Turgenev’s mother, Varvara Petrovna, loved her two sons, but especially doted on Ivan. When he went to study abroad she sent him extravagant sums of money and wrote him frequently loving and tender letters, in which she expressed her ideas about his future living by her side, with a beautiful wife she, the mother, would of course approve of, either on their country estate, or perhaps in Moscow or Saint Petersburg, where he would perhaps engage in some official career. Only would he write her more often, and would he soon come back.
Turgenev did not write often, and came home ever more rarely, and stayed less and less, perhaps because he was growing sick of Russia (the Holy Mother Russia, as the phrase has it) but perhaps also because he was… “a little too much in the son”, as Hamlet says. “You are my star, she wrote to him, “like a thread and a needle, the thread must follow where the needle goes.” “I love you both passionately, but you especially”, “Jean (i.e. Ivan) is my own sun, I see nothing but him, and when he is in eclipse, I see nothing. I don’t know where I am anymore.” “My dear fille, my Jeanette, I alone conceived you, all that I am, you are.” Etc. Etc.
Turgenev would use similar language in his love letters to Pauline Viardot; but, understandably, he felt embarassed by such letters from his mother, and overwhelmed by her pretensions on his life and time. To an adult man, his mother is his past; we cannot live looking backward.
Varvara’s excessive love for her sons was perhaps a reflection of her early widowhood — there was no one else to fill her life. She read Ivan’s absences as base ingratitude and in time cut back his allowances, eventually ending them altogether. She cut off the younger son without a penny, too, because — well, because, of course, she did not approve of his choice of wife (was anyone good for her sons except Varvara herself? Probably not!).
To demonstrate her power and displeasure, she visibly doted on her foster daughter, giving her visible lavish gifts while giving her sons nothing. When, as grown men, they asked her for their settlement, to which they were entitled, she produced intentionally ineffective documents, giving them nothing.
In the end, Ivan stopped visiting, moved permanently to France, stopped writing. As often is the case, Varvara’s desire to have everyting, in the end, lost all if it.
My own situation was very similar; and I see many of my male friends struggling with the same. Trying to fix my problem with my excessively loving and possessive mother, I told her, at the age of 36, that, as I have grown up, it was time for her to grow up, too — grow up and let me be my own man. As you can easily imagine, that was my last conversation with her. A couple years ago, I took to lunch the mother of my friend, D., to tell her, “look, if you do not stop doing this, you will lose him entirely”. It was like throwing beans against the wall: her ears heard my words, but the words did not penetrate her skull. Her lovely, wonderful, gorgeous D., he was wholy her own, forever.
I shrugged, paid, and left. These situations are hopeless. There is no pill for stupid.
Avraham Yarmolinsky, Turgenev, the man, his art, and his age
Oltre Mare 