Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

“ Then she asked Sanin whether he knew “Freischütz,” whether he was fond of Weber, and added that though she was herself an Italian, she liked such music best of all. From Weber the conversation glided off on to poetry and romanticism, on to Hoffmann, whom every one was still reading at that time.
And Frau Lenore still slept, and even snored just a little, and the sunbeams, piercing in narrow streaks through the shutters, were incessantly and imperceptibly shifting and travelling over the floor, the furniture, Gemma’s dress, and the leaves and petals of the flowers. ”

“ Sanin saw no signs in him of any marked attentiveness, of what the French call “empressement,” in his demeanour to Gemma. It was clear that Herr Klüber considered that it was a matter settled once for all, and that therefore he saw no reason to trouble or excite himself. But his condescension never left him for an instant! Even during a long ramble before dinner about the wooded hills and valleys behind Soden, even when enjoying the beauties of nature, he treated nature itself with the same condescension, through which his habitual magisterial severity peeped out from time to time. ”

“ Could he have left the young officer’s insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ... that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he was conscience-smitten, and even ashamed.
Not so Pantaleone—he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with greater self-satisfaction. Sanin’s demeanour during the duel filled him with enthusiasm. ”

“ Maria Nikolaevna said suddenly. “I want to see whether this jeune première really is so ugly. Upon my word, one might fancy the government appointed her in the interests of morality, so that the young men might not lose their heads over her.”
Sanin handed her the opera-glass, and as she took it from him, swiftly, but hardly audibly, she snatched his hand in both of hers.
“Please don’t be serious,” she whispered with a smile. “Do you know what, no one can put fetters on me, but then you see I put no fetters on others. I love freedom, and I don’t acknowledge duties—not only for myself. ”

“ Sanin stayed on after dinner too. They did not let him go, still on the same pretext of the terrible heat; and when the heat began to decrease, they proposed going out into the garden to drink coffee in the shade of the acacias. Sanin consented. He felt very happy. In the quietly monotonous, smooth current of life lie hid great delights, and he gave himself up to these delights with zest, asking nothing much of the present day, but also thinking nothing of the morrow, nor recalling the day before. How much the mere society of such a girl as Gemma meant to him! ”

“ Moreover, he had lost every trace of confidence in himself, every atom of self-respect; he dared not rely on himself for anything. Sanin recollected too how he had later on—oh, ignominy!—sent the Polozovs’ footman to Frankfort for his things, what cowardly terror he had felt, how he had had one thought only, to get away as soon as might be to Paris—to Paris; how in obedience to Maria Nikolaevna, he had humoured and tried to please Ippolit Sidoritch and been amiable to Dönhof, on whose finger he noticed just such an iron ring as Maria Nikolaevna had given him!!! ”

“ My mother scolded me, and sometimes Zinaïda herself drove me away. Then I used to shut myself up in my room, or go down to the very end of the garden, and climbing into what was left of a tall stone greenhouse, now in ruins, sit for hours with my legs hanging over the wall that looked on to the road, gazing and gazing and seeing nothing. White butterflies flitted lazily by me, over the dusty nettles; a saucy sparrow settled not far off on the half crumbling red brickwork and twittered irritably, incessantly twisting and turning and preening his tail-feathers ”

“ Tartaglia sat before his sovereign, all huddled up, with dejected tail, and eyes blinking and twitching in confusion, under the peak of his cap which was stuck on awry; from time to time when Napoleon raised his voice, Bernadotte rose on his hind paws. “Fuori, traditore!” cried Napoleon at last, forgetting in the excess of his wrath that he had to sustain his rôle as a Frenchman to the end; and Bernadotte promptly flew under the sofa, but quickly darted out again with a joyful bark, as though to announce that the performance was over. All the spectators laughed, and Sanin more than all. ”

“ But now they had taken Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter.
At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life. From his childhood he had been used to field labour, to village life. Shut off by his affliction from the society of men, he had grown up, dumb and mighty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil. ”

“ No, why should she have a husband?”
“To be sure,” assented Malevsky, “why should she have a husband?”
“Silence!” cried Meidanov in French, which he spoke very badly.
“Merci!” Zinaïda said to him. “And so the queen hears their speeches, and hears the music, but does not look at one of the guests. Six windows are open from top to bottom, from floor to ceiling, and beyond them is a dark sky with big stars, a dark garden with big trees. The queen gazes out into the garden. Out there among the trees is a fountain; it is white in the darkness, and rises up tall, tall as an apparition. ”

“ I imagined that young men like you were not to be met with anywhere in these days. A confectioner’s daughter!”
“I see that surprises you,” observed Sanin with some dignity; “but in the first place, I have none of these prejudices ...”
“In the first place, it doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Maria Nikolaevna interrupted; “I have no prejudices either. I’m the daughter of a peasant myself. There! what can you say to that? What does surprise and delight me is to have come across a man who’s not afraid to love. You do love her, I suppose?” ”

“ Tears came into Frau Lenore’s eyes. “You look at me, I see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find out how bitter it is!”
Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. ”

“ Sanin went into it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behind the modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recalling a chemist’s shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as many glass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats—in this room, there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpening its claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patch of colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red wool lying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. ”

“ Zinaïda laughed nervously.
“You’re late for the post, my dear doctor. You don’t keep a good look-out; you’re behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I’m in no capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself ... much fun there is in that!—and as for irresponsibility ... M’sieu Voldemar,” Zinaïda added suddenly, stamping, “don’t make such a melancholy face. I can’t endure people to pity me.” She went quickly out of the room.
“It’s bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,” Lushin said to me once more. ”

“ They rode at a walking pace for the short distance to the city walls, but then started off at a vigorous gallop along the high road. It was magnificent, real summer weather; the wind blew in their faces, and sang and whistled sweetly in their ears. They felt very happy; the sense of youth, health and life, of free eager onward motion, gained possession of both; it grew stronger every instant.
Maria Nikolaevna reined in her mare, and again went at a walking pace; Sanin followed her example. ”

“ Only you’re not dead—eh? Not dead ... I am alive!” She let her force and daring have full fling. It seemed not an Amazon on a galloping horse, but a young female centaur at full speed, half-beast and half-god, and the sober, well-bred country seemed astounded, as it was trampled underfoot in her wild riot!
Maria Nikolaevna at last drew up her foaming and bespattered mare; she was staggering under her, and Sanin’s powerful but heavy horse was gasping for breath. ”

“ One thought I could not get out of my head: how could she, a young girl, and a princess too, after all, bring herself to such a step, knowing that my father was not a free man, and having an opportunity of marrying, for instance, Byelovzorov? What did she hope for? How was it she was not afraid of ruining her whole future? Yes, I thought, this is love, this is passion, this is devotion ... and Lushin’s words came back to me: to sacrifice oneself for some people is sweet. I chanced somehow to catch sight of something white in one of the windows of the lodge.... “Can it be Zinaïda’s face?” ”

“ Maria Nikolaevna suddenly turned to him. “And it’s not your pleasure to know just what sort of woman I am? I can’t wonder at it, though,” she went on, leaning back again on the sofa cushions. “A man just going to be married, and for love, and after a duel.... What thoughts could he have for anything else?”
Maria Nikolaevna relapsed into dreamy silence, and began biting the handle of her fan with her big, but even, milkwhite teeth.
And Sanin felt mounting to his head again that intoxication which he had not been able to get rid of for the last two days. ”

“ Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the question, the vital, fateful question—how he could dispose of his estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible—disturbed his rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project ready prepared and not without. ”

“ Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin—not at all because he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set on making him a shopkeeper, while he knew, knew for certain, that he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even encouraged him, but that Herr Klüber supported mamma, over whom he had great influence ”

“ He hides from the old man, but cannot escape meeting him in the corridor, and a face of exasperation rises before him under an upstanding topknot of grey hair; the old eyes blaze like red-hot coals, and he hears menacing cries and curses: “Maledizione!” hears even the terrible words: “Codardo! Infame traditore!” Sanin closes his eyes, shakes his head, turns away again and again, but still he sees himself sitting in a travelling carriage on the narrow front seat ... ”

“ In the comfortable places facing the horses sit Maria Nikolaevna and Ippolit Sidoritch, the four horses trotting all together fly along the paved roads of Wiesbaden to Paris! to Paris! Ippolit Sidoritch is eating a pear which Sanin has peeled for him, while Maria Nikolaevna watches him and smiles at him, her bondslave, that smile he knows already, the smile of the proprietor, the slave-owner.... But, good God, out there at the corner of the street not far from the city walls, wasn’t it Pantaleone again, and who with him? ”

“ I moved as in a dream and felt all through my being a sort of intense blissfulness that verged on imbecility.
The young princess sat down, took out a skein of red wool and, motioning me to a seat opposite her, carefully untied the skein and laid it across my hands. All this she did in silence with a sort of droll deliberation and with the same bright sly smile on her slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool on a bent card, and all at once she dazzled me with a glance so brilliant and rapid, that I could not help dropping my eyes. ”

“ When Gerasim was brought from the country, she was ready to die with fear on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could to avoid meeting him, even dropped her eyelids when sometimes she chanced to run past him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. Gerasim at first paid no special attention to her, then he used to smile when she came his way, then he began even to stare admiringly at her, and at last he never took his eyes off her. She took his fancy, whether by the mild expression of her face or the timidity of her movements, who can tell? ”

“ She threw off her hat and gloves, and clapped her hands.
Polozov looked at her from under his brows.
“What makes you so skittish to-day, Maria Nikolaevna?” he said in an undertone.
“That’s no business of yours, Ippolit Sidoritch! Ring! Dimitri Pavlovitch, sit down and have some coffee for the second time. Ah, how nice it is to give orders! There’s no pleasure on earth like it!”
“When you’re obeyed,” grumbled her husband again.
“Just so, when one’s obeyed! That’s why I’m so happy! Especially with you. Isn’t it so, dumpling? Ah, here’s the coffee.” ”

“ Sanin got up. “I must thank you, Maria Nikolaevna, for your kindhearted and friendly readiness to do a service to a man almost unknown to you. But if that is your decided wish, then I prefer to await your decision about my estate—I will stay here two days.”
“Yes; that is my wish, Dimitri Pavlovitch. And will it be very hard for you? Very? Tell me.”
“I love my betrothed, Maria Nikolaevna, and to be separated from her is hard for me.”
“Ah! you’re a heart of gold!” Maria Nikolaevna commented with a sigh. “I promise not to torment you too much. Are you going?”
“It is late,” observed Sanin. ”