Reckless Character and Other Stories (eBook)

Ivan Turgenev (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
258 Seiten
Seltzer Books (Verlag)
978-1-4553-5839-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Classic Russian short stories, including A Reckless character, The Dream, Father Alexyei's Story, Old Portraits, The Song of Love Triumphant, Clara Militch, Poems in Prose and Endnotes.According to Wikipedia: 'Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev1818 - 1883) was a Russian novelist and playwright. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction.'

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Classic Russian short stories, including A Reckless character, The Dream, Father Alexyei's Story, Old Portraits, The Song of Love Triumphant, Clara Militch, Poems in Prose and Endnotes. According to Wikipedia: "e;Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev 1818 - 1883) was a Russian novelist and playwright. His novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction."e;

Textauszug

A RECKLESS CHARACTER AND OTHER STORIES BY IVAN TURGENIEFF

 

 Translated from the Russian by ISABEL F. HAPGOOD

 

Published by Seltzer Books

established in 1974, now offering over 14,000 books

feedback welcome: [e-mail]  

 

Russian classics in English translation available from Seltzer Books:

Best Russian Short Stories edited by Thomas Seltzer

Boris Godunov by Pushkin

Daughter of the Commandant by Pushkin

Marie by Pushkin

The Inspector General by Gogol

Dead Souls by Gogol

The House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky

Uncle's Dream and the Permanent Husband by Dostoyevsky

Liza by Turgenev

A Reckless Character and Other Stories by Turgenev

Chekhov's Plays

Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth by Tolstoy

What Shall We Do?  by Tolstoy

Cossacks by Tolstoy

Father Sergius by Tolstoy

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Tolstoy

Redemption, Power of Darkness, and Fruits of Culture by Tolstoy

Reminiscences of Tolstoy

The Resurrection by Tolstoy

On the Significance of Science and Art by Tolstoy

Tolstoy on Shakespeare

Fables for Children by Tolstoy

Six Plays by Tolstoy

War and Peace by Tolstoy

 

NEW YORK, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 1907.

 

A RECKLESS CHARACTER

 

THE DREAM

 

FATHER ALEXYEI'S STORY

 

OLD PORTRAITS

 

THE SONG OF LOVE TRIUMPHANT

 

CLARA MILITCH

 

POEMS IN PROSE

 

ENDNOTES

 

A RECKLESS CHARACTER[1]

 

(1881)

 

There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary matters and persons,

 

"I do not understand these gentlemen!" remarked A.--"They are fellows of a reckless sort.... Really, desperate.... There has never been anything of the kind before."

 

"Yes, there has," put in P., a grey-haired old man, who had been born about the twenties of the present century;--"there were reckless men in days gone by also. Some one said of the poet Yazykoff, that he had enthusiasm which was not directed to anything, an objectless enthusiasm; and it was much the same with those people--their recklessness was without an object. But see here, if you will permit me, I will narrate to you the story of my grandnephew, Misha Polteff. It may serve as a sample of the recklessness of those days."

 

He made his appearance in God's daylight in the year 1828, I remember, on his father's ancestral estate, in one of the most remote nooks of a remote government of the steppes. I still preserve a distinct recollection of Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Polteff. He was a genuine, old-fashioned landed proprietor, a pious inhabitant of the steppes, sufficiently well educated,--according to the standards of that epoch,--rather crack-brained, if the truth must be told, and subject, in addition, to epileptic fits.... That also is an old-fashioned malady.... However, Andrei Nikolaevitch's attacks were quiet, and they generally terminated in a sleep and in a fit of melancholy.--He was kind of heart, courteous in manner, not devoid of some pomposity: I have always pictured to myself the Tzar Mikhail Feodorovitch as just that sort of a man.

 

Andrei Nikolaevitch's whole life flowed past in the punctual discharge of all the rites established since time immemorial, in strict conformity with all the customs of ancient-orthodox, Holy-Russian life. He rose and went to bed, he ate and went to the bath, he waxed merry or wrathful (he did both the one and the other rarely, it is true), he even smoked his pipe, he even played cards (two great innovations!), not as suited his fancy, not after his own fashion, but in accordance with the rule and tradition handed down from his ancestors, in proper and dignified style. He himself was tall of stature, of noble mien and brawny; he had a quiet and rather hoarse voice, as is frequently the case with virtuous Russians; he was neat about his linen and his clothing, wore white neckerchiefs and long-skirted coats of snuff-brown hue, but his noble blood made itself manifest notwithstanding; no one would have taken him for a priest's son or a merchant! Andrei Nikolaevitch always knew, in all possible circumstances and encounters, precisely how he ought to act and exactly what expressions he must employ; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and what medicine to take, which symptoms he should heed and which might be disregarded ... in a word, he knew everything that it was proper to do.... It was as though he said: "Everything has been foreseen and decreed by the old men--the only thing is not to devise anything of your own.... And the chief thing of all is, don't go even as far as the threshold without God's blessing!"--I am bound to admit that deadly tedium reigned in his house, in those low-ceiled, warm, dark rooms which so often resounded from the chanting of vigils and prayer-services,[2] with an odour of incense and fasting-viands,[3] which almost never left them!

 

Andrei Nikolaevitch had married, when he was no longer in his first youth, a poor young noblewoman of the neighbourhood, a very nervous and sickly person, who had been reared in one of the government institutes for gentlewomen. She played far from badly on the piano; she spoke French in boarding-school fashion; she was given to enthusiasm, and still more addicted to melancholy, and even to tears.... In a word, she was of an uneasy character. As she considered that her life had been ruined, she could not love her husband, who, "as a matter of course," did not understand her; but she respected, she tolerated him; and as she was a thoroughly honest and perfectly cold being, she never once so much as thought of any other "object." Moreover, she was constantly engrossed by anxieties: in the first place, over her really feeble health; in the second place, over the health of her husband, whose fits always inspired her with something akin to superstitious terror; and, in conclusion, over her only son, Misha, whom she reared herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not prevent his wife's busying herself with Misha--but on one condition: she was never, under any circumstances, to depart from the limits, which had been defined once for all, wherein everything in his house must revolve! Thus, for example: during the Christmas holidays and Vasily's evening preceding the New Year, Misha was not only permitted to dress up in costume along with the other "lads,"--doing so was even imposed upon him as an obligation....[4] On the other hand, God forbid that he should do it at any other time! And so forth, and so forth.

 

 II

 

 I remember this Misha at the age of thirteen. He was a very comely lad with rosy little cheeks and soft little lips (and altogether he was soft and plump), with somewhat prominent, humid eyes; carefully brushed and coifed--a regular little girl!--There was only one thing about him which displeased me: he laughed rarely; but when he did laugh his teeth, which were large, white, and pointed like those of a wild animal, displayed themselves unpleasantly; his very laugh had a sharp and even fierce--almost brutal--ring to it; and evil flashes darted athwart his eyes. His mother always boasted of his being so obedient and polite, and that he was not fond of consorting with naughty boys, but always was more inclined to feminine society.

 

"He is his mother's son, an effeminate fellow," his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, was wont to say of him:--"but, on the other hand, he likes to go to God's church.... And that delights me."

 

Only one old neighbour, a former commissary of the rural police, once said in my presence concerning Misha:--"Good gracious! he will turn out a rebel." And I remember that that word greatly surprised me at the time. The former commissary of police, it is true, had a habit of descrying rebels everywhere.

 

Just this sort of exemplary youth did Misha remain until the age of eighteen,--until the death of his parents, whom he lost on almost one and the same day. As I resided constantly in Moscow, I heard nothing about my young relative. Some one who came to town from his government did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold his ancestral estate for a song; but this bit of news seemed to me altogether too incredible!--And lo! suddenly, one autumn morning, into the courtyard of my house dashes a calash drawn by a pair of splendid trotters, with a monstrous coachman on the box; and in the calash, wrapped in a cloak of military cut with a two-arshin[5] beaver collar, and a fatigue-cap over one ear--a la diable m'emporte--sits Misha!

 

On catching sight of me (I was standing at the drawing-room window and staring in amazement at the equipage which had dashed in), he burst...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-4553-5839-8 / 1455358398
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4553-5839-7 / 9781455358397