Clara Militch / Ivan S. Turgenev

I

In the spring of 1878 there was living in Moscow, in a small wooden house

in Shabolovka, a young man of five-and-twenty, called Yakov Aratov.

With him lived his father's sister, an elderly maiden lady, over fifty,

Platonida Ivanovna. She took charge of his house, and looked after his

household expenditure, a task for which Aratov was utterly unfit. Other

relations he had none. A few years previously, his father, a provincial

gentleman of small property, had moved to Moscow together with him and

Platonida Ivanovna, whom he always, however, called Platosha; her nephew,

too, used the same name.

A Correspondence / Ivan S. Turgenev

A few years ago I was in Dresden. I was staying at an hotel. From early

morning till late evening I strolled about the town, and did not think

it necessary to make acquaintance with my neighbours; at last it

reached my ears in some chance way that there was a Russian in the

hotel--lying ill. I went to see him, and found a man in galloping

consumption. I had begun to be tired of Dresden; I stayed with my new

acquaintance. It's dull work sitting with a sick man, but even dulness

is sometimes agreeable; moreover, my patient was not low-spirited and

was very ready to talk. We tried to kill time in all sorts of ways; We

played 'Fools,' the two of us together, and made fun of the doctor. My

compatriot used to tell this very bald-headed German all sorts of

fictions about himself, which the doctor had always 'long ago

anticipated.' He used to mimic his astonishment at any new, exceptional

symptom, to throw his medicines out of window, and so on.

Andrei Kolosov / Ivan S. Turgenev

In a small, decently furnished room several young men were sitting

before the fire. The winter evening was only just beginning; the

samovar was boiling on the table, the conversation had hardly taken a

definite turn, but passed lightly from one subject to another. They

began discussing exceptional people, and in what way they differed from

ordinary people. Every one expounded his views to the best of his

abilities; they raised their voices and began to be noisy. A small,

pale man, after listening long to the disquisitions of his companions,

sipping tea and smoking a cigar the while, suddenly got up and

addressed us all (I was one of the disputants) in the following

words:--

Yakov Pasinkov / Ivan S. Turgenev

I

It happened in Petersburg, in the winter, on the first day of the

carnival. I had been invited to dinner by one of my schoolfellows, who

enjoyed in his youth the reputation of being as modest as a maiden, and

turned out in the sequel a person by no means over rigid in his

conduct. He is dead now, like most of my schoolfellows. There were to

be present at the dinner, besides me, Konstantin Alexandrovitch Asanov,

and a literary celebrity of those days. The literary celebrity kept us

waiting for him, and finally sent a note that he was not coming, and in

place of him there turned up a little light-haired gentleman, one of

the everlasting uninvited guests with whom Petersburg abounds.

A Tour in the Forest / Ivan S. Turgenev

FIRST DAY

The sight of the vast pinewood, embracing the whole horizon, the sight

of the 'Forest,' recalls the sight of the ocean. And the sensations it

arouses are the same; the same primaeval untouched force lies

outstretched in its breadth and majesty before the eyes of the

spectator. From the heart of the eternal forest, from the undying bosom

of the waters, comes the same voice: 'I have nothing to do with

thee,'--nature says to man, 'I reign supreme, while do thou bestir

thyself to thy utmost to escape dying.'

The Diary of a Superfluous Man / Ivan S. Turgenev

VILLAGE OF SHEEP'S SPRINGS, March 20, 18--.

The doctor has just left me. At last I have got at something definite!

For all his cunning, he had to speak out at last. Yes, I am soon, very

soon, to die. The frozen rivers will break up, and with the last snow I

shall, most likely, swim away ... whither? God knows! To the ocean too.

Well, well, since one must die, one may as well die in the spring. But

isn't it absurd to begin a diary a fortnight, perhaps, before death?

What does it matter? And by how much are fourteen days less than

fourteen years, fourteen centuries? Beside eternity, they say, all is

nothingness--yes, but in that case eternity, too, is nothing. I see I

am letting myself drop into metaphysics; that's a bad sign--am I not

rather faint-hearted, perchance? I had better begin a description of

some sort. It's damp and windy out of doors.

Pyetushkov / Ivan S. Turgenev

I

In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O---- the

lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was

left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a

guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property

whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of

medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with

freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid

expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles.

Pyetushkov's whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close

upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was

shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons

over whose lot he could have exerted control....

The Brigadier / Ivan S. Turgenev

I

Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks,

which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraïne twenty-five or thirty

years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years

the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running

pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy

ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary 'teal'; beyond

the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory

of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of 'Spanish'

strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and

raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant

noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl's

striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice.

Old Portraits / Ivan S. Turgenev

About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a

distant cousin of my mother's, a retired officer of the Guards, and

rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his

estate and birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not

visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my

respects--at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch

always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or

four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made

his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he

was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress

Elisabeth--in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife,

Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two

daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited

Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and

Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names.

Punin and Baburin / Ivan S. Turgenev

PIOTR PETROVITCH'S STORY

... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death,

every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the

eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit

motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread

along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is

not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such

times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the

first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country

with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two

figures rise up before my imagination....

But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order.

A Strange Story / Ivan S. Turgenev

Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few

days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very

fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a

Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish

long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full

splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night;

the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted

floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the

waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to

prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince

G.'s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his

self-assurance.

A Desperate Character / Ivan S. Turgenev

I

... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of

contemporary affairs and men.

'I don't understand these men!' observed A.: 'they're such desperate

fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like

it before.'

Mumu / Ivan S. Turgenev

In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a gray house with white columns and a balcony, warped all askew, there was once living a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numerous household of serfs. Her sons were in the government service at Petersburg; her daughters were married; she went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of her miserly and dreary old age. Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had long been over; but the evening of her life was blacker than night.

The District Doctor / Ivan S. Turgenev

One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I caught cold and fell ill. Fortunately the fever attacked me in the district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put on, very deftly slid a five-ruble note up his sleeve, coughing drily and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness; I foresaw a sleepless night, and was glad of a little chat with a pleasant companion. Tea was served. My doctor began to converse freely. He was a sensible fellow, and expressed himself with vigour and some humour. Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him--or he to you--all your secrets, as though you were at confession. I don't know how I gained the confidence of my new friend--anyway, with nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather curious incident; and here I will report his tale for the information of the indulgent reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own words.