On the Eve (Alma Classics) by Ivan Turgenev

Author:Ivan Turgenev
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781847496324
Publisher: Alma Classics
Published: 2017-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

21

When she woke up, Yelena’s first sensation was one of joyful trepidation. “Is it possible? Is it possible?” she kept asking herself, and her heart grew faint with happiness. Memories flooded in on her; she was engulfed by them. Then, once again, she was blessed with rapturous silence. But, in the course of the morning, anxiety gradually took hold of her, and in the following days she grew listless and bored. Admittedly, she now knew what she wanted, but things were no easier for her. The never-to-be-forgotten meeting had permanently wrenched her out of the rut she had been in; she was no longer in it, but far away, while everything around her went on as normal, in its usual way, as if nothing had changed. Her former life proceeded as before, relying, as before, on Yelena’s participation and cooperation. She tried to begin a letter to Insarov, but could not even manage that; the words which spilt out onto the paper were part lifeless, part mendacious. She put an end to her diary, drawing a line under the last entry. That was the past, and now all her thoughts, all her being, were on the future. Her heart was heavy. To sit with her unsuspecting mother, to listen to her every word, to answer her and speak to her, seemed somehow criminal to Yelena. She felt within herself the presence of some kind of falsehood; she felt a sense of self-loathing, although she had nothing to be ashamed of. More than once there arose within her an almost irresistible desire to tell all without concealment, whatever might happen subsequently. “Why is it,” she thought, “that Dmitry didn’t take me off wherever he wanted from that shrine? Did he not tell me I was his wife in the eyes of God? Why am I here?” She suddenly began to shun everyone, even Uvar Ivanovich, who was more puzzled and finger-wagging than ever. Her whole environment no longer seemed kind, affectionate or even dreamlike; it oppressed her like a nightmare, a dead, unmoving burden; it was as if it reproached her, were disgruntled with her, did not want to know her… “All the same, you’re one of us,” it said. Even her poor nurslings, the maltreated birds and animals, gave her – or at least she imagined they did – suspicious and hostile looks. She became embarrassed and ashamed about her own feelings. “After all it’s my home,” she thought, “my family, my parents…”

“No, it is no longer your country, no longer your family,” a second voice kept reiterating. She was seized by fear and annoyed at her faint-heartedness. Her trials and tribulations were only just beginning, and already she was losing patience… Was this what she had promised?

She did not regain her composure quickly. But a week passed, then another… Yelena grew somewhat calmer and became accustomed to her new situation. She wrote two short notes to Insarov and took them to the post herself – embarrassment and pride would not have allowed her to entrust them to her maid for anything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.