The diary of a superfluous man, and other stories

Both of us held our peace. A strange discomposure took possession of me. I was sitting beside her, beside that woman whose image had so often flitted through my dreams, had so t...

Together we roused the soundly-sleeping captain. He rose, stared at us with eyes owlishly stupid from sleep, and in a hoarse voice asked for vodka;--he recovered himself, and af...

Twilight was already falling when he returned. One was justified in assuming, from his exhausted aspect, from his unsteady gait, from his dusty clothing, that he had wandered ov...

"Well, what 's the use of talking to thee,"--shouted Naúm, impatiently.--"Dost see this document,"--he added, jerking out of his pocket a sheet of stamped paper folded in four:-...

My position was extremely awkward; I maintained obdurate silence, and sometimes for days at a stretch never uttered a sound. I have never been distinguished for eloquence, as I...

"O Lord, my God!"--went on the shoemaker, hotly:--"when will the end come? When, O Lord! I 'm a miserable wretch, a hopeless wretch. 'T is fate, my fate, when you come to think...

And bending down, he stepped across the threshold of the wicket-gate. I followed him. After traversing a tiny courtyard, we ascended the tottering steps of the porch. The old ma...

One autumn evening a merchant with dry-goods stopped at Akím's inn. He was making his way, by devious roads, with two loaded kibítkas, from Moscow to Khárkoff; he was one of tho...

Pável Afanásievitch's father also learned of Vasíly's arrival, and a few days later--for the sake of "the greater solemnity"--he set out for Lutchínovko with the intention of "c...

On the great B*** highway, almost equidistant from the two county towns through which it passes, there was still standing, not long since, a spacious inn, very well known to dri...

We strolled for quite a long time, until evening, and chatted very little. I held my peace, like all inexperienced lovers, and she, in all probability, had nothing to say to me;...

I have forgotten to say, that for about a week previous to that day, I had not visited Glínnoe. For more than half an hour I paced to and fro in perplexity in front of the fence...

Piótr Feódorovitch rose, took a candle, raised it to the portraits, and in the voice of a man who is exhibiting wild animals, "Gentlemen!" he proclaimed: "this lady is the adopt...

Behind the Ozhógins' house lay a fairly spacious garden, terminating in a linden coppice, neglected and overgrown. In the middle of this coppice rose an old arbour in the Chines...

"In 'The Diary of a Superfluous Man,'" says one well-known Russian critic, "we have to deal with the end of the pathological process upon the body of Russian society. In Turgéni...

"Thou 'rt clever, my good fellow, very clever, I must admit." Vasíly, with a smile, tapped him on the shoulder.--"In spite of the fact that thou art so mild of aspect ...."

"To that creature's!"--replied Kiríllovna, significantly.--"Well, I understand that it is painful for him now, and I don't believe you can hunt him up to-day. What is to be done...

In the meantime, Akím was proceeding with quiet strides along the road which led to Lizavéta Prókhorovna's village. He had not yet been able fully to recover himself; he was all...

Superfluous, superfluous.... That 's a capital word I have devised. The more deeply I penetrate into myself, the more attentively I scrutinise the whole of my own past life, the...