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The Floating Press - Ivan Turgenev

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196 pages

English

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Get acquainted with the work of Russian literary master Ivan Turgenev in this rich, multifaceted tale of unrequited romantic love and self-discovery. The Torrents of Spring follows the coming-of-age of a young Russian aristocrat who is willing to give away everything he owns to pursue love. But before he can achieve his happily-ever-after, a sophisticated seductress steps in and induces him to stray from his single-minded goal. Will the young protagonist make the right decision? Read The Torrents of Spring to find out.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 août 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775454175
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
AND FIRST LOVE
* * *
IVAN TURGENEV
Translated by
CONSTANCE GARNETT

*
The Torrents of Spring And First Love First published in 1872 ISBN 978-1-775454-17-5 © 2011 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Torrents of Spring I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII XXXIX XL XLI XLII XLIII XLIV First Love I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII Mumu Endnotes
The Torrents of Spring
*
'Years of gladness, Days of joy, Like the torrents of spring They hurried away.'
— From an Old Ballad .
... At two o'clock in the night he had gone back to his study. He haddismissed the servant after the candles were lighted, and throwinghimself into a low chair by the hearth, he hid his face in both hands.
Never had he felt such weariness of body and of spirit. He had passedthe whole evening in the company of charming ladies and cultivatedmen; some of the ladies were beautiful, almost all the men weredistinguished by intellect or talent; he himself had talked with greatsuccess, even with brilliance ... and, for all that, never yet hadthe taedium vitae of which the Romans talked of old, the 'disgustfor life,' taken hold of him with such irresistible, such suffocatingforce. Had he been a little younger, he would have cried with misery,weariness, and exasperation: a biting, burning bitterness, likethe bitter of wormwood, filled his whole soul. A sort of clingingrepugnance, a weight of loathing closed in upon him on all sides likea dark night of autumn; and he did not know how to get free from thisdarkness, this bitterness. Sleep it was useless to reckon upon; heknew he should not sleep.
He fell to thinking ... slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought ofthe vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human.All the stages of man's life passed in order before his mental gaze(he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not onefound grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring ofwater into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywherethe same self-deception—half in good faith, half conscious—any toyto amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, allof a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it theever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and theplunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end!May be, before the end, like rust on iron, sufferings, infirmitiescome.... He did not picture life's sea, as the poets depict it,covered with tempestuous waves; no, he thought of that sea as asmooth, untroubled surface, stagnant and transparent to its darkestdepths. He himself sits in a little tottering boat, and down belowin those dark oozy depths, like prodigious fishes, he can just makeout the shapes of hideous monsters: all the ills of life, diseases,sorrows, madness, poverty, blindness.... He gazes, and behold, oneof these monsters separates itself off from the darkness, riseshigher and higher, stands out more and more distinct, more and moreloathsomely distinct.... An instant yet, and the boat that bears himwill be overturned! But behold, it grows dim again, it withdraws,sinks down to the bottom, and there it lies, faintly stirring in theslime.... But the fated day will come, and it will overturn the boat.
He shook his head, jumped up from his low chair, took two turns up anddown the room, sat down to the writing-table, and opening one drawerafter another, began to rummage among his papers, among old letters,mostly from women. He could not have said why he was doing it; he wasnot looking for anything—he simply wanted by some kind of externaloccupation to get away from the thoughts oppressing him. Openingseveral letters at random (in one of them there was a withered flowertied with a bit of faded ribbon), he merely shrugged his shoulders,and glancing at the hearth, he tossed them on one side, probably withthe idea of burning all this useless rubbish. Hurriedly, thrusting hishands first into one, and then into another drawer, he suddenly openedhis eyes wide, and slowly bringing out a little octagonal box ofold-fashioned make, he slowly raised its lid. In the box, under twolayers of cotton wool, yellow with age, was a little garnet cross.
For a few instants he looked in perplexity at this cross—suddenlyhe gave a faint cry.... Something between regret and delight wasexpressed in his features. Such an expression a man's face wears whenhe suddenly meets some one whom he has long lost sight of, whom he hasat one time tenderly loved, and who suddenly springs up before hiseyes, still the same, and utterly transformed by the years.
He got up, and going back to the hearth, he sat down again in thearm-chair, and again hid his face in his hands.... 'Why to-day? justto-day?' was his thought, and he remembered many things, long sincepast.
This is what he remembered....
But first I must mention his name, his father's name and his surname.He was called Dimitri Pavlovitch Sanin.
Here follows what he remembered.
I
*
It was the summer of 1840. Sanin was in his twenty-second year, and hewas in Frankfort on his way home from Italy to Russia. He was a man ofsmall property, but independent, almost without family ties. By thedeath of a distant relative, he had come into a few thousand roubles,and he had decided to spend this sum abroad before entering theservice, before finally putting on the government yoke, without whichhe could not obtain a secure livelihood. Sanin had carried out thisintention, and had fitted things in to such a nicety that on the dayof his arrival in Frankfort he had only just enough money left to takehim back to Petersburg. In the year 1840 there were few railroads inexistence; tourists travelled by diligence. Sanin had taken a place inthe ' bei-wagon '; but the diligence did not start till eleven o'clockin the evening. There was a great deal of time to be got throughbefore then. Fortunately it was lovely weather, and Sanin after diningat a hotel, famous in those days, the White Swan, set off to strollabout the town. He went in to look at Danneker's Ariadne, which he didnot much care for, visited the house of Goethe, of whose works he had,however, only read Werter , and that in the French translation. Hewalked along the bank of the Maine, and was bored as a well-conductedtourist should be; at last at six o'clock in the evening, tired, andwith dusty boots, he found himself in one of the least remarkablestreets in Frankfort. That street he was fated not to forget long,long after. On one of its few houses he saw a signboard: 'GiovanniRoselli, Italian confectionery,' was announced upon it. Sanin wentinto it to get a glass of lemonade; but in the shop, where, behindthe modest counter, on the shelves of a stained cupboard, recallinga chemist's shop, stood a few bottles with gold labels, and as manyglass jars of biscuits, chocolate cakes, and sweetmeats—in this room,there was not a soul; only a grey cat blinked and purred, sharpeningits claws on a tall wicker chair near the window and a bright patchof colour was made in the evening sunlight, by a big ball of red woollying on the floor beside a carved wooden basket turned upside down. Aconfused noise was audible in the next room. Sanin stood a moment, andmaking the bell on the door ring its loudest, he called, raising hisvoice, 'Is there no one here?' At that instant the door from an innerroom was thrown open, and Sanin was struck dumb with amazement.
II
*
A young girl of nineteen ran impetuously into the shop, her dark curlshanging in disorder on her bare shoulders, her bare arms stretched outin front of her. Seeing Sanin, she rushed up to him at once, seizedhim by the hand, and pulled him after her, saying in a breathlessvoice, 'Quick, quick, here, save him!' Not through disinclinationto obey, but simply from excess of amazement, Sanin did not at oncefollow the girl. He stood, as it were, rooted to the spot; he hadnever in his life seen such a beautiful creature. She turned towardshim, and with such despair in her voice, in her eyes, in the gestureof her clenched hand, which was lifted with a spasmodic movement toher pale cheek, she articulated, 'Come, come!' that he at once dartedafter her to the open door.
In the room, into which he ran behind the girl, on an old-fashionedhorse-hair sofa, lay a boy of fourteen, white all over—white, witha yellowish tinge like wax or old marble—he was strikingly like thegirl, obviously her brother. His eyes were closed, a patch of shadowfell from his thick black hair on a forehead like stone, and delicate,motionless eyebrows; between the blue lips could be seen clenchedteeth. He seemed not to be breathing; one arm hung down to the floor,the other he had tossed above his head. The boy was dressed, and hisclothes were closely buttoned; a tight cravat was twisted round hisneck.
The girl rushed up to him with a wail of distress. 'He is dead, he isdead!' she cried; 'he was sitting here just now, talking to me—andall of a sudden he fell down and became rigid.... My God! can nothingbe done to help him? And mamma not here! Pantaleone, Pantaleone, thedoctor!' she went on suddenly in Italian. 'Have you been for thedoctor?'
'Signora, I did not go, I sent Luise,' said a ho