Home of the Gentry (Classics)

by Ivan Turgenev

how to talk nonsense with quasi-facetious importance and give the impression of considering everything important to be nonsense,

In fairness to him it must be said that he never boasted of his conquests. He made his appearance in Marya Dmitrievna’s house immediately upon arrival in O … and was soon quite at home there.

Mark you, he would deliberate, how can one fail to sing his praises? The young man shone in the highest spheres of life and was also an exemplary civil servant, and there wasn’t a trace of arrogance in him.

As a matter of fact, even in St Petersburg Panshin was regarded as a businesslike official: his hands were always busy, although he talked slightingly of his work as befitted a man of the world who ascribes little significance to his labours; yet he was an ‘executive type’.

Lol “he talked slightly of his work as befitted…”

Panshin paused. No matter how he began a conversation, he usually ended by talking about himself, and it somehow came out so nicely and unaffectedly, so warmly, as though it were quite against his will.

his Spartan education at least had the merit of having bred in him an indifference to others’ opinions –

It seemed to him that he had only now understood why life was worth living; all his presuppositions and intentions, all that stuff and nonsense, vanished in a flash; his entire soul blended into one feeling, into one desire – a desire for happiness, for possession, for love, a woman’s sweet love.

Fyodor Ivanych, for his part, was not bored, although life at times weighed heavy on his shoulders – weighed heavy because it was empty.

he understood his wife – you only understand someone close to you fully when you’ve parted from that person.

‘She’s fond of him, it seems, but then God alone knows what she really feels! Another’s heart is like a dark forest, you know, especially a young girl’s.

He sat at the window without stirring a muscle, literally absorbed in listening to the flow of the quiet life surrounding him and the occasional sounds of the peaceful rural world.

‘Here am I as though I were at the bottom of a river,’ Lavretsky thought again. ‘And here always, at all times, life is quiet and unhurried,’ he reflected.

here there is nothing to worry about, nothing to disturb one; here success comes only to him who carves out his own unhurried path as the ploughman carves out the furrows with his plough.

Victims of misfortune are quick to sense another of their kind from a distance, but in old age they rarely become friends, which is in no way surprising: they have nothing to share together – not even hopes.

To be young and not to know how, is bearable; to be old and not to have the strength, is too great a weight to carry. And what’s so painful is you can’t sense your powers leaving you. It’s hard for an old man to endure such blows!

The charm of the summer night possessed him; everything around him seemed so unexpectedly strange and at the same time so long and so sweetly familiar to him; near and far – and one could see a long way, although the eye could not distinguish much of what it saw – everything was at peace; this very peace was redolent of youth bursting with life.

‘Be obedient to your heart; it alone will tell you the truth,’

It was a long time since Lavretsky had heard anything similar: the sweet, passionate melody captivated his heart from the first note; it was full of radiance, full of the tender throbbing of inspiration and happiness and beauty, continually growing and melting away;

It was full of radiance, full of tender throbbing of inspiration and happiness and beauty.

There were no candles in the room; the light of the risen moon fell obliquely through the windows; the air, so finely attuned, quivered vibrantly; the tiny, wretched room seemed a holy sanctuary, where the old man’s head rose high and inspired in a silvery haze.

thirst for happiness, that same old thirst for happiness!

‘was to know happiness for the second time in your life, and you forgot that it is a luxury, an undeserved favour, when it visits a man’s life even once. It was not full happiness, it was false happiness,

Too little emotional effect had come of it; Varvara Pavlovna, in her opinion, should have thrown herself at her husband’s feet.

lolll

I don’t dispute that he’s a good man, that he won’t bite, but is that something special? We’re all good people; the world’s not coming to an end, there’ll always be plenty of that sort of goodness.’

Everyone has an ideal: Varvara Pavlovna has found hers – in the dramatic works of Dumas fils.

and his soul was seized by a feeling which has no equal in its sweetness and bitterness – a feeling of living sorrow for vanished youth and for a happiness that was once possessed.

Vanished youth.

we old people have an entertainment of our own, which you don’t know about yet and which can’t be replaced by any other: our memories.’

Lavretsky would not even have been able to recognize himself, if he looked at himself as he mentally looked at Liza.

He grew sad at heart, but not oppressed and not ashamed: there were things to regret, nothing to be ashamed of.

‘Play on, enjoy yourselves, grow up, forces of youth,’ he thought, and there was no bitterness in his thoughts. ‘Your life lies ahead of you, and for you it will be easier: you won’t have to seek out your path as we have done, to struggle and fall and rise again in the midst of darkness; we had to strive to remain whole – and how many of us fell by the wayside? – but for you there are things to be done, there is work to do, and the blessing of us old men will go with you.

There are such moments in life, such feelings …. One can but point to them – and pass by.