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First Love and Other Stories
Psychologically acute, subtly and sometimes bitterly comic, these six stories all display the elegance and ironic clarity of Turgenev's finest writing.
Ivan Turgenev (1818-83), perhaps best known for his novel Fathers and Sons, was a master at expanding the significance of a single episode into a story that illustrates a whole life, a whole relationship, even an entire age. With the exception of The Song of Triumphant Love, which is set in Renaissance Italy, these stories are all partly autobiographical. They demonstrate the evolution of Turgenev's skills and preoccupations, from the diary form of his famous study of a 'superfluous man' (1850) and his exposure of the tyranny of serfdom in the small masterpiece Mumu (1854), to his most poignant and nostalgic evocations of love, Asya (1858) and First Love (1860). In King Lear of the Steppes (1870), the longest of the stories, the dominant sentiment is ingratitude as Harlov deals with his two icy daughters and plots his doomed revenge; his failure is, if anything, more devastating than that of Shakespeare's Lear.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1881
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About the author
Ivan Turgenev
1,832 books2,812 followersIvan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short-story collection A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852) and the novels Rudin (1856), Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), and Fathers and Sons (1862).
These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.
These works offer realistic, affectionate portrayals of the Russian peasantry and penetrating studies of the Russian intelligentsia who were attempting to move the country into a new age. His masterpiece, Fathers and Sons, is considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.
Turgenev was a contemporary with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. While these wrote about church and religion, Turgenev was more concerned with the movement toward social reform in Russia.
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May 17, 2024This collection consists of the stories Diary of a superfluous man, Mumu, Asya, First Love, King Lear of the steppes and The song of triumphant Love Asya and First Love I had read before, back when I was a teenager, the edition was a hardback bound in green - though that could have been a library binding I suppose, from a Russian publishing house.
First Love, I imagine, is one of the stories that inspired Freud, it is a very nice story, but it is not the kind of the story that you can read the same way twice. But you can enjoy it infinitely because of its artistry, Penelope Fitzgerald was a Turgenev fan and beyond his pessimism I can imagine that she was inspired by his concision, all of these stories are short and I felt the shorter they were the stronger they were, the longest story here - the King Lear retelling, was the weakest for me .
He can manage to be concise because he is so focussed - in First Love we only learn about the narrator - and not that much about him, we don't know about the woman he loves or why there is a crowd of, rather unlikely, suitors around her. Somebody else probably has written that novel, but it is not the story that Turgenev is interested in.
Turgenev is very deft in setting up his characters and bringing them together and that he is more interested in his main characters reactions and development following on from the events of the stories gives them an interest beyond the narratives themselves.
I liked the liminality in Asya which featured an irregular family, their irregularity puts them on the edge of society, geographically we find them outside Russia, living in Germany where they have located themselves outside a town, always on the fringes but .
Something else that appealed to me was the sense of stories and authors in dialogue with each other. I suspect that Diary of a superfluous man inspired Tolstoy's death of Ivan Ilych, while it also draws on Evgeny Onegin for the central incident - fancy man from the big city drifts in, wows local girl but he is not interested in her. This is hardly a spoiler as the story is not about them, it is about the superfluous man. Here as with First Love and Asya we are dependent on the first person narrator, presumably more is going on, the narrator is limited and as unreliable as the rest of us, but all we have his his account. The difference between this man and Tolstoy's Ivan is sharp. Ivan is a vehicle for Tolstoy's religious conversion - 'prepare yourself for death oh you sinner'. Turgenev's man like the narrators in several of these stories is interested in his own past and if there is no-one else to tell his story to, he will tell it to himself.
King Lear of the steppes I felt was shaking hands with Gogol, a story with layers of comedy - the central figure for the narrator is an epitome of Russianness, while that character proclaims his own Swedish ancestry far and wide. I wonder if all of Shakespeare's tragedies if transposed to a different setting could become comedies or tragicomedies?
First Love, I imagine, is one of the stories that inspired Freud, it is a very nice story, but it is not the kind of the story that you can read the same way twice. But you can enjoy it infinitely because of its artistry, Penelope Fitzgerald was a Turgenev fan and beyond his pessimism I can imagine that she was inspired by his concision, all of these stories are short and I felt the shorter they were the stronger they were, the longest story here - the King Lear retelling, was the weakest for me .
He can manage to be concise because he is so focussed - in First Love we only learn about the narrator - and not that much about him, we don't know about the woman he loves or why there is a crowd of, rather unlikely, suitors around her. Somebody else probably has written that novel, but it is not the story that Turgenev is interested in.
Turgenev is very deft in setting up his characters and bringing them together and that he is more interested in his main characters reactions and development following on from the events of the stories gives them an interest beyond the narratives themselves.
I liked the liminality in Asya which featured an irregular family, their irregularity puts them on the edge of society, geographically we find them outside Russia, living in Germany where they have located themselves outside a town, always on the fringes but .
Something else that appealed to me was the sense of stories and authors in dialogue with each other. I suspect that Diary of a superfluous man inspired Tolstoy's death of Ivan Ilych, while it also draws on Evgeny Onegin for the central incident - fancy man from the big city drifts in, wows local girl but he is not interested in her. This is hardly a spoiler as the story is not about them, it is about the superfluous man. Here as with First Love and Asya we are dependent on the first person narrator, presumably more is going on, the narrator is limited and as unreliable as the rest of us, but all we have his his account. The difference between this man and Tolstoy's Ivan is sharp. Ivan is a vehicle for Tolstoy's religious conversion - 'prepare yourself for death oh you sinner'. Turgenev's man like the narrators in several of these stories is interested in his own past and if there is no-one else to tell his story to, he will tell it to himself.
King Lear of the steppes I felt was shaking hands with Gogol, a story with layers of comedy - the central figure for the narrator is an epitome of Russianness, while that character proclaims his own Swedish ancestry far and wide. I wonder if all of Shakespeare's tragedies if transposed to a different setting could become comedies or tragicomedies?
October 5, 2020
“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”
So wrote Herman Hesse, but it could’ve come from Turgenev’s pen. Ivan Sergeyvich Turgenev doesn’t believe in happy loves. He doesn’t even believe in being happy in love. Love is a disruptive force, an outlier, an anomaly. Romantic love is the primary suspect here, but filial love doesn’t escape unscathed.
The best of these stories is First Love, a teenager’s retelling of how he fell in love for the first time, only to find out that the girl had entered an illicit relationship with his own father. Like a detective, the son spies on the couple, and it is from his perspective that we witness the ruin of the father, who used to be a self-possessed and strong man, and the downfall of the young woman, who was marked down as a married man’s mistress. The story concerns, in fact, the destruction of two people at the hands of love, and the severe disruption it imposed on the boy’s life. The son was studying for his exams when the girl and her mother arrived to the neighborhood, but his feelings left him precious little space for any sobering or rational thought. His old life was abandoned, and his new one began revolving only around one person and one single-minded feeling. The father, who from the onset was described as aloof and cold, was transformed into a raging mess of uncontrollable emotions. That is the message: love, especially romantic love, is dangerous because it is larger than us. We can’t control it, we can’t fight it; we can only just feel. Love doesn’t care whether we accept it or not, whether we gently go into that good night. It doesn’t matter; love takes us even if we go kicking and screaming. Like an out-of-body experience, love exerts a heavy weight that slowly but surely hollows us out. We put up with it not because we are happy, but because we are powerless.
Turgenev’s personal life was marred by unhappy loves. First Love is said to be inspired by his own experiences, both as a son and as a lover. Famously, too, he spent half of his life in love with a married woman, Pauline Viardot, who never let go of her husband. Biographers still debate whether Turgenev and Pauline’s romantic friendship was consummated. We do know, however, that he never married. In his stories, life is a series of events, made up of little triumphs and mundane defeats; after all, most people do live ordinary lives. Life is a straight line that takes us from birth to death. The line can be shortened or lengthened, depending on how many setbacks we face and how often we succeed in overcoming them. But when we fall in love, the line riots; like the waves in a seismic monitor, rising up and down frenetically, as the ground beneath our feet shakes us into destruction.
So wrote Herman Hesse, but it could’ve come from Turgenev’s pen. Ivan Sergeyvich Turgenev doesn’t believe in happy loves. He doesn’t even believe in being happy in love. Love is a disruptive force, an outlier, an anomaly. Romantic love is the primary suspect here, but filial love doesn’t escape unscathed.
The best of these stories is First Love, a teenager’s retelling of how he fell in love for the first time, only to find out that the girl had entered an illicit relationship with his own father. Like a detective, the son spies on the couple, and it is from his perspective that we witness the ruin of the father, who used to be a self-possessed and strong man, and the downfall of the young woman, who was marked down as a married man’s mistress. The story concerns, in fact, the destruction of two people at the hands of love, and the severe disruption it imposed on the boy’s life. The son was studying for his exams when the girl and her mother arrived to the neighborhood, but his feelings left him precious little space for any sobering or rational thought. His old life was abandoned, and his new one began revolving only around one person and one single-minded feeling. The father, who from the onset was described as aloof and cold, was transformed into a raging mess of uncontrollable emotions. That is the message: love, especially romantic love, is dangerous because it is larger than us. We can’t control it, we can’t fight it; we can only just feel. Love doesn’t care whether we accept it or not, whether we gently go into that good night. It doesn’t matter; love takes us even if we go kicking and screaming. Like an out-of-body experience, love exerts a heavy weight that slowly but surely hollows us out. We put up with it not because we are happy, but because we are powerless.
Turgenev’s personal life was marred by unhappy loves. First Love is said to be inspired by his own experiences, both as a son and as a lover. Famously, too, he spent half of his life in love with a married woman, Pauline Viardot, who never let go of her husband. Biographers still debate whether Turgenev and Pauline’s romantic friendship was consummated. We do know, however, that he never married. In his stories, life is a series of events, made up of little triumphs and mundane defeats; after all, most people do live ordinary lives. Life is a straight line that takes us from birth to death. The line can be shortened or lengthened, depending on how many setbacks we face and how often we succeed in overcoming them. But when we fall in love, the line riots; like the waves in a seismic monitor, rising up and down frenetically, as the ground beneath our feet shakes us into destruction.
August 5, 2021
A complete tour-de-force of masterful writing. I am amazed that anyone could pack such a punch in short fiction but Ivan Turgenev does it again and again in this collection.
March 23, 2018
A really great collection. I love Turgenev's writing and can't wait to read more by him.
December 22, 2023
“Първа любов” е една от любимите ми новели въобще и заради нея оценявам целия сборник високо. Останалите кратки истории носят свежата романтика на 18 век, лъхат на пролетна трева, пълни с нежност и жестокост.
May 1, 2022
This is a very nice collection of short stories and a couple of novella length stories. Here are my ratings:
The diary of a superfluous man - 2.5
Mumu - 5
Asya - 5
First love - 4 (read in 2011)
King Lear of the steppes - 5
The song of triumphant love - 3.5 (a touch of the Arabian Nights)
Mumu and Asya were the best in the collection.
The diary of a superfluous man - 2.5
Mumu - 5
Asya - 5
First love - 4 (read in 2011)
King Lear of the steppes - 5
The song of triumphant love - 3.5 (a touch of the Arabian Nights)
Mumu and Asya were the best in the collection.
May 23, 2022
Официално слагам начало на своето приключение с руската литература и то с усмивка на лицето! Това беше прекрасен сборник, изпълнен с красиви размисли за младостта, сближаването, природата, любовта - бурна, разочароваща, захвърлена… Голямо удоволствие ми донесе живописния и омайващ стил на Тургенев, както и неговите смели, шумни женски герои с нрав и желания отвъд обществените норми.
September 16, 2018
I hereby announce myself in love with Russian authors 😊
April 10, 2017
Absolutely superb stories! So good that I don't know which one would be my favourite.
As it says on the back of the book, 'psychologically acute, subtly and sometimes bitterly comic, these six stories all display the elegance and ironic clarity of Turgenev's finest writing.'
Next on the list, Father and Sons.
As it says on the back of the book, 'psychologically acute, subtly and sometimes bitterly comic, these six stories all display the elegance and ironic clarity of Turgenev's finest writing.'
Next on the list, Father and Sons.
December 12, 2025
First Love is one of the most exquisite and emotionally piercing novellas in Russian literature. It tells the story of a young man’s passionate infatuation with an older, mysterious woman—and the painful disillusionment that follows. The difficulty lies in the emotional intelligence required to appreciate its subtleties. Turgenev writes with a restraint that demands attention to tone, gesture, and silence. The novella’s heartbreak is not theatrical; it unfolds quietly, through misunderstandings, small betrayals, and a final revelation that devastates both narrator and reader.
The supporting stories reinforce Turgenev’s preoccupation with memory, regret, and the irretrievability of youth. His prose is elegant, painterly, filled with an aching sense of nostalgia. This is a difficult work, not because it is obscure, but because it is emotionally exacting. Turgenev asks the reader to feel deeply, vulnerably—and to confront the bittersweet truth that first love is often more beautiful as memory than as experience.
Recommended.
The supporting stories reinforce Turgenev’s preoccupation with memory, regret, and the irretrievability of youth. His prose is elegant, painterly, filled with an aching sense of nostalgia. This is a difficult work, not because it is obscure, but because it is emotionally exacting. Turgenev asks the reader to feel deeply, vulnerably—and to confront the bittersweet truth that first love is often more beautiful as memory than as experience.
Recommended.
December 6, 2023
Четейки последните страници на "Пролетни води" - плаках.
September 7, 2025
Enjoyable little collection of short stories, all contianing the theme of love in some way or another. Turganev is really masterful in the way he writes about nature, setting and the passion of falling in love at first sight. My favourites were definitely ‘Mumu’ and maybe ‘Asya’. They all have a kind of witty tinge to them as well which makes them quite fun and easy to read.
August 11, 2019
Primo amore - Canto dell’amore trionfante
February 14, 2026
First Love: 4 stars
Spring Torrents: 5 stars
A Fire at Sea: 3.5 stars
What an excellent collection of stories. I adore Turgenev’s writing. More detailed thoughts to come soon.
Spring Torrents: 5 stars
A Fire at Sea: 3.5 stars
What an excellent collection of stories. I adore Turgenev’s writing. More detailed thoughts to come soon.
October 18, 2014
'The Diary of a Superfluous Man' sets the tone for classic Turgenev, whose stories and novels are so often about unrequited or disappointed love. I like this because so many novels go the opposite way, and it exists in life.
'Mumu' made me cry and I never or almost never cry at films or books. Commentary about loneliness and alienation, it is about a deaf and dumb servant and his dog.
'Asya' has a wonderful, wild and hurried atmosphere, like blackberries.
'First Love' is more mature, like a ripe peach or mandarin but still a rich fruit. The character of Zinaida surrounded by her five suitors call to mind mythological stories but the character and what happens to her feels real and truthful.
'King Lear of the Steppes' – Grey and coarser but what a powerful protagonist, atmosphere and striking ending. I think it does the Shakespeare story justice, transplanted to contemporary Russia as it is.
'The Song of Triumphant Love' – Another beautiful artifice about difficult love and heavily symbolic, this time exotic and perfumed with an Italianate setting, a mysterious Malay servant, strange dreams, music and riches from travel.
'Mumu' made me cry and I never or almost never cry at films or books. Commentary about loneliness and alienation, it is about a deaf and dumb servant and his dog.
'Asya' has a wonderful, wild and hurried atmosphere, like blackberries.
'First Love' is more mature, like a ripe peach or mandarin but still a rich fruit. The character of Zinaida surrounded by her five suitors call to mind mythological stories but the character and what happens to her feels real and truthful.
'King Lear of the Steppes' – Grey and coarser but what a powerful protagonist, atmosphere and striking ending. I think it does the Shakespeare story justice, transplanted to contemporary Russia as it is.
'The Song of Triumphant Love' – Another beautiful artifice about difficult love and heavily symbolic, this time exotic and perfumed with an Italianate setting, a mysterious Malay servant, strange dreams, music and riches from travel.
October 31, 2015
"O youth! youth! you have no concerns, you possess, as it were, all the treasures of the universe, even grief is a comfort to you, even sadness suits your looks, you are self-assured and bold, you say: 'Look, I'm the only one alive!' while the very days of your life run away and vanish without trace and without number and everything in you disappears like wax, like snow in the heat of the sun... And perhaps the entire secret of your charm consists not in the possibility of doing everything, but in the possibility of thinking you can do everything, perhaps it consists precisely in the fact that you wantonly scatter on the wind energies that you wouldn't know how to use for anything else, perhaps it consists in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as a spendthrift and seriously considers that he has the right to say: 'Oh, the things I could have done if only I hadn't wasted my time!'"
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May 27, 2024Great "long" short stories. Highlights include: "The Diary of a Superfluous Man", "Mumu", "Asya", and "First Love".
July 19, 2021
I’m in two minds about Turgenev. In some ways, he’s the master of charting the miseries of unrequited adulation (usually on the part of a ‘superfluous’ male). However, this is only interesting insofar as the portrait of the adulated is itself interesting – Mikhail Rakitin’s abasing enthralment to the capricious Natalya Petrovna in his play Two Women (aka A Month in the Country) is exemplary. Turgenev’s novels, though, often feature the tired trope of adulation stirred up by an insipidly drawn younger heroine – the eponymous Rudin’s for Natasha, teenage daughter of the far more interesting Darya, or of the Bulgarian revolutionary Insarov’s for Elena in On the Eve. Again, in Fathers and Sons, Bazarov’s fascination for the elder sister, the coolly determined Anna Sergeyevna is of far more interest than Arkady’s for the younger sister, Katya.
In the sixty pages of the short story/novella ‘First Love’, written around the same time as Fathers and Sons, Turgenev succeeds admirably where some of the earlier novels fail. The portrait of the twenty-one year old Zinaida, moderated through the consciousness of the infatuated teenage narrator, Volodya, comes off splendidly, partly because of her down-at-heel, parasitic mother and their motley retainer ‘Boneyface’, partly through the prickly group of jealous admirers she gathers about herself, but mainly because the true centre of gravity of the story is the narrator’s relationship to his father. Here, through hints, we get a delicate portrait of an unhappy marriage of unequals (based on Turgenev’s own parents). Remarkably, even the discovery that his own father is his beloved’s secret lover, and that her torments outweigh his own, does little to diminish the boy’s admiration.
In the sixty pages of the short story/novella ‘First Love’, written around the same time as Fathers and Sons, Turgenev succeeds admirably where some of the earlier novels fail. The portrait of the twenty-one year old Zinaida, moderated through the consciousness of the infatuated teenage narrator, Volodya, comes off splendidly, partly because of her down-at-heel, parasitic mother and their motley retainer ‘Boneyface’, partly through the prickly group of jealous admirers she gathers about herself, but mainly because the true centre of gravity of the story is the narrator’s relationship to his father. Here, through hints, we get a delicate portrait of an unhappy marriage of unequals (based on Turgenev’s own parents). Remarkably, even the discovery that his own father is his beloved’s secret lover, and that her torments outweigh his own, does little to diminish the boy’s admiration.
June 26, 2017
I absolutely adored all of these stories. Sadly the last story was never finished so I couldn't give a full 5 stars. If you love Russian classic literature read this.
February 5, 2017
Once again, Turgenev came through for me. After reading the first two short stories in this book, I was left with a sense of longing, of "sehnsucht" of olden times.
I am surprised that I am so overcome by these romantic stories, and I mean romantic not only in the love stories themselves, but in the seductive descriptions, the quaint, charming settings; they remind me of stories that I used to read in my childhood.
Turgenev likes to tell us how a person's character will change in the future: in a future not covered by the story- perhaps as a device to further character development? To invite doubt in our feelings for the person? I don't know. In Spring Torrents, he begins by telling us how Sanin was filled by "taedium vitae, even though he has just had brilliant conversation in the company of agreeable women and educated men." Yet the rest of the story is filled by Sanin's zest for life, and how he discovered that zest very young. We can only assume that he lost it, and became this other person; this person we really don't get to know.
My favourite quote of "First Love" is: "...and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to do whatever you may will, but in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do".
I am surprised that I am so overcome by these romantic stories, and I mean romantic not only in the love stories themselves, but in the seductive descriptions, the quaint, charming settings; they remind me of stories that I used to read in my childhood.
Turgenev likes to tell us how a person's character will change in the future: in a future not covered by the story- perhaps as a device to further character development? To invite doubt in our feelings for the person? I don't know. In Spring Torrents, he begins by telling us how Sanin was filled by "taedium vitae, even though he has just had brilliant conversation in the company of agreeable women and educated men." Yet the rest of the story is filled by Sanin's zest for life, and how he discovered that zest very young. We can only assume that he lost it, and became this other person; this person we really don't get to know.
My favourite quote of "First Love" is: "...and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to do whatever you may will, but in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do".
February 9, 2019
Обичам класическите произведения на руските писатели от 19ти век, които описват живота на руските дворяни. Любопитно ми е как са облечени, с какво се хранят, как общуват предимно на френски, как безцелно пътуват с месеци и години в чужбина, как кокетничат жените.... но разбира се, особено ме привлича страстта, на която са способни героите и самоунищожителните избори, които правят в името на любовта. Тургенев пише много увлекателно, описва превъзходно процеса на съблазняване и драмата, през която минават героите в неуспешните си опити да устоят. Отчитам и удоволствието, с което държах в ръцете си красивото издание с твърди корици на "Колибри".
September 17, 2017
I bought this back in January of 1980, which would have been during my final semester of undergraduate. I remember reading it and thinking these are some of the saddest stories I've ever read.
37 years later, still really sad. Great, descriptive writing with memorable, but sad stories. Not for everyone.
37 years later, still really sad. Great, descriptive writing with memorable, but sad stories. Not for everyone.
September 24, 2014
Funny, wry, and moving in all the right ways. Turgenev really knows how to tell a good story. Highly recommended, particularly if you liked Fathers and Sons or Sketches from a Hunter's Notebook and want something more from this oft-forgotten Russian great.
March 30, 2019
Turgenev was a powerful and introspective short story writer. First Love was probably the best short story I have ever read. It leaves a strong impression on you long after you have finished reading it.
Excellent.
Excellent.
partially-read
June 21, 2020For one forfeit I had to sit beside her, both of us under the same silk scarf; I was supposed to tell her ‘my secret’. I remember how both our heads were suddenly plunged in a close, fragrant, almost transparent darkness, and how close to me in this darkness her eyes shone softly; and I remember the warm breath from her parted lips, the gleam of her teeth, and how her hair tickled and burnt me. I was silent. She smiled mysteriously and slyly, and finally whispered to me, ‘Well?’ But I only blushed and laughed and turned away, and could scarcely breathe.
I remember that at that time the image of woman, the shadowy vision of feminine love, scarcely ever took definite shape in my mind: but in every thought, in every sensation, there lay hidden a half-conscious, shy, timid awareness of something new, inexpressibly sweet, feminine . . . This presentiment, this sense of expectancy, penetrate my whole being; I breathed it, it was in every drop of blood that flowed through my veins . . .
__________
I could not concentrate. I could not do the simplest thing. For whole days I did nothing but think intensely about her . . . And in the meantime wasted my time in complete idleness . . . Oh, what could I not have done, if only I had not wasted my time.
__________
‘Well then, that’s agreed,’ he said, settling himself more deeply into his armchair and lighting a cigar.
I was preparing for the University, but worked little and slowly.
Nobody interfered with my freedom. I did what I liked . . .
I have never seen anyone more exquisitely calm, more self-assured, or more imperious.
But through the tears and the melancholy, inspired by the music of the verse or the beauty of the evening, there always rose upwards, like the grasses of early spring, shoots of happy feeling, of young and surging life.
My rifle slipped to the grass; I forgot everything; my eyes devoured the graceful figure, the lovely neck, the beautiful arms, the slightly dishevelled fair hair under the white kerchief—and the half-closed, perceptive eyes, the lashes, the soft cheek beneath them . . . my heart leapt within me.
'Please make yourself at home! We are very simple here.’
‘Too simple,’ I could not help thinking with disgust, as I took in her unsightly figure.
Listen, you don’t know me yet. I am very strange . . .
I like your face. I have a feeling that we shall be friends. And do you like me? . . . You do like me, don’t you?
I felt very uncomfortable during this conversation.
She was walking slowly along the path, holding a book in her hands. She did not notice me. I very nearly let her pass by, but suddenly collected myself, and coughed. She turned round, but did not stop. With her hand she pushed back the broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled gently, and again turned her gaze to the book.
I took off my cap and after shuffling a little walked away . . . I made as if to move towards Zinaida, but she did not even glance at me. She raised her book again, and walked away.
I spent the whole of that evening and the following morning in a kind of dumb and frozen misery. I remember I tried to work and opened Kaidanov, but the broadly spaced lines and pages of the celebrated textbook flitted past my eyes in vain. Ten times over I read to myself the words ‘Julius Caesar was distinguished for military valour’, understood nothing, and threw the book aside.
What then was my astonishment when, as she passed by me, her face wearing its former warm expression, she whispered quickly to me, ‘Come and see us at eight o’clock, do you hear? Don’t fail me.’
You see, young man, we are playing a game of forfeits. The princess has had to pay a forfeit and the winner, whoever draws the lucky ticket, will have the right to kiss her hand m do you understand what I have just said?
Everything became blurred.
This silent lightning, this controlled light, seemed to answer to the mute and secret fires which were blazing within me.
To belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.
From that day on my ‘passion’ began.
Sometimes she flirted with me—and that would excite me, and I would melt.
From that moment my real torment began.
You should be studying, working—while you are young—instead of which, you are doing what?
A lot of work you do! You’ve something else on your mind . . .
Whatever is in your heart is written all over your face.
Now it is your business to paint the picture, Sir Poet, only I want th torches to b red and very smoky, and I want the eyes of the Bacchantes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths of flowers must be dark, and don’t forget the tiger skins and the goblets and the gold—lots of gold.
'And my friend Tonkosheyev, in his Spanish novel El Trovador . . .’
‘Oh, is that the book with the question marks upside down?’
‘Oh, you re going to have another argument about classicism and romanticism.
‘Let’s play a game instead.’
‘Forfeits?’
’No, forfeits are boring. Let’s play analogies.’ (Zinaida had invented this game herself. An object would be named, and everyone tried to compare it with something else. The person who thought of the best analogy won the prize.) she asked to the window. The sun had just set. Long red clouds stood high in the sky.
‘What are those clouds like?’ Asked Zinaida, and without waiting for our answer said: ‘I think they are like those purple sails on the golden ship in which Cleopatra sailed to meet Antony. Do you remember, Maidanov? You were telling me about it not long ago.’
All of us, like Polonius ni Hamlet, decided that the clouds reminded us of precisely those sails, and that none of us could find a better analogy.
I shall put your hair in my locket and I shall wear it . . . this will perhaps comfort you a little . . .
‘I am not fond . . . a large company . . .’ I muttered without realising my eyes.
‘Oh, you prefer a tête-a-tête?’
I had started with the set purpose of giving myself up to gloomy reflections. But youth, the beauty of the day, the freshness of the air, the pleasure which comes from rapid walking, the delicious sensation of lying on the thick grass far away from everyone, alone—these proved too strong.
‘Give me your hand,’ she said, in the old caressing manner. ‘We haven’t had a gossip for a long time.’
‘You don’t want me to love you—that’s what it is!’ I burst out gloomily, against my will.
’No. Love me, yes, but not as before.’
‘Why, what am I to do?’
‘Let us be friends—that’s what,’ Zinaida gave me the rose too smell. ‘Listen, I am, after all, much older than you, I really might be your aunt—oh, well, perhaps not aunt, but elder sister. And you . . .'
Great Heavens! With what fresh force my love flamed up within me!
'Everywhere, gold, marble, crystal, silk,. Lights, jewels, flowers, burning incense, every extravagance of luxury.'
‘You like luxury?’
‘Luxury is full of loveliness. I adore all that is lovely.’
‘More than the beautiful?’
’That sounds too clever—I don’t understand it. Don’t interrupt.’
My blood was on fire and whirling within me.
There is so much within me that is dark, evil, wicked . . .
And I was hers, utterly hers from head to foot, whenever she looked at me.
What I had learned was too much for me to manage.
In one swoop all my flowers were torn up by the roots and last about me—scattered, broken, trampled underfoot.
Yes, this is it—this is love; this is passion; this is devotion.
'Really, I am not like that. I know that you have a low view of me.'
‘I?’
'Yes, you, you . . .’
‘I?’ I repeated painfully, and my heart began to quiver, as it always did under the spell of her irresistible, inexpressible fascination. ‘I? Believe me, that whatever you did, however much you made me suffer, I shall love you and adore you to the end of my days.’
I cannot even begin to convey the feelings with which I left her. I never wish to experience them again, but I should count it a misfortune never to have had them at all.
The main thing is to live a normal life and not to be carried away. Otherwise, what’s the use? Wherever the wave may carry you, it will always turn out badly. Better a rock to stand on, so long as it’s on one’s own feet.
I was utterly stunned. This, I admit, I did not expect.
I realised that this image of her, this new image which had so suddenly arisen before me, would live in my memory forever.
September 22, 2023
Made me want to learn how to read Cyrillic, then forgetting I had not yet finished the book; как ужасно!
It's hard to get started with this. I'm not all that good at writing reviews, not at all.
I forgot everything I wanted to say. What a mess!!!
It's hard to get started with this. I'm not all that good at writing reviews, not at all.
I forgot everything I wanted to say. What a mess!!!
Read
April 24, 2024girl whatever
March 26, 2023
diary of a superfluous man and first love were great. overall enjoyed much less than chekhov.
July 10, 2021
First Love: 3.5 stars
I'm so sad.
I'm so sad.
August 12, 2025
First Love and Other Stories Analysis
Diary of a Superfluous Man:
I remember on page 46 of the book he said “people like me anticipate all kinds of things except the very thing that must happen in the normal course of events.” It's like he overthinks so much to the point where that he's afraid to take any course of action out of fear that he should fail although should he actually have tried he would have succeeded or at least likely made an impact on those around him. Instead later in that page that I quoted where he speaks of his tiger-ish relish he says that he decided to begin to speak in such an unnatural and forced way that those around him began to avoid him because they were tired of the way he was behaving although should he have actually spoken to Ozhogin again about his daughter or perhaps even spoken to Liza herself he could have definitely made an impact and gotten those around him to consider his existence. And yet what he says is he always tried dancing around the point but he never actually brought his monologues to an end or a conclusion out of fear. I think fear is what holds the superfluous man's character back so much. He thinks that his indecisiveness or inability to act is sacrifice and that it’s to be considered an act of gentle or kindhearted nature. But no one seems to be paying mine to that because he never tries to leave an impact on those around him. I think that’s the sharpest difference between him and the prince’s character. The prince’s friendly and kind hearted a natural. He shares his thoughts openly in publicly and takes action when needed, and yet the superfluous man is behaving the contrary. I also think Liza and her father and her family in general aren’t so much attracted to the prince himself, but rather his character and the idea of being related to him I think that whatever the change was in the walk in the woods the narrator mentioned pushed Lisa to “loving” the prince because he was the first one in front of her who suited her criteria I guess is the word. And it’s even brought up by the narrator himself and again the narrator is not reliable at all. He seems to have a very unhealthy outlook on life on all of it. He seems to be very interested in the past and yet not interested in the current events at all because he thinks everything around him is just dull and gray just because he’s dying soon. Many would use that time to live life to the fullest but he sees it as I wanna say a pastime of sorts. His inability to take action rendered his current events and current life so uneventful and pointless that all he cares about and all he’s interested in is reflecting and pondering and romanticizing the past in sorts. But back to my main point it’s brought up by the narrator that Ozhogin began to rub his hands at the idea of having the prints be his son-in-law, so they’re not so much considering his actual character, but rather his fortune and his looks I feel like this is basic attraction and not actual deep affection and love. Notwithstanding all this, part of me wants to say that the narrator (Mr. Stocking) was never really superfluous. But that’s the most heartbreaking part about the story. It’s that he really was superfluous. His actions seemed to have no impact whatsoever on how the events of this story unfolded. He faces death with such sorrow, he was clinging onto everything in life. But I do also wish to say that he was a very delusional man, he justified his actions by saying its for the better good of Liza. He uses one event of his life to generalize his whole existence and categorize it as superfluous. He makes too many assumptions about how people around him perceive him and is as a result, caught up in this self-absorbed
Asya
The narrator seems to be very indecisive. He seems to romanticize everything in a bright-eyed manner. He seems to romanticize his struggles and his pains, and too self-indulgently so. Very slow, very deliberate, seriously, he doesn't know what he wants. And he lacks commitment. He's in love with Asya, as he claims, and yet he does not want to be in a relationship, although he speaks of falling in love with a widow prior, which makes me wonder if the widow really did leave him, as he said, or if there is narrator bias. Asya, on the other hand, is complete contrary. She's not ready for a relationship, and yet she's mentally in that state of mind where she's literally prepared to leap into one at first without knowing what's to wait. She's very volatile, and I honestly found her quite irritating at the beginning. It's like she was trying to be different just because for the sake of being different, until I started learning more about her inner pain. So as I said before, in my earlier entries of reading this book, she messed up in the past. She's ashamed of her mother, and yet at the same time, to the irony, to my dismay, she's ashamed of the shame she feels. It is very hilarious, absurdly so, I would say. I honestly find her character to be very conflicted and complex. It's deeper than just a girl who wants to be different. It's more so a girl who doesn't know what her mental state is. She clearly struggles with something as a result of the negligence she faced. On the other hand, Gagin, her brother, he seems to be very conflicted. She's the victim in their crossfire, in their love scandal or situation. This is a really melancholic story that if I had to describe it or describe it in short would be “The one who got away”. I felt this in my soul, how he only said he loves her when she was unable to hear him and how they had the potential to become such a happy couple but didn’t due to circumstance and choices really hurts the reader. This story is really nice and it relates to the modern image of “love”. I feel like every young man and woman, especially those in high school, for example, in modern, in the modern world, romanticize the idea of falling in love. But then, like Asia, they are unaware of what comes with such pursuit. They are unaware of the responsibilities, the weight, the impact, the effects. They're unaware of what follows.
First Love
I didn't really like Zineda. She's aware of the effect she has on men, and as Vladimir said, quote, she enjoyed arousing in them either hopes or fears and turning them this way and that as she wished. She called it knocking people against each other, unquote. This, especially back then, had to be seen as a narcissistic need to get all the attention possible. Her behaviors may be meant to attract or amuse those around her, but to the reader, well to me at least, I can't speak for everyone, they come off as needy, manipulative, attention hungry, and very emotionally cruel to those around her. I'm only saying this because throughout the story I did not see character development with her. She was behaving very contradictory, and I don't like contradictions that have no meaning behind them. She's a shallow character archetype. I think Vladimir was romanticizing the idea of love as an adventure to go on. I believe that this is because of the manipulative version of love or affection that he received from his father. He brought up many times that his father was able to get all details out of him, because when he expresses his seldom affection and interest in Vladimir in his stories, Vladimir feels inclined and encouraged to spare no detail, which should say a lot about Pyotr himself, the father. He is a very manipulative gaslighter. I did not, well no, I didn't hate him. I found it very intriguing that the protagonist of the story, or the main character, had been sort of getting groomed ever since childhood. So this goes back to years prior. His father's narcissistic and manipulative behaviors are the reason his son struggles. Vladimir even says that these effects, although rare, make him feel loved and he enjoys feeling like he's of importance to his father. I think that twisted version of affection he's been nurtured around is what causes him to stick around with Zinaida to begin with, because he sees it as regular affection. He has no other idea of what love is. This also shows me that both Pyotr and Zinaida, Vladimir's father, are quite similar in nature and display very similar, if not almost identical, characteristics. This reaffirms my point that Turgenev's work is more about human nature and psychology than it is about complex themes and philosophical depth. Vladimir is mentally unconditioned to detect such malicious or manipulative tactics that could be used on him. This really helps me paint a clearer image of him as the bright-eyed young man who still has quite a lot to figure out. Even by the end of the story, throughout the entire story, Vladimir seems to be very codependent. He forgives Zinaida, he has no grudge, he doesn't even feel any negative emotions or holds negative opinions towards either his father or Zinaida. I guess it's fair and it is realistic, given that he, again, sees love as this twisted version, because that's what he's been raised around. But he seems very self-indulgent. He enjoys suffering, agony, and I dislike how he is unable to see the bigger picture. The events of the story really did shift my sympathy more towards Vladimir. I have to say that he is a victim in every sense of the word. A victim of manipulation, a victim of emotional crossfire, and psychological manipulation.
Overall, I like the works of Turgenev. He displays a very strong understanding of human nature and psychology, my favourite of the 3 I read (I have yet to read Mumu and King lear of the steppes because I’m saving them for university breaks) is Asya. I liked it most because it not only shows nuance in character’s nature and personalities but also because of the very thought out understanding of character’s motivations, and natures.
Diary of a Superfluous Man:
I remember on page 46 of the book he said “people like me anticipate all kinds of things except the very thing that must happen in the normal course of events.” It's like he overthinks so much to the point where that he's afraid to take any course of action out of fear that he should fail although should he actually have tried he would have succeeded or at least likely made an impact on those around him. Instead later in that page that I quoted where he speaks of his tiger-ish relish he says that he decided to begin to speak in such an unnatural and forced way that those around him began to avoid him because they were tired of the way he was behaving although should he have actually spoken to Ozhogin again about his daughter or perhaps even spoken to Liza herself he could have definitely made an impact and gotten those around him to consider his existence. And yet what he says is he always tried dancing around the point but he never actually brought his monologues to an end or a conclusion out of fear. I think fear is what holds the superfluous man's character back so much. He thinks that his indecisiveness or inability to act is sacrifice and that it’s to be considered an act of gentle or kindhearted nature. But no one seems to be paying mine to that because he never tries to leave an impact on those around him. I think that’s the sharpest difference between him and the prince’s character. The prince’s friendly and kind hearted a natural. He shares his thoughts openly in publicly and takes action when needed, and yet the superfluous man is behaving the contrary. I also think Liza and her father and her family in general aren’t so much attracted to the prince himself, but rather his character and the idea of being related to him I think that whatever the change was in the walk in the woods the narrator mentioned pushed Lisa to “loving” the prince because he was the first one in front of her who suited her criteria I guess is the word. And it’s even brought up by the narrator himself and again the narrator is not reliable at all. He seems to have a very unhealthy outlook on life on all of it. He seems to be very interested in the past and yet not interested in the current events at all because he thinks everything around him is just dull and gray just because he’s dying soon. Many would use that time to live life to the fullest but he sees it as I wanna say a pastime of sorts. His inability to take action rendered his current events and current life so uneventful and pointless that all he cares about and all he’s interested in is reflecting and pondering and romanticizing the past in sorts. But back to my main point it’s brought up by the narrator that Ozhogin began to rub his hands at the idea of having the prints be his son-in-law, so they’re not so much considering his actual character, but rather his fortune and his looks I feel like this is basic attraction and not actual deep affection and love. Notwithstanding all this, part of me wants to say that the narrator (Mr. Stocking) was never really superfluous. But that’s the most heartbreaking part about the story. It’s that he really was superfluous. His actions seemed to have no impact whatsoever on how the events of this story unfolded. He faces death with such sorrow, he was clinging onto everything in life. But I do also wish to say that he was a very delusional man, he justified his actions by saying its for the better good of Liza. He uses one event of his life to generalize his whole existence and categorize it as superfluous. He makes too many assumptions about how people around him perceive him and is as a result, caught up in this self-absorbed
Asya
The narrator seems to be very indecisive. He seems to romanticize everything in a bright-eyed manner. He seems to romanticize his struggles and his pains, and too self-indulgently so. Very slow, very deliberate, seriously, he doesn't know what he wants. And he lacks commitment. He's in love with Asya, as he claims, and yet he does not want to be in a relationship, although he speaks of falling in love with a widow prior, which makes me wonder if the widow really did leave him, as he said, or if there is narrator bias. Asya, on the other hand, is complete contrary. She's not ready for a relationship, and yet she's mentally in that state of mind where she's literally prepared to leap into one at first without knowing what's to wait. She's very volatile, and I honestly found her quite irritating at the beginning. It's like she was trying to be different just because for the sake of being different, until I started learning more about her inner pain. So as I said before, in my earlier entries of reading this book, she messed up in the past. She's ashamed of her mother, and yet at the same time, to the irony, to my dismay, she's ashamed of the shame she feels. It is very hilarious, absurdly so, I would say. I honestly find her character to be very conflicted and complex. It's deeper than just a girl who wants to be different. It's more so a girl who doesn't know what her mental state is. She clearly struggles with something as a result of the negligence she faced. On the other hand, Gagin, her brother, he seems to be very conflicted. She's the victim in their crossfire, in their love scandal or situation. This is a really melancholic story that if I had to describe it or describe it in short would be “The one who got away”. I felt this in my soul, how he only said he loves her when she was unable to hear him and how they had the potential to become such a happy couple but didn’t due to circumstance and choices really hurts the reader. This story is really nice and it relates to the modern image of “love”. I feel like every young man and woman, especially those in high school, for example, in modern, in the modern world, romanticize the idea of falling in love. But then, like Asia, they are unaware of what comes with such pursuit. They are unaware of the responsibilities, the weight, the impact, the effects. They're unaware of what follows.
First Love
I didn't really like Zineda. She's aware of the effect she has on men, and as Vladimir said, quote, she enjoyed arousing in them either hopes or fears and turning them this way and that as she wished. She called it knocking people against each other, unquote. This, especially back then, had to be seen as a narcissistic need to get all the attention possible. Her behaviors may be meant to attract or amuse those around her, but to the reader, well to me at least, I can't speak for everyone, they come off as needy, manipulative, attention hungry, and very emotionally cruel to those around her. I'm only saying this because throughout the story I did not see character development with her. She was behaving very contradictory, and I don't like contradictions that have no meaning behind them. She's a shallow character archetype. I think Vladimir was romanticizing the idea of love as an adventure to go on. I believe that this is because of the manipulative version of love or affection that he received from his father. He brought up many times that his father was able to get all details out of him, because when he expresses his seldom affection and interest in Vladimir in his stories, Vladimir feels inclined and encouraged to spare no detail, which should say a lot about Pyotr himself, the father. He is a very manipulative gaslighter. I did not, well no, I didn't hate him. I found it very intriguing that the protagonist of the story, or the main character, had been sort of getting groomed ever since childhood. So this goes back to years prior. His father's narcissistic and manipulative behaviors are the reason his son struggles. Vladimir even says that these effects, although rare, make him feel loved and he enjoys feeling like he's of importance to his father. I think that twisted version of affection he's been nurtured around is what causes him to stick around with Zinaida to begin with, because he sees it as regular affection. He has no other idea of what love is. This also shows me that both Pyotr and Zinaida, Vladimir's father, are quite similar in nature and display very similar, if not almost identical, characteristics. This reaffirms my point that Turgenev's work is more about human nature and psychology than it is about complex themes and philosophical depth. Vladimir is mentally unconditioned to detect such malicious or manipulative tactics that could be used on him. This really helps me paint a clearer image of him as the bright-eyed young man who still has quite a lot to figure out. Even by the end of the story, throughout the entire story, Vladimir seems to be very codependent. He forgives Zinaida, he has no grudge, he doesn't even feel any negative emotions or holds negative opinions towards either his father or Zinaida. I guess it's fair and it is realistic, given that he, again, sees love as this twisted version, because that's what he's been raised around. But he seems very self-indulgent. He enjoys suffering, agony, and I dislike how he is unable to see the bigger picture. The events of the story really did shift my sympathy more towards Vladimir. I have to say that he is a victim in every sense of the word. A victim of manipulation, a victim of emotional crossfire, and psychological manipulation.
Overall, I like the works of Turgenev. He displays a very strong understanding of human nature and psychology, my favourite of the 3 I read (I have yet to read Mumu and King lear of the steppes because I’m saving them for university breaks) is Asya. I liked it most because it not only shows nuance in character’s nature and personalities but also because of the very thought out understanding of character’s motivations, and natures.
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