Ivan Turgenev

“ What are we to do till dinner-time? Waste our time idling about? And, indeed, our worthy merchant . . . it strikes me . . . is like the goat in the fable, neither good for wool nor for milk.'
'Oh, there shall be some wool,' observed Markelov grimly. 'He was just promising some money. Or isn't he nice enough for you? We can't be particular. We're not so much courted that we can afford to be squeamish.'
'I'm not squeamish!' said Solomin calmly; 'I'm only asking myself what good my presence can do. However,' he added with a glance at Nezhdanov, and a smile, I will stay, by all means. ”

“ Had Muzzio really become a sorcerer, and had he not already poisoned Valeria? She was ill . . . but what was her disease? While he lay, his head in his hand, holding his feverish breath, and given up to painful reflection, the moon rose again upon a cloudless sky; and together with its beams, through the half-transparent window-panes, there began, from the direction of the pavilion — or was it Fabio's fancy? — to come a breath, like a light, fragrant current . . . then an urgent, passionate murmur was heard . . . and at that instant he observed that Valeria was beginning faintly to stir. ”

“ If what I have heard was truly your voice; if the feeling overmastering me is love; if you are now convinced that I love you, I, who till now have neither loved nor known any woman; if you know that since your death I have come to love you passionately, inconsolably; if you do not want me to go mad, — show yourself, Clara!'
Aratov had hardly uttered this last word, when all at once he felt that some one was swiftly approaching him from behind — as that day on the boulevard — and laying a hand on his shoulder. He turned round, and saw no one. ”

“ Madame Odintsov frowned. It annoyed her that he had given such a meaning to her words.
'Such gossip does not affect me, Yevgeny Vassilyitch, and I am too proud to allow it to disturb me. I am unhappy because ... I have no desires, no passion for life. You look at me incredulously; you think that's said by an "aristocrat," who is all in lace, and sitting in a velvet armchair. I don't conceal the fact: I love what you call comfort, and at the same time I have little desire to live. Explain that contradiction as best you can. But all that's romanticism in your eyes.'
Bazarov shook his head. ”

“ Ah! I could not give you back my youth, as I would, but I have laid no obligations on you, I have exacted no promise of any sort of you, my sweet! Do what you will, you are free as air, you are bound in no way, understand that, understand that!'
'But I can't live without you, Irina,' Litvinov interrupted, in a whisper now; 'I am yours for ever and always, since yesterday. . . . I can only breathe at your feet. . . .'
He stooped down all in a tremble to kiss her hands. Irina gazed at his bent head. ”

“ Before you is a poor mortal, who has come to his senses long ago, and hopes other people too have forgotten his follies. I am going away for a long while; and though, as you will allow, I'm by no means a very soft creature, it would be anything but cheerful for me to carry away with me the idea that you remember me with repugnance.'
Anna Sergyevna gave a deep sigh like one who has just climbed up a high mountain, and her face was lighted up by a smile. She held out her hand a second time to Bazarov, and responded to his pressure. ”

“ Valentina Mihalovna flung herself into an arm-chair as though crushed by the weight of her indignation.
Marianna smiled for the first time.
'I do not doubt your virtue, past, present, and future,' she began, 'and I say so quite sincerely; but your indignation is needless; I have brought no disgrace on your roof. The young man to whom you allude . . . yes, I certainly . . . have come to love him.. . .'
'You love Monsieur Nezhdanov?'
'Yes, I love him.'
Valentina Mihalovna sat up in her chair.
'Good gracious, Marianna! ”

“ Irina was sitting on a sofa between Prince Kokó and Madame H., once a celebrated beauty and wit, who had long ago become a repulsive old crone, with the odour of sanctity and evaporated sinfulness about her. On catching sight of Litvinov, Irina blushed and got up, and when he went up to her, she pressed his hand warmly. She was wearing a dress of black crépon, relieved by a few inconspicuous gold ornaments; her shoulders were a dead white, while her face, pale too, under the momentary flood of crimson overspreading it, was breathing with the triumph of beauty, and not of beauty alone ”

“ Cautious from habit, silent from motives of prudence. General Ratmirov moved constantly in the highest society, like the busy bee gathering honey even from the least attractive flowers—and without morals, without information of any kind, but with the reputation of being good at business; with an insight into men, and a ready comprehension of the exigencies of the moment, and above all, a never-swerving desire for his own advantage, he saw at last all paths lying open before him. . . .
Litvinov smiled constrainedly, while Irina merely shrugged her shoulders. ”

“ Snanduliya performed the shake.
'For pain! for pain! for pain!'
repeated Fimushka.
And then both together:
'Take, gods, my heart away,
Again! again! again!
Again! again! again!'
And the song wound up with another shake. 'Bravo! bravo!' they all shouted, with the exception of Markelov, and they even clapped their hands.
'And do they feel', thought Nezhdanov directly the applause ceased, 'they are performing like some sort of buffoons? Perhaps they don't, and perhaps they do feel it and think "Where's the harm? no one's the worse for it; we amuse others, in fact!" ”

“ We cannot live together, can we? Then must I die so as to be with her? Is it not for that she has come; and is it not so she means to take me captive?
'Well; what then? If I must die, let me die. Death has no terrors for me now. It cannot, then, annihilate me? On the contrary, only thus and there can I be happy . . . as I have not been happy in life, as she has not. . . . We are both pure! Oh, that kiss!'
Platonida Ivanovna was incessantly coming into Aratov's room. ”

“ He read through Irina's letter, and just as on that day at Moscow he fell in exhaustion on the sofa, and stayed there motionless. A dark abyss seemed suddenly to have opened on all sides of him, and he stared into this darkness in senseless despair. And so again, again deceit, no, worse than deceit, lying and baseness. . . . And life shattered, everything torn up by its roots utterly, and the sole thing which he could cling to—the last prop in fragments too! 'Come after us to Petersburg,' he repeated with a bitter inward laugh, 'we will find you occupation. ”

“ Aratov woke up.
He sat up in bed, lighted the candle that stood on the little table by his bedside — but did not get up — and sat a long while, chill all over, slowly looking about him. It seemed to him as if something had happened to him since he went to bed; that something had taken possession of him . . . something was in control of him. 'But is it possible?' he murmured unconsciously. 'Does such a power really exist?'
He could not stay in his bed. He quickly dressed, and till morning he was pacing up and down his room. ”

“ Here you write that my love has replaced everything for you, that even your former studies can never now be put into practice; but I ask myself, can a man live for love alone? Won't it weary him at last, won't he want an active career, and won't he cast the blame on what drew him away from active life? That's the thought that dismays me, that's what I am afraid of, and not what you imagine.'
Litvinov looked intently at Irina, and Irina intently looked at him, as though each would penetrate deeper and further into the soul of the other, deeper and further than word can reach, or word betray. ”

“ I know a far more pitiful part, the part of a man who doesn't know what is going on in his own heart!'
Litvinov drew himself up in his turn.
'Irina,' he was beginning——
But all at once she clapped both hands to her forehead, and with a convulsive motion, flinging herself on his breast, she embraced him with force beyond a woman's.
'Forgive me, forgive me,' she began, with a shaking voice, 'forgive me, Grigory! You see how corrupted I am, how horrid I am, how jealous and wicked! You see how I need your aid, your indulgence! Yes, save me, drag me out of this mire, before I am quite ruined! ”

“ Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, Pavel Petrovitch had lost his memories; after the death of the princess he tried not to think of her. But to Nikolai, there remained the sense of a well-spent life, his son was growing up under his eyes; Pavel, on the contrary, a solitary bachelor, was entering upon that indefinite twilight period of regrets that are akin to hopes, and hopes that are akin to regrets, when youth is over, while old age has not yet come. ”

“ Meeting no one, either in the corridor, on the stairs, or below, Nezhdanov slipped out into the little enclosure. It was a grey day with a low-hanging sky, and a damp breeze that stirred the tops of the grasses and set the leaves on the trees shaking; the factory made less rattle and roar than at the same time on other days; from its yard came a smell of coal, tar, and tallow. Nezhdanov took a sharp, searching look round, and went straight up to the old apple-tree which had attracted his attention on the very day of his arrival, when he had first looked out of the window of his little room. ”

“ But the sage only answered, 'Who's to know—miles hereabout aren't measured,' and went on swearing in an undertone at the shaft horse for 'kicking with her head-piece,' that is, shaking with her head down.
'Yes, yes,' began Bazarov; 'it's a lesson to you, my young friend, an instructive example. God knows, what rot it is? Every man hangs on a thread, the abyss may open under his feet any minute, and yet he must go and invent all sorts of discomforts for himself, and spoil his life.'
'What are you alluding to?' asked Arkady. ”

“ Madame Odintsov walked up and down the room. By turns her face flushed and grew pale. 'You think so,' she said. 'Well, I see no obstacles ... I am glad for Katya ... and for Arkady Nikolaevitch too. Of course, I will wait for his father's answer. I will send him in person to him. But it turns out, you see, that I was right yesterday when I told you we were both old people.... How was it I saw nothing? That's what amazes me!' Anna Sergyevna laughed again, and quickly turned her head away.
'The younger generation have grown awfully sly,' remarked Bazarov, and he too laughed. ”

“ Unluckily for him, Platosha did not know how to keep up a conversation at all; she gave him very brief replies, as though she suspected that was not what Yasha had come for.
'Eh!' she repeated, hurriedly, almost irritably plying her knitting-needles. 'We all know : your mother was a darling ... a darling that she was. . . . And your father loved her as a husband should, truly and faithfully even in her grave; and he never loved any other woman' : she added, raising her voice and taking off her spectacles.
'And was she of a retiring disposition?' Aratov inquired, after a short silence. ”

“ Litvinov knew her at once, though she had changed since he saw her that last time ten years ago, though she had been transformed from a girl into a woman. Her slim figure had developed and reached its perfection, the lines of her once narrow shoulders now recalled the goddesses that stand out on the ceilings of ancient Italian palaces. But her eyes remained the same, and it seemed to Litvinov that they were looking at him just as in those days in the little house in Moscow.
'Irina Pavlovna,' he uttered irresolutely. ”

“ Marianna and Solomin were standing one on each side of the sofa, both almost as pale as Nezhdanov himself. Shaken, agitated, stunned, they were both—especially Marianna—but not astounded. 'How was it we did not foresee this?' they were thinking, and at the same time it seemed to them that they had . . . yes, they had foreseen it. When he had said to Marianna, 'Whatever I do, I tell you beforehand, nothing will come as a surprise to you,' and again when he had talked of the two men within him who could not live together, had not something stirred within her akin to a vague presentiment? ”

“ They are all depressed, they all walk with down-cast heads, and at the same time they are all filled with hope, and on the smallest excuse they lose their heads and fly off into ecstasies. Look at the Slavophils even, among whom Mr. Gubaryov reckons himself: they are most excellent people, but there is the same mixture of despair and exultation, they too live in the future tense. Everything will be, will be, if you please. In reality there is nothing done, and Russia for ten whole centuries has created nothing of its own, either in government, in law, in science, in art, or even in handicraft. ”

“ About mid-day there is wont to be, high up in the sky, a multitude of rounded clouds, golden-grey, with soft white edges. Like islands scattered over an overflowing river, that bathes them in its unbroken reaches of deep transparent blue, they scarcely stir; farther down the heavens they are in movement, packing closer; now there is no blue to be seen between them, but they are themselves almost as blue as the sky, filled full with light and heat. The colour of the horizon, a faint pale lilac, does not change all day, and is the same all round; nowhere is there storm gathering and darkening ”

“ Dressed in a light check jacket and snow-white trousers, he was walking rapidly along the road; under his arm he carried a box wrapped up in green cloth.
'I beg your pardon, I believe I have kept you waiting,' he observed, bowing first to Bazarov, then to Piotr, whom he treated respectfully at that instant, as representing something in the nature of a second. 'I was unwilling to wake my man.'
'It doesn't matter,' answered Bazarov; 'we've only just arrived ourselves.'
'Ah! so much the better!' Pavel Petrovitch took a look round. 'There's no one in sight; no one hinders us. ”

“ Fabio went into his wife's room; she was lying on the bed, dressed, but was not asleep. Hearing his steps, she started, then again seemed delighted to see him just as in the garden. Fabio sat down beside the bed, took Valeria by the hand, and after a short silence, asked her, 'What was the extraordinary dream that had frightened her so the previous night? And was it the same sort at all as the dream Muzzio had described?' Valeria crimsoned and said hurriedly: 'О! no! no! I saw . . . a sort of monster which was trying to tear me to pieces.' 'A monster? in the shape of a man?' asked Fabio. ”

“ We soon go back to Petersburg, come there, live there, we will find occupation for you, your labours in the past shall not be thrown away, you shall find good use for them . . . only live near me, only love me; such as I am, with all my weaknesses and my vices, and believe me, no heart will ever be so tenderly devoted to you as the heart of your Irina. Come soon to me, I shall not have an instant's peace until I see you. — Yours, yours, yours, I.'
The blood beat like a sledge-hammer in Litvinov's head, then slowly and painfully sank to his heart, and was chill as a stone in it. ”

“ He was breathless; rapture, but a rapture comfortless and hopeless, oppressed and tore his heart. For nothing in the world would he have consented that the words uttered by Irina should not have actually been uttered by her. . . . But then? those words could not for all that change the resolution he had taken. As before, it did not waver; it stood firm like an anchor. Litvinov had lost the thread of his own thoughts . . . yes; but his will still remained to him, and he disposed of himself as of another man dependent on him. ”

“ And that is why the young men are not all without exception in love with Irina. . . . They are afraid of her . . . afraid of her 'ironical intellect.' That is the current phrase about her; in it, as in every phrase, there is a grain of truth. And not only the young men are afraid of her; she is feared by grown men too, and by men in high places, and even by the grandest personages. No one can so truly and artfully scent out the ridiculous or petty side of a character, no one else has the gift of stamping it mercilessly with the never-forgotten word. ”

“ Often, forgetful of lectures and exercises, he would sit and sit in the Osinins' cheerless drawing-room, stealthily watching Irina, his heart slowly and painfully throbbing and suffocating him; and she would seem angry or bored, would get up and walk about the room, look coldly at him as though he were a table or chair, shrug her shoulders, and fold her arms. Or for a whole evening, even when talking with Litvinov, she would purposely avoid looking at him, as though denying him even that grace. ”

“ When I was married to Yegoritch, neither read nor write could I; but now I've learned, thanks to Vassily Fedotitch. He didn't teach me himself, but he paid an old man to. And he taught me. You see I'm young still, for all I'm a woman grown.'
Marianna was silent for a little.
'I should like, Tatyana Osipovna,' she began again, 'to learn some trade . . . we must have a talk about that. I sew very badly; if I were to learn to cook, I might become a cook.'
Tatyana pondered.
'Why be a cook? Cooks are in rich men's houses, or merchants'; poor people do their own cooking. ”

“ And, with the flowers and the birds, sounds floated to us, sounds sweet as honey . . . women's voices, one fancied, in them. . . . And all about us, sky, sea, the heaving sail aloft, the gurgling water at the rudder—all spoke of love, of happy love!
And she, the beloved of each of us—she was there . . . unseen and close. One moment more, and behold, her eyes will shine upon thee, her smile will blossom on thee. . . . Her hand will take thy hand and guide thee to the land of joy that fades not! ”

“ Rough hands caught hold of him. 'Hold on!' raging voices were bawling. 'Talk away! The day before yesterday another, a stranger, talked like that. Go on! . . .' The earth seem reeling under Nezhdanov's feet. His own voice sounded strange to him, as if it came from a long way off.. . . Was it death, or what?
And all of a sudden . . . a sense of the fresh air on his face, and no more hubbub, no red faces, no stench of spirits, sheepskins, pitch and leather.. . . And again he was sitting in the cart with Pavel, at first struggling and shouting, 'Stop! Where are you off to? ”

“ I respect the dignity of man in myself.'
'Let me ask you, Pavel Petrovitch,' commented Bazarov; 'you respect yourself, and sit with your hands folded; what sort of benefit does that do to the bien public? If you didn't respect yourself, you'd do just the same.'
Pavel Petrovitch turned white. 'That's a different question. It's absolutely unnecessary for me to explain to you now why I sit with folded hands, as you are pleased to express yourself. I wish only to tell you that aristocracy is a principle, and in our days none but immoral or silly people can live without principles. ”

“ A little behind him, a little peasant's cart, harnessed to a pair of unbridled horses, could be seen behind the tangled green of a broad hazel-bush; in the cart, under the seat of plaited cord, a little grey-headed old peasant lay asleep on a bundle of hay, with his head on a patched overcoat. Nezhdanov kept incessantly looking towards the road, towards the clump of willows at the garden's edge; the grey stillness of night still hung over everything, the tiny stars strove feebly to outshine each other, lost in the waste depths of the sky. ”

“ It was a lovely, fresh morning; tiny flecked clouds hovered overhead in little curls of foam on the pale clear blue; a fine dew lay in drops on the leaves and grass, and sparkled like silver on the spiders' webs; the damp, dark earth seemed still to keep traces of the rosy dawn; from the whole sky the songs of larks came pouring in showers. Bazarov walked as far as the copse, sat down in the shade at its edge, and only then disclosed to Piotr the nature of the service he expected of him. The refined valet was mortally alarmed ”

“ Mashurina of course had not given her that fatal letter, out of sympathy for Nezhdanov.. . . But how could she bring herself to such an act of insubordination? Did she want to show her magnanimity? What right had she? And why had she, Marianna, been so much touched by that action? And was she really touched by it? An ugly woman was attracted by a young man.. . . After all, what was there out of the way in that? And why did Mashurina assume that Marianna's devotion to Nezhdanov was stronger than her sense of duty? Perhaps Marianna had not at all desired such a sacrifice! ”

“ The art by which Irina's disastrous fascination results in falsity, and Litvinov's desperate striving after sincerity ends in rehabilitation,—the art by which these two threads are spun, till their meaning colours the faint political message of the book, is so delicate that, like the silken webs which gleam only for the first fresh hours in the forest, it leaves no trace, but becomes a dream in the memory. ”

“ Tatyana bent over him, saw blood.
'Pavel!' she cried in a voice not her own—'Pavel!'
In a few instants, Marianna, Solomin, Pavel, and two of the factory-hands were in the enclosure. They lifted Nezhdanov up at once, carried him into the lodge, and laid him on the very sofa on which he had spent his last night.
He lay on his back with half-closed, fixed eyes, and face fast turning grey. He gave slow, heavy gasps, sometimes with a sob, as though he were choking. Life had not yet left him. ”