The Diary of a Superfluous Man: Bilingual Edition (English – French)

By Ivan Turgenev

Instead of memorizing vocabulary words, work your way through an actual well-written novel. Even novices can follow along as each individual English paragraph is paired with the corresponding French paragraph. It won't be an easy project, but you'll learn a lot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018

Ivan Turgenev

Ivan Turgenev was a Russian writer whose work is exemplary of Russian Realism. A student of Hegel, Turgenev’s political views and writing were heavily influenced by the Age of Enlightenment. Among his most recognized works are the classic Fathers and Sons, A Sportsman’s Sketches, and A Month in the Country. Turgenev is today recognized for his artistic purity, which influenced writers such as Henry James and Joseph Conrad. Turgenev died in 1883, and is credited with returning Leo Tolstoy to writing as the result of his death-bed plea.

Book preview

Viardot

Villiage of Sheep's Springs, March 20, 18—.

Au village d’O... mars 18..

The doctor has just left me. At last I have got at something definite! For all his cunning, he had to speak out at last.

Le médecin me quitte. Je l’ai obligé à s’expliquer enfin. Il a eu beau dissimuler, il lui a fallu me confesser toute la vérité.

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.

Je vais mourir: oui, je vais mourir bientôt; les rivières vont dégeler, et je m’en irai probablement avec les derniers glaçons... Où irai-je? Dieu le sait! À la mer aussi! Eh bien! quoi! s’il faut mourir, autant vaut mourir au printemps...

But isn't it absurd to begin a diary a fortnight, perhaps, before death? What does it matter? And by how much are fourteen days less than fourteen years, fourteen centuries? Beside eternity, they say, all is nothingness—yes, but in that case eternity, too, is nothing. I see I am letting myself drop into metaphysics; that's a bad sign—am I not rather faint-hearted, perchance? I had better begin a description of some sort. It's damp and windy out of doors.

I'm forbidden to go out.

Mais n’est-il pas ridicule de commencer un journal peut-être quinze jours seulement avant l’heure de la mort? Bah! qu’est-ce que cela fait? En quoi quinze jours diffèrent-ils de quinze ans, de quinze siècles? En face de l’éternité, tout est néant, dit-on; soit; mais dans ce cas, l’éternité même n’est que néant. Il me semble que je tombe dans la métaphysique, c’est mauvais signe; aurais-je peur? Mieux vaut raconter quelque chose. Le temps est humide, le vent souffle avec violence. Il m’est défendu de sortir.

What can I write about, then? No decent man talks of his maladies; to write a novel is not in my line; reflections on elevated topics are beyond me; descriptions of the life going on around me could not even interest me; while I am weary of doing nothing, and too lazy to read. Ah, I have it, I will write the story of all my life for myself. A first-rate idea! Just before death it is a suitable thing to do, and can be of no harm to any one. I will begin.

Que raconterai-je? Un homme bien élevé ne parle pas de ses maladies; écrire un roman n’est pas de mon ressort; raisonner sur de graves sujets est au-dessus de mes forces; la description des objets qui m’entourent ne m’offrirait aucun plaisir; ne rien faire est ennuyeux; lire me fatigue... Ah! je vais me raconter ma propre vie. Quelle bonne idée! Cette revue de soi-même est chose convenable avant la mort, et ne peut nuire à personne. Je commence.

I was born thirty years ago, the son of fairly well-to-do landowners. My father had a passion for gambling; my mother was a woman of character... a very virtuous woman. Only, I have known no woman whose moral excellence was less productive of happiness. She was crushed beneath the weight of her own virtues, and was a source of misery to every one, from herself upwards. In all the fifty years of her life, she never once took rest, or sat with her hands in her lap; she was for ever fussing and bustling about like an ant, and to absolutely no good purpose, which cannot be said of the ant. The worm of restlessness fretted her night and day.

Je suis né, il y a trente ans, d’une famille de propriétaires aisés. Mon père était un terrible joueur; ma mère, une femme de grand caractère et très vertueuse, mais je n’ai jamais connu de femme dont la vertu causât moins de plaisir. Elle s’affaissait sous le poids de ses mérites et en fatiguait tout le monde, à commencer par elle-même. Pendant les cinquante années de sa vie, elle ne se reposa pas une seule fois, elle ne se croisa pas une seule fois les bras; elle travaillait et s’évertuait comme une fourmi, mais sans aucune utilité, ce que nul ne dira d’une fourmi. Un ver infatigable la rongeait nuit et jour.

Only once I saw her perfectly tranquil, and that was the day after her death, in her coffin. Looking at her, it positively seemed to me that her face wore an expression of subdued amazement; with the half-open lips, the sunken cheeks, and meekly-staring eyes, it seemed expressing, all over, the words, 'How good to be at rest!'

Une fois seulement je la vis parfaitement tranquille, et cela dans son cercueil, le lendemain de sa mort. Aussi son visage me semblait-il vraiment exprimer un silencieux étonnement. On aurait dit que ses lèvres à demi fermées, ses joues creuses et ses yeux paisiblement immobiles respiraient ces paroles: «Qu’il fait bon ne pas bouger!»

Yes, it is good, good to be rid, at last, of the wearing sense of life, of the persistent, restless consciousness of existence!

Oui certes, il est bon de se dépouiller enfin de l’accablante conscience de la vie, de la sensation continue et inquiète de l’existence!

But that's neither here nor there.

I was brought up badly and not happily. My father and mother both loved me; but that made things no better for me. My father was not, even in his own house, of the slightest authority or consequence, being a man openly abandoned to a shameful and ruinous vice; he was conscious of his degradation, and not having the strength of will to give up his darling passion, he tried at least, by his invariably amiable and humble demeanour and his unswerving submissiveness, to win the condescending consideration of his exemplary wife.

Je grandis mal et sans joie. Mes parents me témoignaient de la tendresse; mais la vie ne m’en était pas plus douce. Ouvertement adonné à un vice dégradant et ruineux, mon père n’avait aucune autorité dans sa propre maison. Il reconnaissait son abjection, et, n’ayant pas la force de renoncer à la passion qui le dominait, il cherchait du moins à mériter l’indulgence de sa femme par une soumission à toute épreuve.

My mother certainly did bear her trial with the superb and majestic long-suffering of virtue, in which there is so much of egoistic pride.

Ma mère supportait son malheur avec cette magnifique et fastueuse longanimité de la vertu dans laquelle respire tant d’orgueil et d’amour-propre.

She never reproached my father for anything, gave him her last penny, and paid his debts without a word. He exalted her as a paragon to her face and behind her back, but did not like to be at home, and caressed me by stealth, as though he were afraid of contaminating me by his presence. But at such times his distorted features were full of such kindness, the nervous grin on his lips was replaced by such a touching smile, and his brown eyes, encircled by fine wrinkles, shone with such love, that I could not help pressing my cheek to his, which was wet and warm with tears.

Elle ne faisait jamais de reproche à mon père; elle lui donnait silencieusement le fond de sa bourse et payait ses dettes. Présente ou absente, il la portait aux nues; mais il n’aimait pas rester à la maison, et il ne me caressait qu’en secret, à la dérobée, comme s’il eût craint de me porter malheur. Ses traits altérés avaient alors une telle expression de bonté, le rire fiévreux qui errait sur ses lèvres se changeait en un sourire si touchant, ses yeux bruns entourés de rides fines s’arrêtaient avec tant d’amour sur moi, que je pressais involontairement ma joue contre sa joue humide et chaude de larmes.

I wiped away those tears with my handkerchief, and they flowed again without effort, like water from a brimming glass. I fell to crying, too, and he comforted me, stroking my back and kissing me all over my face with his quivering lips. Even now, more than twenty years after his death, when I think of my poor father, dumb sobs rise into my throat, and my heart beats as hotly and bitterly and aches with as poignant a pity as if it had long to go on beating, as if there were anything to be sorry for!

J’essuyais ces larmes avec mon mouchoir; mais elles recommençaient à couler sans effort, comme l’eau déborde d’un vase trop plein. Je me mettais aussi à pleurer, et il me consolait. Il pressait mes mains entre les siennes, et ses lèvres tremblantes me couvraient de baisers. Voilà déjà plus de vingt ans qu’il est mort, et pourtant chaque fois que je pense à mon pauvre père, des sanglots muets me montent au gosier, et mon cœur bat dans ma poitrine; il bat avec tant de chaleur et d’amertume, il est accablé d’une si douloureuse compassion, qu’on croirait qu’il lui reste encore longtemps à battre et à regretter.

My mother's behaviour to me, on the contrary, was always the same, kind, but cold. In children's books one often comes across such mothers, sermonising and just.

Ma mère au contraire était toujours la même pour moi, bienveillante, mais froide. On rencontre souvent dans les livres écrits pour les enfants des mères toutes semblables, morales et justes.

She loved me, but I did not love her. Yes! I fought shy of my virtuous mother, and passionately loved my vicious father.

But enough for to-day. It's a beginning, and as for the end, whatever it may be, I needn't trouble my head about it. That's for my illness to see to.

Elle m’aimait, mais je ne l’aimais pas. Oui, j’évitais ma mère vertueuse, et j’aimais passionnément mon père vicieux.

Mais c’est assez pour aujourd’hui. Le commencement est fait; quant à la fin et à ce qui en adviendra, je ne m’en inquiète guère. C’est l’affaire de ma maladie.

March 21.

21 mars.

To-day it is marvellous weather. Warm, bright; the sunshine frolicking gaily on the melting snow; everything shining, steaming, dripping; the sparrows chattering like mad things about the drenched, dark hedges.

Sweetly and terribly, too, the moist air frets my sick chest.

Le temps est magnifique aujourd’hui, il est chaud et serein; le soleil se joue gaiement sur la neige qui fond. Tout reluit, fume et se dissout; les moineaux crient comme affolés autour des haies sombres et humides: un air tiède m’irrite la poitrine et me cause une sensation à la fois douce et pénible.

Spring, spring is coming! I sit at the window and look across the river into the open country. O nature! nature! I love thee so, but I came forth from thy womb good for nothing—not fit even for life. There goes a cock-sparrow, hopping along with outspread wings; he chirrups, and every note, every ruffled feather on his little body, is breathing with health and strength....

What follows from that? Nothing.

Le printemps, le printemps arrive! Je suis assis à la fenêtre, mon regard franchit la rivière et se repose sur les champs. Ô nature, nature! je t’aime, quoique je sois sorti de ton sein incapable de vivre. Voilà un petit oiseau qui déploie ses ailes et sautille; il crie, et chaque vibration de sa voix, chaque petite plume ébouriffée de son corps mignon, respire la santé et la force...

Que s’ensuit-il? rien.

He is well and has a right to chirrup and ruffle his wings; but I am ill and must die—that's all. It's not worth while to say more about it. And tearful invocations to nature are mortally absurd. Let us get back to my story.

I was brought up, as I have said, very badly and not happily.

Il se porte bien, et a le droit de crier et de secouer ses plumes: moi je suis malade et je dois mourir: voilà tout. Ce n’est pas la peine de s’y arrêter davantage. Ces larmoyantes invocations à la nature sont ridicules à l’excès. Revenons à notre récit.

Comme je l’ai dit déjà, je grandis péniblement et sans joie.

I had no brothers or sisters.