A Living Relic by Ivan Turgenev Summary

The wealthy narrator, Piotr Petrovitch, and his huntsman Yermolaï hunt grouse in the rain. The weather is so severe that they shelter under a tree and bemoan the conditions before seeking shelter in a distant building that Yermolaï knows about; the building apparently belongs to Piotr's mother though he was previously unaware of it. After spending a pleasant night Piotr wanders around the village and looks into a hut where beehives are over wintered. A wizened and crippled figure calls out to him—it is Lukerya, who was once the dancing leader at his mother's estate and, about fourteen years previous was considered a great and ravishing beauty. Now she is withered and ugly, her legs and one arm useless and her face dried out and shriveled.

Lukerya explains that a few...