Much of this peculiar gift of fascination is certainly
due to Turgenev’s mastery over all the resources
of our rich, flexible, and musical language.
The poet Lermontov alone wrote as splendid a prose
as Turgenev. A good deal of its charm is unavoidably
lost in translation. But I am happy to say that
the present one is as near an approach to the elegance
and poetry of the original as I have ever come across.
S. STEPNIAK.
BEDFORD PARK, April 20, 1894.
DMITRI NIKOLA’ITCH RU’DIN.
DAR-YA MIHA’ILOVNA LASU’NSKY.
NATA’L-YA ALEX-YE’VNA.
MIHA’ILO MIHA’ILITCH LE’ZH-NYOV
(MISHA).
ALEXANDRA PA’VLOVNA LI’PIN (SASHA).
SERGEI (pron, Sergay) PA’VLITCH VOLI’NT-SEV
(SEREZHA).
KONSTANTIN DIOMIDITCH PANDALE’VSKY.
AFRICAN SEME’NITCH PIGA’SOV.
BASSI’STOFF.
MLLE. BONCOURT.
In transcribing the Russian names into English—
a has the sound of a in father. er , , air. i ,
, ee. u , , oo. y is always consonantal except when
it is the last letter of the word. g is always hard.
IT was a quiet summer morning. The sun stood
already pretty high in the clear sky but the fields
were still sparkling with dew; a fresh breeze blew
fragrantly from the scarce awakened valleys and in
the forest, still damp and hushed, the birds were
merrily carolling their morning song. On the
ridge of a swelling upland, which was covered from
base to summit with blossoming rye, a little village
was to be seen. Along a narrow by-road to this
little village a young woman was walking in a white
muslin gown, and a round straw hat, with a parasol
in her hand. A page boy followed her some distance
behind.
She moved without haste and as though she were enjoying
the walk. The high nodding rye all round her
moved in long softly rustling waves, taking here a
shade of silvery green and there a ripple of red; the
larks were trilling overhead. The young woman
had come from her own estate, which was not more than
a mile from the village to which she was turning her
steps. Her name was Alexandra Pavlovna Lipin.
She was a widow, childless, and fairly well off, and
lived with her brother, a retired cavalry officer,
Sergei Pavlitch Volintsev. He was unmarried and
looked after her property.
Alexandra Pavlovna reached the village and, stopping
at the last hut, a very old and low one, she called
up the boy and told him to go in and ask after the
health of its mistress. He quickly came back
accompanied by a decrepit old peasant with a white
beard.
‘Well, how is she?’ asked Alexandra Pavlovna.
‘Well, she is still alive,’ began the
old man.
‘Can I go in?’
‘Of course; yes.’
Alexandra Pavlovna went into the hut. It was
narrow, stifling, and smoky inside. Some one
stirred and began to moan on the stove which formed
the bed. Alexandra Pavlovna looked round and discerned
in the half darkness the yellow wrinkled face of the
old woman tied up in a checked handkerchief.
Covered to the very throat with a heavy overcoat she
was breathing with difficulty, and her wasted hands
were twitching.
