made us must be, as the maker
Of things unhappy! To produce destruction
Can surely never be the task of joy,
And yet my sire says he’s omnipotent:
Then why is Evil—he being Good? I asked
This question of my father; and he said,
Because this Evil only was the path
To Good. Strange good, that must arise from out
Its deadly opposite. I lately saw
A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling
Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain
And piteous bleating of its restless dam;
My father plucked some herbs, and laid them to
The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch
Resumed its careless life, and rose to drain
The mother’s milk, who o’er it tremulous
Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy.
Behold, my son! said Adam, how from Evil springs Good!
But I thought, that ’twere a better portion for the animal
Never to have been stung at all than to
Purchase renewal of its little life
With agonies unutterable, though
Dispelled by antidotes.
—from Cain by Lord George Gordon Byron (1788–1824). Byron’s 1821 play centers around the character of Cain and his view of life and the world. Both the character of Cain as well as Childe Harold from the epic narrative poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, served as foundational archetypes for what would come to be known as the “Byronic hero.” Typically a Byronic hero would be extremely intelligent, most often physically strong, and generally quite capable The hero is held back, however, by an innate flaw or disdain for authority, quotidian life or societal norms. Thus, the Byronic hero must struggle to either overcome his defect or to endure despite it. The idea of the Byronic hero was a major influence on 19th century literature, and particularly on the Russian concept of the “superfluous man.”
The Rake’s Progress
“A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from the chase. Bela ran to meet him and threw her arms around his neck, and not a single complaint, not a single reproach for his long absence did I hear … Even I had lost patience with him. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘Kazbich was on the other side of the river just now and we fired at him; you could easily have run into him too. These mountaineers are vengeful people, and do you think he does not suspect you helped Azamat? I’ll wager he saw Bela here. And I happen to know that a year ago he was very much attracted by her—told me so himself in fact. Had he had any hope of raising a substantial kalym he surely would have asked for her in marriage …’ Pechorin was grave now. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we have to be more careful … Bela, after today you must not go out on the rampart anymore.’
“That evening I had a long talk with him; it grieved me that he had changed toward the poor girl, for besides being out hunting half the time, he began to treat her coldly, rarely showing her any affection. She began to waste away visibly, her face grew drawn, and her big eyes lost their luster. Whenever I asked her, ‘Why are you sighing, Bela? Are you sad?’ she would reply, ‘No.’ ‘Do you want anything’ ‘No!’ ‘Are you grieving your kinsfolk?’ ‘I have no kinsfolk.’ For days on end you couldn’t get more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’ out of her.
“I resolved to have a talk with him about this. ‘Listen, Maxim Maximych,’ he replied, ‘I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others I myself am no less unhappy. I realize this is poor consolation for them—but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only spurred on my ambition and vanity while my heart remained desolate. I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd. And I grew bored … Soon I was transferred to the Caucasus; this was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that boredom would not survive under Chechen bullets—but in vain; in a month I had become so accustomed to their whine and the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, the mosquitoes bothered me more, and life became more boring than ever because I had now lost practically my last hope. When I saw Bela at my home, when I held her on my lap and first kissed her raven locks, I foolishly thought she was an angel sent down to me by a compassionate Providence. Again I erred: the love of a barbarian girl is little better than that of a well-born lady; the ignorance and simplicity of the one are as boring as the coquetry of the other. I still love her, if you wish, I am grateful to her for a few rather blissful moments, I am ready to five my life for her, but I am bored with her. I don’t know whether I am a fool or a scoundrel; but the fact is that I am to be pitied as much, if not more than she. My soul has been warped by the world, my mind is restless, my heart insatiable; nothing suffices me: I grow accustomed to sorrow as readily as to joy, and my life becomes emptier from day to day. Only one expedient is left for me, and that is to travel. As soon as possible I shall set out—not for Europe, God forbid—but for America, Arabia, India—and perhaps I shall die somewhere on the road! At least I am sure that with the help of storms and bad roads this last resort will not soon cease to be a consolation.’ He talked long in this vein and words seared themselves in my memory for it was the first time I had heard such talk from a man of twenty-five, and I hope to God, the last. Amazing! You probably were in the capital recently; perhaps you can tell me,” the captain went on, addressing me, “whether the young people there are all like that?”