First love, and other stories. Иван Тургенев

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СКАЧАТЬ as one critic says, “positively, in the whole of Russian literature, we do not meet elsewhere such a grand, massive, severe, and somewhat coarse woman as Márya Pávlovna.” Másha is the first woman in Russian literature to look upon man as a worker, and to treat him with intelligent exaction. Another strange characteristic in a young lady of the remote country districts is Másha’s dislike for “sweet” poetry. Her suicide is not a proof that her character was weak. And of the two weak men in the story, Astákhoff is the weaker, the more colourless, in every way—as to character, not as to the author’s portraiture.

      The pictures of country life among the landed gentry are drawn with great charm and delicate humour.

      That Turgénieff was affected, and very sensibly so, by the lack of comprehension evinced by both critics and readers toward his great work “Fathers and Children,” is evident, in part, from the characteristic lyrical fragment, “It is Enough.” It is filled with mournful pessimism of a romantic sort, which strongly recalls the pessimism of Leopardi. A certain element of comedy is imparted to this sentimental outpouring by the fact that the author fancied (and, probably, with entire sincerity) that he bore a strong resemblance in his convictions to Bazároff, his creation. Dostoiévsky depicted this comic element very caustically, in the most malicious of parodies on Turgénieff in general and on “It is Enough” and “Phantoms” in particular. This parody is contained in his romance “Devils,” and constitutes one of the most venomous pages in that decidedly venomous romance. The following is an excerpt: “In the meantime, the mist swirled and swirled, and swirled round and round until it bore more resemblance to a million pillows than to mist. And suddenly everything vanishes, and a great Genius crosses the Volga in winter, during a thaw. Two and a half pages about this transit. But, notwithstanding, he tumbles into a hole in the ice. The Genius goes to the bottom. Do you think he drowns? Not a bit of it! All this is for the sake, after he is completely foundered and is beginning to choke, of making a block of ice, a tiny block, about the size of a pea, but clear and transparent, float past him ‘like a frozen tear’; and on that block of ice Germany, or, to put it more accurately, the sky of Germany, is reflected; and by the rainbow play of that reflection it reminds him of the tear which—dost thou remember?—trickled from thine eyes when we sat under the emerald tree, and thou didst joyfully exclaim: ‘There is no crime!’—‘Yes!’ said I through my tears; ‘but if that is so, then assuredly there are no righteous men either.’ We fell to sobbing and parted forever.”

      “The Dog” was first published in the feuilleton of the Petersburg News, No. 85, 1865. It is generally admitted to be one of Turgénieff’s weak and unsuccessful works. But one critic describes how enthralling it was when the author narrated it (in advance of publication) to a group of friends in Moscow, and what a deep impression it made upon them. “When I read it afterward in print,” he says, “it seemed to me a pale copy of Turgénieff’s verbal narration. One was impressed with the idea that, when he sat down to write it, he was overcome with apprehension lest his readers and critics should suppose that he believed in this mysterious adventure. But conviction on the part of the author—in appearance at least—is precisely what is required in such cases. He told the tale with enthusiasm, and even turned pale, and his face assumed a cast of fear at the dramatic points.” The critic adds that he could not get to sleep for hours afterward.

      I. F. H.

FIRST LOVE

       (1860)

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      THE guests had long since departed. The clock struck half-past twelve. There remained in the room only the host, Sergyéi Nikoláevitch, and Vladímir Petróvitch.

      The host rang and ordered the remains of the supper to be removed.—“So then, the matter is settled,”—he said, ensconcing himself more deeply in his arm-chair, and lighting a cigar:—“each of us is to narrate the history of his first love. ’Tis your turn, Sergyéi Nikoláevitch.”

      Sergyéi Nikoláevitch, a rather corpulent man, with a plump, fair-skinned face, first looked at the host, then raised his eyes to the ceiling.—“I had no first love,”—he began at last:—“I began straight off with the second.”

      “How was that?”

      “Very simply. I was eighteen years of age when, for the first time, I dangled after a very charming young lady; but I courted her as though it were no new thing to me: exactly as I courted others afterward. To tell the truth, I fell in love, for the first and last time, at the age of six, with my nurse;—but that is a very long time ago. The details of our relations have been erased from my memory; but even if I remembered them, who would be interested in them?”

      “Then what are we to do?”—began the host.—“There was nothing very startling about my first love either; I never fell in love with any one before Anna Ivánovna, now my wife; and everything ran as though on oil with us; our fathers made up the match, we very promptly fell in love with each other, and entered the bonds of matrimony without delay. My story can be told in two words. I must confess, gentlemen, that in raising the question of first love, I set my hopes on you, I will not say old, but yet no longer young bachelors. Will not you divert us with something, Vladímir Petróvitch?”

      “My first love belongs, as a matter of fact, not altogether to the ordinary category,”—replied, with a slight hesitation, Vladímir Petróvitch, a man of forty, whose black hair was sprinkled with grey.

      “Ah!”—said the host and Sergyéi Nikoláevitch in one breath.—“So much the better. … Tell us.”

      “As you like … or no: I will not narrate; I am no great hand at telling a story; it turns out dry and short, or long-drawn-out and artificial. But if you will permit me, I will write down all that I remember in a note-book, and will read it aloud to you.”

      At first the friends would not consent, but Vladímir Petróvitch insisted on having his own way. A fortnight later they came together again, and Vladímir Sergyéitch kept his promise.

      This is what his note-book contained.

I

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      I was sixteen years old at the time. The affair took place in the summer of 1833.

      I was living in Moscow, in my parents’ house. They had hired a villa near the Kalúga barrier, opposite the Neskútchny Park.[2]—I was preparing for the university, but was working very little and was not in a hurry.

      No one restricted my freedom. I had done whatever I pleased ever since I had parted with my last French governor, who was utterly unable to reconcile himself to the thought that he had fallen “like a bomb” (comme une bombe) into Russia, and with a stubborn expression on his face, wallowed in bed for whole days at a time. My father treated me in an indifferently-affectionate way; my mother paid hardly any attention to me, although she had no children except me: other cares engrossed her. My father, still a young man and very handsome, had married her from calculation; she was ten years older than he. My mother led a melancholy life: she was incessantly in a state of agitation, jealousy, and wrath—but not in the presence of my father; she was very much afraid of him, and he maintained a stern, cold, and distant manner. … I have never seen a man more exquisitely calm, self-confident, and self-controlled.

      I shall never forget the first weeks I spent at the villa. The weather was magnificent; СКАЧАТЬ