First Love (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

By Ivan Turgenev and Mary Albon

First Love captures both the exhilarating enchantment of adolescent infatuation and the exquisite torment of adult passion. Written by Ivan Turgenev, one of the masters of Russian literature, First Love tells the story of sixteen-year-old Vladimirs first bruising brush with love. The boy falls under the spell of Zinaida, a capricious and imperious beauty who delights in toying with her many suitors. Turgenev movingly details Vladimirs overheated emotional state as he blunders toward the knowledge that will shatter his innocence. Although at first glance this short work may seem a mere trifle, Turgenev manages to achieve the sublime. Anyone who has ever been in love will be touched by this tale of passion and disillusionment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411431461

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

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

FIRST LOVE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

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XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

SUGGESTED READING

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Introduction and Suggested Reading Copyright © 2005 by Barnes & Noble Books

Originally published in 1872

This edition published by Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used

or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without

written permission of the Publisher.

Cover Design by Stacey May

2005 Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc.

ISBN 0-7607-6898-6

eISBN : 978-1-411-43146-1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

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INTRODUCTION

FIRST Love by Ivan Turgenev captures both the exhilarating enchantment of adolescent infatuation and the exquisite torment of adult passion. Written by one of the masters of Russian literature, First Love tells the story of sixteen-year-old Vladimir’s first bruising brush with love. The boy falls under the spell of Zinaïda, a capricious and imperious beauty who delights in toying with her many suitors. Turgenev movingly details Vladimir’s overheated emotional state as he blunders toward the knowledge that will shatter his innocence. Although at first glance this short work may seem a mere trifle, Turgenev manages to achieve the sublime. Anyone who has ever been in love will be touched by this tale of passion and disillusionment.

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) ranks with Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky as one of the greatest Russian novelists of the nineteenth century. Although today his lyrical fiction stands in the shadow of the monumental works of his two great contemporaries, Turgenev was an innovator in Russian literature and the first Russian author to be widely read and admired in Europe and America. His novels chronicle the development of the Russian intelligentsia during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, capturing with great subtlety the tensions between generations and classes in a repressive, feudalistic empire. Although Turgenev instilled his fiction with a social message, his works do not present black-and-white conflicts or characters. Rather, they illuminate the complexities of human nature and the many shades that color everyday life. Because of his nuanced approach toward social and political issues, Turgenev was a controversial figure in Russia during his lifetime. His most famous novel, Fathers and Sons (1862), whose central character is a nihilist, alienated Russian readers on both the right and the left, yet was immensely popular; the novel still provokes debate today. His story collection titled A Sportsman’s Sketches (1852), which presents the difficult life of Russia’s serfs with moving dignity, is widely credited with influencing Tsar Alexander II to emancipate the serfs in 1861. But Turgenev was also a subtle prose stylist who advanced the form of the novel itself. By rendering characters through the use of telling details rather than exposition, and by moving away from the all-knowing narrator to the narrator as disinterested observer, he shifted the novel to a new stage. Turgenev has been admired and emulated by writers as diverse as Henry James, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, and Nadine Gordimer, and his place among the masters of nineteenth-century literature is well deserved.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born in Orel, a provincial town south of Moscow, in 1818. The Turgenevs were an old family of minor nobility, with military leaders and ambassadors among their ancestors, but by the nineteenth century the family had come down in the world. Ivan Turgenev’s father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was a lieutenant-colonel who had been decorated for courage in the famous 1812 Battle of Borodino against Napoleon’s forces. He was an exceptionally handsome man known for his charm, but he came from a poor family. In 1816, at the age of twenty-three he married twenty-nine-year-old Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova, who had recently inherited a large estate that included some five thousand serfs. Theirs was not a love match. It is said that Sergei Nikolaevich was repelled by Varvara Petrovna, who was homely and short, with a face scarred by smallpox, and that his father had to beg him to marry her to save the Turgenevs from bankruptcy. Varvara Petrovna adored Sergei Nikolaevich, but he did not return her affection and was unfaithful to her throughout their marriage. Nevertheless, they both strove to maintain a façade of respectability, and their marriage survived until Sergei Nikolaevich’s early death in 1834.

Turgenev spent much of his childhood in the countryside on his mother’s estate at Spasskoe, where he developed a profound love of nature. He also observed at first hand the difficult lives of the family’s serfs, and how his mother ruled over them like a despot. Although she deeply loved her three sons (Ivan, the eldest, was her favorite), they were not exempt from her violent and capricious temper. Turgenev possessed a natural talent for languages, mastering French, German, English, Latin, and Greek as a boy, and picking up Spanish as an adult. He entered Moscow University at fifteen years of age, and completed his studies at St. Petersburg University. In 1838, he headed for Berlin, then the Mecca for young Russian intellectuals, where he spent most of the next few years at the university and traveling throughout Germany and Italy. When he eventually returned to Russia, Turgenev embarked on a brief career in the Ministry of the Interior, where his work focused on the problems of serfdom, an institution he abhorred. But he was unsuited to the life of a bureaucrat, and in 1845 he resigned to devote himself to literary pursuits.

In 1845, Turgenev met the great love of his life: Pauline Garcia Viardot, a Spanish opera singer whose voice and charm had captivated audiences all over Europe. She was twenty-two and married to a much older man whom she did not love. Turgenev was instantly smitten, and his love grew deeper and stronger with time; according to his biographer Leonard Schapiro, he loved her quite literally until the last conscious hour of his life, with unquestioning, submissive, undemanding devotion. Although there is no clear evidence that Turgenev and Pauline Viardot were lovers, a few hints in his letters and his personal writings seem to indicate that the relationship was consummated in 1849- 1850. But it soon evolved into a close friendship, and Turgenev appears to have resigned himself to the status of family friend; he lived with or near the Viardots for most of the rest of his life. Turgenev never married, and not having a family of his own seems to have been one of his great regrets. He had one acknowledged daughter, born to a serf on his mother’s estate, and there are unsubstantiated rumors that he fathered at least one of Pauline Viardot’s children. Although Turgenev seems to have considered a spiritual and emotional connection with a woman as more important than sexual union, he regretted being always on the fringe of someone else’s family life. He had a genial personality, but with an undertone of sadness; this melancholy pervades Turgenev’s works, and it is not surprising that one of his major themes is the evanescence of happiness.

Although Turgenev spent most of his adult life outside Russia, he made frequent, extended visits to his homeland. He returned in part to keep up his literary connections, but also to spend time in the Russian countryside, which served as both a restorative and a spur to his writing. Like all nineteenth-century Russian writers, Turgenev was forced to work within the constraints of official censorship. In April 1852, he was arrested for violating a censor’s edict by publishing an article memorializing Nikolai Gogol after the great literary satirist’s death. Although Turgenev’s article might seem a trifling matter, it exemplifies the extent to which Russia’s imperial regime perceived writers as a threat. Turgenev was already under suspicion because of his liberal views and his associations with reform-minded Russians at home and abroad, so the Gogol piece was a useful pretext for his arrest. He was imprisoned for thirty days and then exiled to Spasskoe until November 1853. According to Leonard Schapiro, He did not dread his exile; on the contrary. He looked forward to much shooting, to working on his novel, and to devoting himself to the study of the Russian people. Ironically, Turgenev published A Sportsman’s Sketches — arguably his most politically influential work — while he was in exile, and the book was an instant success.

Turgenev preferred to write on human themes of love and regret, but Russian readers of his day expected their writers to address contemporary political matters. According to one of his biographers, Avrahm Yarmolinsky, "Turgenev responded by seeking to be the chronicler of his age, a perceptive witness, testifying,

Reviews for First Love (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We are halfway through February and I still haven't started a novel for the first quarter of Read Envy Russia 2022, and I found this on Hoopla. I haven't had a lot of luck with audio classics, but decided to just try it. And Edoardo Ballerini is perfect as a lovesick 16-year-old in 1833. Perfect. His accent is a bit unusual which works for me in this situation, and he has that slight whiny tone that isn't actual whining. He sounds like a very earnest 16-year-old.In many ways this story still feels modern despite being set in 1833. A 16-year-old boy falls in love with the 20-something (?) princess living next door. There is no hope for him here--he is too young, her family is too poor, she has many eligible suitors (one of whom even tries to warn him to stay out of this mess). She also has a bit of a reputation (that went right where I expected), but later makes a successful match. And his parents just want him to study for upcoming exams.Also I googled the game of Forfeits.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this novella the most accessible and most pleasurable read of the shorter works I have read of Ivan Turgenev, so far. Probably, because the number of characters is relatively small, and the sentiment of the story is easy to understand.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vladimir Petrovich tells the story of his first love, which occurred when he was sixteen years old. Her name? Princess Zinaida Alexandrovna, who had moved into the house next to his.This is not my typical type of reading material, but I really enjoyed it. Not so much the story itself, more the writing. The author really, almost perfectly, captures what it is like to be madly in love. The exuberant passion, and the dizzying depression, and everything in between. Through the author's words, I really felt this boy's pains, both the good and the bad. Ahh... first love...

[lady_lazarus · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was left with very vague impression after reading this short novel by a great Russian narrator. I have to say I didn't particularly enjoy even the language, but mainly it was the story that bothered me... The characters were very flat and the ending could be guessed very early on. However, I think I'm getting more and more allergic to the love stories where the only basis for the feelings is the appearance of the object. And yes, object, not human, as there was only a glimpse of humanity in this novel. This was also kind of a revelation to me: I had thought that the importance of appearance was something highlighted by this age of Tinder etc., but indeed appearances were maybe even more important back then in the 1800s. People could act as badly as they wanted and others still adored them because of how they looked. I just don't understand and thus I cannot relate to the characters and what they felt and endured in this story. I guess the book was just too short not to include the humanity that is so characteristics for the thicker (Russian) novels of the same era.

[jostie13 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A little bloodless for "first love." Maybe this is a dude thing--competing with (and losing to) your father for sexual attention. Left me pretty unmoved.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another Melville House novella I'd never heard of but bought mostly just because of the Melville House endorsement. I had very little in the way of expectations going in, but the book still managed to surprise me. Rather than being about a "first love" where two young people are breathlessly in love with each other, it's about that kind of "first love" that is an unrequited romantic obsession with an inscrutable other.With its themes of decaying Russian aristocracy, I expected this little tale to be far more tragic than it was. Don't get me wrong, there is certainly squalor, cynicism, and heartbreak here. But somehow it all felt on a more ordinary, human scale, rather than epic, and I think I liked it better for that.Another excellent Melville House pick.

[varwenea · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a damn good little novel providing rolling emotions of joy, giddiness, loathing, sorrow, and more. With themes mirroring his own life, especially his distant father and less desirable mother, Turgenev tells the tale of Vladimir Petrovich’s first love, in the countryside of Moscow, in the summer of 1833. The narration is autobiographical, with Petrovich discovering his first desires of adult love at the age of 16, immediately after which he finds his new impoverished neighbor, Princesses Zinaida, age 21, to be the object of his adoration and endless affections. Add a snuff-snorting princess mother, five other overly eager suitors, the aforementioned distant father who isn’t happy in his marriage and a mother who fears her husband, the comedy and the inevitable tragedy virtually writes itself. To say the story is predictable would not be a fair statement. We know it can’t end well. The beauty of the book is its flow, its word usage (fantastic translation by Isaiah Berlin), and the affecting footprint that it leaves, despite the brevity. A boy’s first love going awry, the revelation of the truth, his regret at the end are simple but effective. The passages of love – the desire, the enchantment, the loss of innocence, the first falling, being lost in it, yielding to it, crushed by it, to leave it, the shock of it, and its eventual passing – are all in these pages, without sappiness. His first love was his most memorable. My last love was my most memorable. Good-bye.Some Quotes:In the Foreword, advice from Turgenev’s father:"'Take what you can yourself, and don't let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.” On love – the youth desiring love:“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, penetrated my whole being; I breathed it, it was in every drop of blood that flowed through my veins – soon it was to be fulfilled.”On love – the enthrallment:“…I forgot everything; my eyes devoured the graceful figure, the lovely neck, the beautiful arms, the slightly disheveled fair hair under the white kerchief – and the half-closed, perceptive eye, the lashes, the soft cheek beneath them… I blushed terribly…, fled to my room, threw myself on the bed and covered my face with my hands. My heart leaped within me. I felt very ashamed and unusually gay. I was extraordinarily excited.”On love – the youth sinking into the first love, innocence gone:“… the image of Zinaida still hovered triumphant over my soul, though even this image seemed more tranquil. Like a swan rising from the grasses of the marsh, it stood out from the unlovely shapes which surrounded it, and I, as I fell asleep, in parting for the last time clung to it, in trusting adoration.Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love - where are you? Where are you?”On love – better to have loved than not at all:"She quickly turned towards me, and opening her arms wide, put them round my head, and gave me a strong, warm kiss. God only knows for whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I tasted its sweetness avidly. I knew that it would never come again.'Good-bye, good-bye,' I kept repeating.She tore herself from my embrace, and was gone. I went too. 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."Lastly – on youth and its inevitable passing:"O youth! youth! you go your way heeding, uncaring - as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, 'I alone am alive - behold!' even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun ... like snow ... and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do; it is this that you scatter to the winds - gifts which you could never have used to any other purpose. Each of us feels most deeply convinced that he has been too prodigal of his gifts - that he has a right to cry, 'Oh, what could I have not done, if only I had not wasted my time… What has come of it all - of all that I had hoped for? And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memoirs of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in the spring?..."

[mathmaverick-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very good book about a young boy's first love with a flirtatious older girl. Setting is 18th century Moscow. All of the characters play their part well with the exception of the boy's father, who is devious and quite unlikable (by me that is). A good twist that was easy for the reader to see coming, but not so easy for the boy. A short book and an easy read.

[dandelionroots · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's official, I need more Turgenev in my life. He could narrate the mundane and I'd be engrossed. His portraits and scenes are so vivid. A sixteen year old boy falls in love with the impoverished, capricious princess next door, so does a decent chunk of the neighborhood. Her heart, however, belongs to his father - this doesn't stop her from demanding adulation from the other poor sods. Things never end well for russian heroines though!

[clara53_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A whirlwind of feelings, rapture and intensity of first love at 16, the crush of abandonment, disappointment, and a twist of fate (albeit slightly predictable) in the end... And even though Turgenev is not the first writer to dwell on this theme, he certainly claims the reader's attention with his compelling and beautiful prose. Sentimental? Yes. But a very touching novella nevertheless.

[anniemod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had read "First Love" before - somewhere in my early teens, in Russian. I knew what the story was about, I knew the end (or so I thought) and I had always appreciated Turgenev. About 20 years later, I get the chance to read it again, in English this time. And the story is still as good as ever - the narrative of the middle-aged man about his first love, at the time when he was 16; a first love that never happened really - the woman, a few years his senior, fell in love with someone else instead. What I did not remember (or maybe I did not have the experience - both in reading and in life - to see) is how early in the story are the hints about who Zinaida will end up in love with. I knew it was clear long before the protagonist figured it out but the signs are there from almost the start. Maybe I saw them because I knew what was coming... What I don't remember for sure was the end of the story - the fact that our protagonist almost meets Zinaida a few times later in his life. In my memory this story finished when his family came back in the city - apparently my younger self did not like what happened after that and just forgot it. The story is worth reading but only if the reader is ready to immerse themselves in the Russian mid-19th century. What sounds silly and annoying now is what had been the norm back then - complete with the bad poetry (and some good one) and the poor princesses and the men that were surrounding them. And the reader should never forget that this is the story of a 16 years old - even if it is told by him when he is a bit older - things at 16 look different.

[jeffome · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

St. Barts 2013 #9 - Another ok novella by Turgenev......very accurately capturing the pangs of teenage first love....with an interesting twist.....one I think we all figured out early on, but the book was about the teen discovering the truth of the situation. I enjoyed and have no regrets.

[carltonc_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a slight novella and though evocative of the time (19th century Russia), is not fulfilling.Although framed by the narrator, Vladimir Petrovich, recalling his first love, the story is almost exclusively about his 16 year old self and his infatuation that summer with Zinaida, the 21 year out who holds "court" to her numerous suitors in the summer house next door. Although you do not read stories like this for their suspense, I really felt that Vladimir's blindness to the love that Zinaida has for another beggared belief (mine anyway).I read the beautifully bound and illustrated Folio Society edition, and this may have detracted from the story by being such a beautiful physical object!

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"First Love" is similar in tone to "Spring Torrents", also by Turgenev. In both, the whirlwind of falling in love with a beguiling woman is shown to overwhelm a young man. It reveals that the pain and awkwardness of being "over your head" was the same in 1860 Russia as it is today; on the other hand, there are also charming little touches that show how different life was then, e.g. the belief a character has that drinking ice water can cause one to catch cold and die. I think reactions will vary to this type of book, but I'm a sucker for the sentimental touches of looking back on one's youth and of "first love" in general, and enjoyed this little story.Favorite quotes: On taking control of one's life; advice that Turgenev heard from his real father :"'Take what you can yourself, and don't let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life,' he said to me once. ...'Do you know what really makes a man free?''What?''Will, your own will, and it gives power which is better than liberty. Know how to want, and you'll be free, and you'll be master too.'"On love (Ok, on first love, natch :-):"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."Also this one:"She quickly turned towards me, and opening her arms wide, put them round my head, and gave me a strong, warm kiss. God only knows for whom that long farewell kiss was seeking, but I tasted its sweetness avidly. I knew that it would never come again.'Good-bye, good-bye,' I kept repeating.She tore herself from my embrace, and was gone. I went too. 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."On sentimental feelings of lost youth:"Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love - where are you? Where are you?"And this last one which I love:"O youth! youth! you go your way heeding, uncaring - as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, 'I alone am alive - behold!' even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun ... like snow ... and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do; it is this that you scatter to the winds - gifts which you could never have used to any other purpose. Each of us feels most deeply convinced that he has been too prodigal of his gifts - that he has a right to cry, 'Oh, what could I have not done, if only I had not wasted my time.'"..."What has come of it all - of all that I had hoped for? And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memoirs of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in the spring?"Last point: I love the cover of the book in the Penguin Classics edition, wihch is from "Summer Landscape" by Ilya Repin in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

[drfp_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I know this is usually regard as one of, if not the best, short story Turgenev wrote.Yet while there are some wonderful elements here - such as Zinaida's character and the games she plays with her suitors - it always felt to me as if the heart were missing from this tale. Perhaps that is because the narrator is himself youthful and so the grand introspection of Turgenev's great novels is not present here.It's a very good short story, but I'd be tempted to rate "Asya" as more memorable.

[detailmuse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A party is over, but two men remain late with the host, smoking cigars. After midnight the talk turns to first loves, and one of the men, Vladimir Petrovich, admits he has a story to tell. So much of a story, in fact, that he insists on taking the time to tell it properly -- by writing it down. His first-person narrative thus becomes Ivan Turgenev’s coming-of-age novella, First Love. Initially published in 1860, it's translated from the Russian by Isaiah Berlin and now published as part of Penguin Books’ 20-title Great Loves series.Petrovich is a sensitive, 16-year-old Muscovite who spends the summer of 1833 with his parents at a country house. He’s dazzled to discover that an aging princess and her beautiful, 21-year-old daughter, Zinaida, occupy an adjoining house. Estranged a bit from his parents and on his own most of the time, young Petrovich is drawn into the adult world of Zinaida and the men who court her. Though a mere hundred pages, the novella captures not only 19th-century Russia, but also the thrill of first love, betrayal and the loss of innocence, and the complications of a later opportunity to reunite.“I never wish to experience [those feelings] again,” Petrovich writes, “but I should count it a misfortune never to have had them at all.” Ah yes, that’s first love! Highly recommended.

[yhaduong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Even if you pick up on the hints of a tragic ending to this first young love, you can't help but be taken in by the agonies and divinity of falling in love for the first time. Every moment, every description of the tragic despair coupled with the heart wrenching passion is perfectly depicted.

[j5v5d5a5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautiful little book.

[wendyrey · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

A long short story/ novella about a young man / adolescent's first more or less innocent love where he is consumed by a passion for a young woman who is also involved with his father and several other men. All very aristocratic and Russian. Odd story didn't enjoy it.