A Lear of the
Steppes and Other Stories
We were a party of six, gathered together one winter evening at the house
of an old college friend. The conversation turned on Shakespeare, on his types,
and how profoundly and truly they were taken from the very heart of humanity.
We admired particularly their truth to life, their actuality. Each of us spoke
of the Hamlets, the Othellos, the Falstaffs, even the Richard the Thirds and
Macbeths--the two last only potentially, it is true, resembling their prototypes--whom
he had happened to come across. Torrents of Spring
At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He had dismissed
the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwing himself into a low
chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands. The Jew and Other Stories
At first the French kept us amused with sorties, but they quickly subsided.
We soon got sick of foraging expeditions too; we were overcome, in fact, by
such deadly dulness that we were ready to howl for sheer ennui. I was not
more than nineteen then; I was a healthy young fellow, fresh as a daisy, thought
of nothing but getting all the fun I could out of the French . . . and in
other ways too . . . you understand what I mean . . . and this is what happened.
The Diary of a Superfluous Man
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. Smoke
He took to gazing out of the window. The day was gray and damp; there was
no rain, but the fog held on, and low-lying clouds veiled the sky. The wind
was blowing in the contrary direction to the course of the train; whitish
clouds of steam, now alone, now mingled with other, darker clouds, of smoke,
swept, in an endless series, past the window beside which Litvinov sat. A Hunter's Sketches
On a visit to Zhizdra District in search of sport, I met in the fields a petty
landlord of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and made his acquaintance.
He was an enthusiastic hunter; it follows, therefore, that he was an excellent
fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a few weaknesses: he used, for instance,
to pay his addresses to every unmarried heiress in the province, and when
he had been refused her hand and house, broken-hearted he confided his sorrows
to all his friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of
sour peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's relatives
A House of Gentlefolk
She was, however, very sweet and agreeable when all her wishes were carried
out and none opposed her. Her house was among the pleasantest in the town.
She had a considerable fortune, not so much from her own property as from
her husband's savings. Her two daughters were living with her; her son was
being educated in one of the best government schools in Petersburg. Fathers and Sons
Nikolai Petrovich--though so far from brave that he had even been called a
"funk"--was intended, like his brother Pavel, to enter the army;
but he broke his leg on the very day he obtained a commission and after spending
two months in bed he never got rid of a slight limp for the rest of his life.
A Desperate Character and Other
Stories
He came into God's world, I remember, in 1828, at his father's native place
and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province of the
steppes. Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember well to this
day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, sedate man, fairly--for
those days--well educated, just a little cracked, to tell the truth--and,
moreover, he suffered from epilepsy. Virgin Soil
At one o'clock in the afternoon of a spring day in the year 1868, a young
man of twenty-seven, carelessly and shabbily dressed, was toiling up the back
staircase of a five-storied house on Officers Street in St. Petersburg. Noisily
shuffling his down-trodden goloshes and slowly swinging his heavy, clumsy
figure, the man at last reached the very top flight and stopped before a half-open
door hanging off its hinges. He did not ring the bell, but gave a loud sigh
and walked straight into a small, dark passage. Библиотека
произведений. Статьи и публикации о жизни и творчестве И.С. Тургенева.
Biblioteka proizvedenij. Stat'i i publikacii o zhizni i tvorchestve I.S. Turgeneva.
Na russkom yazyke.
